10 Artists That Changed With One Song

Every Linkin Park album tends to sound like the future. Even though some of the digital effects may sound a bit cheap on Hybrid Theory these days, the initial listeners were treated to something that felt very robotic, like you were stepping into some dystopian future. It was still rock though, but The Catalyst took all of the guitars and threw them out the window.

As our first taste of their album A Thousand Suns, Linkin Park gave us a track that was coated in electronics, with Joe Hahn having a much bigger role in the song than any other member of the band. While the initial reaction was mixed, the rest of the album didn’t fare much better either, relying on interludes in between songs that were focused on creating cinematic sounds instead of hard rock stomper tracks. Although nu metal fans might have felt betrayed, this was the turning point for Linkin Park’s career going forward, taking the digital sounds and gradually incorporating the sounds of rock back into everything, like the digital smokescreen behind Burn it Down or turning the sounds of rock and roll inside out on Lies Greed Misery.

Even when the band wasn’t up to snuff, this was the sound that helped them remain relevant, still finding time on the radio well into the 2010’s and leaving most of their peers in the dust. Fans might have called it a mixed bag and metalheads might have considered it sacrilege, but the Catalyst remains a gamechanger in the world of Linkin Park.