10 Hard Rock Albums That Changed Music History

10. Hybrid Theory - Linkin Park

If the music industry played by the rules, there's a good chance that nu metal probably didn't have much of a life past the late '90s. In the wake of the massive disaster that happened with Limp Bizkit's appearance at Woodstock 1999, this felt like it was bound to become the kind of music only listened to by jocks complaining about nothing. There was an introspective side amid the jocks though, and 5 guys from California tapped on the wound with their first record.

Despite having the trappings of what you would normally find in nu metal, Linkin Park gave us the best of both worlds by bringing together Mike Shinoda's rapping with Chester Bennington's voice, having the perfect foil to bounce verses off of. That idea of Hybrid in the title isn't a mistake either, with each song sounding like it's trying to invent its own blend of genres, like the insecurity going on in Papercut or the closest thing to a ballad that they had at the time with In the End.

These songs never pulled any of their punches either, laying into themselves and the world around them about how teenagers get stepped on far too often and how you're on the verge of exploding at any given moment. You can call songs like Crawling dated if you wanted to, but this was far from the kind of cringe that Staind and Limp Bizkit were putting out at the time. This was the sound of pure angst, and it's hiding just underneath your skin.