Linkin Park’s remake of the Hybrid Theory

Linkin Park has a most extraordinary new album. Instead of serving up another collection made up of its kind of hip-hop rock music, the Southern California-based band has taken the phenomenal-selling album Hybrid Theory and reworked its contents into a blend of hip-hop and industrial rock. This is the first time that something like this has happened and it comes during a time when expectations are high among Linkin Park fans all over the world for the group’s sophomore effort.

Titled Reanimation, the production of the album is touted as an opportunity for Linkin Park to go into experimental sonic fusion. We do not know the reasons why this concept and arrangements were not used in Hybrid Theory and what happened to cause this change of mind on the part of the band. While it is not unusual for artists to re-record their own stuff, this usually happens only with their live recordings, remixes or retrospective releases later in their careers. And certainly not in the case of an album that has been selling in the market for only a little over a year.

Reanimation is a clever marketing gimmick though. The album Hybrid Theory is one of the hottest debut releases of all time. It has already sold over 20 million copies all over the world. Piqued with curiosity over the arrival of Reanimation, all those 20 million people who bought the first album will make sure they also get copies of the new release. Not only that, those listeners who will be introduced to Linkin Park with Reanimation will also surely get copies of the first album.

While this remake may result in massive sales figures, there is still a big problem. Working on the same songs for almost two years, albeit with new arrangements, can bury even the most intelligent and most inventive artist in the world in a rut. How long do you think will it take for Linkin Park to get out of Hybrid Theory for them to put together a new, entirely different, real second album?

And take note just in case you have forgotten. To fill in the demand for a new album, there was a 2002 edition of the first album released earlier this year. This is made up of the entire Hybrid Theory and live versions of Papercut, Points of Authority and A Place for My Head and the previously unreleased tunes My December and High Voltage. The way things stand, fans now have three different albums with the same contents.

Admittedly, there is much in Reanimation for listeners to get lost in. Freedom is the word that it instantly brings to mind while listening to this remake as the album pulls down borders and opens up walls for something totally different. Forget the term remix. Everything here is presented as new interpretations. Linkin Park has even invited guest performers from the underground parts of rock, hip hop and electronica. The result can only be described as mind-blowing.

Best of the lot is an almost ethereal take on Crawling, the song which won for the group the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance last February. It has Linkin Park’s howling singer Chester Bennington in a duet with Aaron Lewis of Staind. There is also a great version of In the End produced by Kutmasta Kurt and featuring Motion Man. This time around, High Voltage is an all-star romp by MC Mike Shinoda and Pharoahe Monche in a driving rap battle plus Evidence and DJ Babu. Paparcut has Cheapshot & Jubacca plus Rasco and Planet Asia.

If you are reading this piece, I am sure that by this time you are already very, very curious to find out what Linkin Park and other guests, Jay Gordon, Alchemist, Chali 2NA, Stephen Richards, AMP Live, Zion, Black Thought, Chairman Hahn, Aceyalone, Backyard Bangers, Phoenix Orion, Micky P, Kelli Ali, Josh Abraham, The Humble Brothers and Jonathan Davis have done to My December, One Step Closer, With You, Points of Authority, Runaway, By Myself, In the End, A Place for My Head, Forgotten, Cure for the Itch and Pushing Me Away.

Great stuff all. But I am sure you are also hoping we will not be getting anymore versions of Hybrid Theory for ages and ages and ages.