10 Best Rock Bands Of The 2000s
6. Linkin Park
Once the '90s reached its end, it was clear that nu metal had started to reach its expiration date. While acts like Korn may have still been kicking around with some great material on Follow the Leader, acts like Limp Bizkit were making things much too frat-bro for their own good. Even though people were ready to close the coffin on rap rock, Linkin Park's arrival was the reason why you never count a genre out.
Emerging from the California underground, this rap rock collective set the world on fire with Hybrid Theory, complete with both a singer and a rapper to even out the playing field. Whereas most nu metal acts tend to fall apart once you get into the lyrics, these songs were actually surprisingly heartfelt for their time, dealing with subjects of loss and abandonment that really resonated with disenfranchised youth. Despite having some songs like Crawling sounding dated now, there were always other tracks like Numb which could hit you right in the center of your chest.
Most importantly, Linkin Park also knew how to transition out of the genre that birthed them, reinventing themselves time and time again as both an alternative and electronic act on albums like Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns. It just goes to show you that at the end of the day, it's more about staying true to yourself than to coax off of the genre you came in on for eternity.