10 Albums That Changed Rock Music Forever

There hasn't been too many genres that have really aged like milk quite like the early days of nu metal. While there were some classics to come from bands like Korn and Deftones in the early days, the stench of bands like Staind has cast a pretty heavy shadow over the rest of the scene, making everyone look like whiny white kids complaining about how rough their childhoods were. There's no room to grow from there, but Linkin Park sounded therapeutic once they broke out with Hybrid Theory.

Because having a nu metal masterpiece like this around 2000 shouldn't really work, taking the tired tropes of the genre and getting even more radio friendly with them. It's that blending of genres that made this album so memorable though, taking everything from hip hop to electronica to heavy metal and putting it under one roof, as Chester Bennington traded verses with Mike Shinoda about the inner torment that you felt trying to survive from day to day.

Even though it may have been considered whiny at the time, there was also a bit of hope in some of these songs, with kids finding a sense of comfort knowing that there was someone else out there going through the same pain that they were going through. Linkin Park might not have been the most talented nu metal band or even the most original out of the bunch, but the way they related to their fans like this turned the genre from frat boy stuff to the kind of music that anyone could find themselves relating to.