(No one sells 11 million copies of their debut album by accident.) Leaving questions of quality aside, Hybrid Theory and the band that made it constituted something of a perfect storm. Though the band has always worked hard to develop a sound of its own without bowing to industry pressures, that sound was always destined for a mass audience. Less clear, though, is how and why this band - out of all the angst-engorged metal-fusion acts that appeared near the turn of the millennium - became the most popular and has managed to age decently, though not phenomenally well, since. It’s clear that, throughout all the rises and falls in sales and quality, Linkin Park has never aimed to make anything but broadly conceived pop music. The latter is marginally better than the former because it features musical guests (including, incredibly, Rakim) both are far from great, but don’t sink wholly into mediocrity either. (Think of the Police’s later albums, if that helps.) Living Things (2012) and The Hunting Party (2014) are more or less miscellaneous collections, mixing and matching sounds from prior albums. It was a solid and mature, if not especially deep concept album about the disastrous and pitiful condition of the world. 2007’s Rick Rubin–produced Minutes to Midnight saw awkward, ill-advised turns toward political themes and curse words, but that disaster (which still sold 3 million in the U.S.) set the stage for 2010’s A Thousand Suns, also with Rubin. Meanwhile, listeners who have stuck around for the four albums since Meteora may wonder what creative risks the band has left to take. Those who remember Linkin Park as the group that sold, in America alone, 11 million copies of their debut album Hybrid Theory (2000) and 6 million copies of its follow-up Meteora (2003) may wonder if the band was ever not pop: heavy guitars have never disqualified an act from being designated as such. But if you’re gonna be the person who says like ‘they made a marketing decision to make this kind of record to make money’ you can f-ing meet me outside and I will punch you in your f-ing mouth because that is the wrong f-king answer.Įven without the overly harsh rhetoric, there’s some confusion here. If you’re saying we’re doing what we’re doing for a commercial or monetary reason, trying to make success out of some formula… then stab yourself in the face!Īnd again in an interview with Kerrang! Radio: Either you like the song or you don’t and if you don’t like the song because you hear it and on a kneejerk reaction it’s like ‘oh it doesn’t have metal in it so I don’t like it’, that’s fine, like whatever. If you don’t like it, that’s your opinion too.
Here’s Bennington in an interview with Music Week: We were asked, “What do you think of people who say you sold out?” I don’t care… If you like the music, fantastic. On the one hand are the Linkin Park fans who feel that the band has diluted the nü-metal aesthetic of their first two albums in search of commercial profit arguing in defense of the band’s right to sound however they choose to is Linkin Park itself, with singer Chester Bennington taking the lead. What does selling out even mean in 2017? One More Light, the Linkin Park album released last Friday, has provided, among other things, an occasion to debate this question.
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