Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory (20th Anniversary Edition) (2000/2020, Warner Bros)

Yeah, I know. 

I watched The Social Dilemma the other day. Besides the big takeaways I'm supposed to have, I was really struck by one of the ex-destructors of democracy commenting on the state of post-social media internet vs pre-social media internet. She referred to the internet as a shopping mall - a function over form, sterile space that doesn't lend itself to creativity. I have fond memories of pre-social media internet, even though I didn't get to experience a lot of it. I particularly miss the concepts of having "my sites," web pages you'd visit every day, maybe even multiple times, hoping for an update on the topic that you and maybe 350 other people cared about. I still try to browse a few of those (Figure Four Wrestling, Voices of Wrestling, The Quietus, Gorilla vs Bear) but my time is so dominated by a powerhouse stable of four faceless social media platforms that it feels hard to have any part of the internet that's distinctly mine.

I was a big music fansite kid. I didn't have many friends until I was 16 and mostly just hung out on the internet. Me and my bowl cut would sit on the internet for hours every week smashing the refresh button on CSS-laden websites, hoping for some news about massively popular rock bands and Kingdom Hearts. Official websites wouldn't cut it; I needed ProBoards-powered forums linked to GoDaddy hosted websites ending in .net. It feels like Pitchfork is one of the last remnants of that style of internet browsing, which is probably the most depressing sentence you'll read on this blog. There's nothing more millennial than getting nostalgic for a different style of staring at screens, but that was also part of the original intent of Exploration #4. I wanted to fill this hole I have for internet usage that was driven by a strong desire to read something or gain new knowledge about a topic. That's why I went for the approach to talk about how music makes me feel, rather than just telling you whether or not something sounds good. When's the last time you had some sort of a real emotional response to Twitter? Nothing about scrolling endless Instagram pictures excites me. It fulfills a deep seated addiction I have to content and content consumption but not to art. 

I can't remember the name of the Linkin Park fansite I visited religiously as a chubby adolescent. I really wish I could. I can remember the Smashing Pumpkins one (the-pumpkins.net, which I think turned into SPFC) but not the one that arguably impacted my listening habits more. I sat on my computer daily and watched the download bar fill up while I downloaded every low quality Linkin Park rarity rip I could find. I even remember the day the "QWERTY" and "Reading My Eyes" live tracks dropped at the same time. Chester's quick "Thanks, Mike!" at the beginning of the latter is etched into my brain as an archetype of legitimately friendly banter between two men in a multi-millionaire emo band. 

While most of the tracks on the Hybrid Theory box can be found on the internet, this is the first time they've all been collected in the same place and in this good of quality. I remember listening to some of this in third generation cassette rip (converted into 128 kbps MP3) quality. The jump is absolutely massive. Lower generation copies have popped up here and there in the years since my Linkin Park fandom has ended but, as someone out of the scene, it's like listening to the band with new ears.

The digital box set does shit all to actually walk you through the history of the band, so I've tried my best to arrange parts of the boxset in a rough chronological order here. It, in order, is:

1) Xero tape

2) Xero demo

3) 1997-1999 demos

4) Hybrid Theory EP

5) Post-EP, pre-LP demos

6) Hybrid Theory outtakes

7) Hybrid Theory 

8) Hybrid Theory b-sides (some, not all)

9) Reanimation

For the purposes of this post, that's really all I'm looking at. I excised some live stuff, Reanimation b-sides, and the rock mix of One Step Closer. The box is cyclical in a way. Linkin Park is a band with ideas, for better or for worse. The music is an incredibly unfocused mishmash of 80s hip-hop, 90s metal, and Depeche Mode/Pretty Hate Machine-era Nine Inch Nails synth-pop. It's true circus style writing; no matter what you like, there's something for you. 

Not everything hit, but not everything needed to. At their core (at least in this 5 year span), Linkin Park is a deeply creative band. I'm only really appreciating that side of them as an adult, but there are so many moments in these songs that make me take real notice of the craftsmanship that went in them. Charting their progress from lo-fi screamers to 90s backpacker hip-hop acolytes to electronic experimentalists to polished pop-metal gods back around to underground hip-hop fans reveals a lot more sonic depth than detractors would like to admit. 

I know how that sounds. I really do. My first two pieces for this blog were on spiritual ambient techno and an obscure gospel-punk record. Why am I defending what is so commonly derided as nu-metal shlock? When it comes down to it, Linkin Park is removed from their contemporaries. I ended up binging Taproot (endlessly confusing) and Static-X (just fucking nothing) videos while writing this and came to one conclusion: Linkin Park's biggest influence is Nine Inch Nails, at least at this point in their careers. Everything feels very NIN inspired, from the art direction to the choice to do a remix album immediately following their smash metal-crossover hit. They even covered "Wish" at one point to beef up their setlist for festivals and actually did a pretty good job with it. Xero and Hybrid Theory were faced with the choice of diving into nu-metal shlock or becoming a high tech, high concept emotive rap/rock hybrid. They chose right. 

I felt a strange disconnect listening to those other bands. So much of nu-metal feels decidedly amateur in composition; parts are thrown together with minimal transition and no real reason. The production is too clean to give the metal edge any sort of muscle but not dynamic enough to let the non-metal elements shine through. The riffs are down tuned chugging with no purpose. Linkin Park is different. Obviously a box set that weaves in and out of their songwriting process in great detail allows us to see that a little better than a low-quality YouTube upload from 2009, but even on Hybrid Theory's surface every instrument feels immaculate and well placed. Their unfocused sound finally gives way to cohesion. It's still very hip-hop influenced, but even the DJ scratching occupies a similar sonic space to the textural guitars. 

When I say Linkin Park is a band with ideas, that's what I mean. There's a conscious choice there to remain art and concept forward (that continues into their later career, albeit in a semi-terrible way) that feels intentional. The Hybrid Theory EP is proof enough of that. It's got an extremely goofy 90s hip-hop feel at points but that's what makes it unique. Limp Bizkit didn't do that. Korn tried to do it and fell on their asses. Only Mike Shinoda, an actual fucking rapper, can pull it off. It ends up with an overall less embarrassing band and one that's actually interesting. Their hip-hop elements are handled with care and never seem at odds with the more metal leaning offerings. 

I guess I knew a lot of that before I even cracked open the boxset, at least subconsciously. That's what all that time spent browsing message boards and right clicking on semi-sketchy MP3 links led me to: the knowledge that Linkin Park is, against all odds, Actually Pretty Good. It's most evident from a song that was completely new to me, "Pictureboard." I realized it towards the end, when Shinoda's raps underscore Chester Bennington's soaring bridge. I was really feeling something. Some music I love doesn't even make me feel things. Maybe it's the angry white boy inside of me still raging against his parents that's woken up after all of these long years, but maybe it's something else. 

Linkin Park is notable for never writing songs by jamming together as a band. One or two members will come up with an idea, record a baseline skeleton for a song, and the other members will slowly contribute parts to it. The final LP is almost a remix album of these demos made from discarded studio pieces and stray bits. The band continually rearranged the LEGO blocks of hip-hop, metal, any synth-pop until they found a configuration they were happy with.

It's the sort of fandom that propelled me to get really into the details of Steve Albini's 2013 mix of In Utero (which, God, could be a post all to itself). Sometimes it's more fascinating to hear what didn't make it to print than what actually did. Jazz and nu-metal are about the notes they don't play. All that time spent on fansites made me fascinated with the songwriting process rather than just songs themselves. It's so easy to think of songwriting as a mysterious process where magic is plucked directly out of the air and put on paper. Linkin Park's approach was much more scientific, more carpenteresque. I've become fascinated with the process of songbuilding rather than just songwriting. That happened to me as a child. There are still spaces online that can still foster that sort of warped, fanatical appreciation for art, but it feels like a dying breed to me.