Music Mixhap - Hybrid Theory

This is going to be a new segment that I'm adding to the blog called "Music Mixhap". (Yeah you like how I used incoherent alliteration). It's basically going to be a log of the numerous albums that I have listened to since my child birth, and perhaps maybe it'll be an outlet for other people to listen to some of the various genres of music that I listen to. It may not be as hilarious as the rants, but this is purely informational after all. Perhaps some 'good humor' (ha I made an ice cream pun) will make its way in every now and then.

For the first entry of the "Music Mixhap", it will be from one of my favorite bands and the first ever album I bought for myself. I'm not really sure when I bought it, but it was quite early in junior high or something like that. I guess by looking at the title of this post or seeing the cropped picture, you can tell what album I'm talking about--Linkin Park's debut album...Hybrid Theory.

Track Listing (singles are italicized):
1. Papercut
2. One Step Closer
3. With You
4. Points of Authority
5. Crawling
6. Runaway
7. By Myself
8. In The End
9. A Place for My Head
10. Forgotten
11. Cure for the Itch
12. Pushing Me Away

Mentionable Non-Singles:
Points of Authority, Pushing Me Away
The Scoop:
An interesting fusion of hip-hop/rock genres; a quality piece of work. Buy it!..or at least worth a playthrough.


Now I have to say my musical tastes before listening to Linkin Park were purely mainstream pop and whatever music my parents listened to (Chinese & Vietnamese music along with the occasional Madonna). I was not really a big fan of rap, and some rock music appealed to me. This was the beginning of the entire boy band craze of the late 90s, N'sync, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, what have you.

I'm not sure where or when I heard LP's first single "One Step Closer", but I just immediately gravitated to it. It was lyrically great and evoked some kind of angry passion along with it. Interested in more of their songs, I logged into Napster (I really miss old Napster) to download some of their other tracks "In The End", "With You", and whatnot. I was blown away. It seemed like all of their songs were of the utmost quality. You had the feeling that this band really put a lot of work into their songs; it wasn't the consistently sappy boy band song talking about tearing up hearts, playing games with hearts, or mmmbopping (It's been more than 10 years since I heard that song and I still don't know what it's about.)

Being a simple-minded, carefree, and perhaps slightly frustrated adolescent, I went and purchased this album as soon as I got the opportunity to. Again, every track is definitely worth a listen, even the penultimate track "Cure for the Itch" which shows off the mixing/sampling abilities of Joe Hahn and Mike Shinoda. Considering this is the first album I bought for myself ever, I can keep praising it forever. If you're a fan of rock music, what are you doing? Go out and buy it! For those of you looking to get your feet wet into rock music, definitely give it a playthrough.