Pop acts are such a huge act in the mainstream music charts with countless wannabes trying their luck for a piece of the pie that it seems the only way to breakthrough the market is to create an almighty racket with blow-you away music.

New rap-rock act Linkin Park, with healthy servings of metal on the side, have done just that. Though, in terms of musical styling, Linkin Park is mentioned in the same breath as Prodigy, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, and even Red Hot Chilli Peppers, there is no way of defining the mish-mash of sounds contained in their supersonic album Hybrid Theory.

The music seems to come from different directions, yet it is cohesive as a whole; loud and in-your-face yet catchy and light. And there are moments when Hybrid Theory is amazingly creative yet oddly familiar. It makes classification almost impossible. But most will agree that the music of Linkin Park is infectious and has a distinctive style that screams chart topper!

Formed four years ago for fun, the band are actually newly-packaged old hands. Member vocalist Chester Bennington (who fans agree has the most stuffy, upper-crust-sounding name for a band of Linkin Park�s stylings), rapper Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson who traded law school for this guitar, turntable maestro DJ Joseph Hahn, and drummer Rob Bourdon were flitting around the underground scene doing club gigs before they released an independent EP circa 1998 under their then moniker Hybrid Theory.

When it came time to hit the high road ans strut their stuff in front of the contract waving record executives, they had enough under their belt and a huge following in the eyes of these paper-pushers. Thus it didn�t take long for the group to get snapped up by Warner Bros.

Their major label debut Hybrid Theory, with positive hits such as One Step Closer, Papercut, A Place For My Head and Forgotten, has had an amazing start. It debuted at the number 16 spot over Billboard�s album chart, sold over 45,000 units in its first week and recorded one day re-orders of over 52,000 copies. Plus, the video for One Step Closer was picked up by MTV.

So be warned. Linkin Park is going to be big.
Galaxie, April 2001 issue.

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