Guest Blogger: Jacob 1

The type of music Linkin Park makes is rock/rap. Linkin Park came up in the early two-thousands when rock/rap music started to become popular. Linkin Park was able to separate themselves from the other bands though with an original sound that still had mainstream appeal. They did this with simple lyrics but concepts that a lot of people that can relate to. For example the single “crawling” of the Hybrid Theory talks about feeling insecure and uncomfortable. Another example of this is the song “papercut” is about being paranoid. Another way that Linkin Park separated themselves from other rock/rap bands of the time would be the involment of their dj Joe Han. You can feel his impact on the band with his scathing in songs and his electronic drum beats. Overall Linkin Park feels different depending on what track you listen to. Some tracks feel very much like hip/hop with Mike Shinoda raping over Joseph Hahn’s drum beats and samples. And other times it can feel like a metal band with heavy guitars and screaming. I would say that Linkin Park is similar to an early Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit without sounding corny. The drawbacks about Linkin Park as I mentioned above with them being mainstream is they get to simple. There guitarists are a lot of times unoriginal and use very simple riffs. Another example would be with rapper Mike Shinoda a lot of times his rhymes get to simple compared to his rhymes he made before the group got signed. I would say that all albums Meteora(2003) and prior are worth time and money, after Meteora I feel like the band started trying to fit in instead of standing out which is what made so popular in the first place. My overall favorite album from Linkin Park would be their underground Hybrid Theory EP, this EP is what got them signed and was the precursor to their first mainstream album Hybrid Theory.