10 Perfect Albums That Blended Different Music Genres

When Linkin Park first reached the top of the charts with Hybrid Theory, there were a lot of metalheads that were absolutely pissed. Nu metal was supposed to be the kind of music reserved for the darkness in your soul, and hearing it go pop like this felt like the band were selling out to make a quick buck. You could call it selling out if you wanted to, but these guys from California hit a nerve better than bands like Korn could ever do.

While it might have been easy to get into the angry white boy stripe of rock music back in the day, the pop hooks and electronic production from Joe Hahn made this album much more palatable for the mainstream market, sharing screen time with bands like NSYNC just as much as they did with Korn. Most bands before had to deal with carrying the singing and rapping at the exact same time as well, and the trade offs between Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda gave you the best of both worlds, trading in the rapping for some of the most ferocious screams to come out of the scene on tracks like Place For My Head.

More than anything, the appeal of this music came from how optimistic it was for everything else that was happening, as songs like With You seemed to point to some light at the end of the tunnel for people struggling with their demons. It's never easy to walk this world alone, but the appeal of Hybrid Theory gave any confused teenager a companion in the early '00s.