10 Greatest Debut Albums In Metal

As cringey as nu metal looks nowadays, it's not like it was completely devoid of some good material. Though there definitely were some poppier acts who really didn't deserve the adulation they got, there was always another group around the corner to get the pit started properly. Hell, even at the most poppy, there was still some unbridled heaviness to be found on Hybrid Theory.

Across Linkin Park's debut, each member is fully settled into their position, with Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda sharing vocal duties beautifully. Without having to sacrifice a singer for a rapper who sings sometimes, this rapid-fire tradeoff made for one of the more unique sounds for the time. There were also some massive hits off of this record like Crawling and In the End, which seemed almost impossible coming from a metal release at the turn of the century.

Despite people calling this a sellout form of metal, this was the kind of mild heaviness that could get people into the genre, with something like One Step Closer being juxtaposed with A Place for My Head, featuring one of the greatest screams from Bennington. With a Diamond certification to its name and still selling like gangbusters around the world, Linkin Park's first step up to the plate has certainly achieved legend status at this point.