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= Linkin Park =

Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. The band's current lineup comprises vocalist/rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Mike Shinoda, lead guitarist Brad Delson, bassist Dave Farrell, DJ/turntablist Joe Hahn and drummer Rob Bourdon, all of whom are founding members. Vocalists Mark Wakefield and Chester Bennington are former members of the band. Categorized as alternative rock, Linkin Park's earlier music spanned a fusion of heavy metal and hip hop, while their later music features more electronica and pop elements.

Formed in 1996, Linkin Park rose to international fame with their debut studio album, Hybrid Theory (2000), which became certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Released during the peak of the nu metal scene, the album's singles' heavy airplay on MTV led the singles "One Step Closer", "Crawling" and "In the End" all to chart highly on the Mainstream Rock chart; the latter crossed over to the pop chart. Their second album, Meteora (2003), continued the band's success. The band explored experimental sounds on their third album, Minutes to Midnight (2007). By the end of the decade, Linkin Park was among the most successful and popular rock acts.

The band continued to explore a wider variation of musical types on their fourth album, A Thousand Suns (2010), layering their music with more electronic sounds. The band's fifth album, Living Things (2012), combined musical elements from all of their previous records. Their sixth album, The Hunting Party (2014), returned to a heavier rock sound, and their seventh album, One More Light (2017), was their first pop-oriented record. Linkin Park went on a hiatus when longtime lead vocalist Bennington died by suicide in July 2017. In April 2022, Shinoda revealed the band was neither working on new music nor planning on touring for the foreseeable future.

Linkin Park is among the best-selling bands of the 21st century and the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 100 million records worldwide. They have won two Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, two Billboard Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, 10 MTV Europe Music Awards and three World Music Awards. In 2003, MTV2 named Linkin Park the sixth-greatest band of the music video era and the third-best of the new millennium. Billboard ranked Linkin Park No. 19 on the Best Artists of the Decade list. In 2012, the band was voted as the greatest artist of the 2000s in a Bracket Madness poll on VH1. In 2014, the band was declared as "The Biggest Rock Band in the World Right Now" by Kerrang!.

Videos

 * One Step Closer (with then bassist Scott Koziol)
 * Crawling (at the Dragon Festival)
 * Crawling (The Brothers Strause)
 * Papercut (International)
 * In The End - live-action plus CGI.
 * Points Of Authority - live footage (International)
 * Pts.Of.Athrty (Points Of Authority Remix), computer-generated imagery
 * Somewhere I Belong - live-action plus CGI. surrealistic creatures moving from a painting that may have been inspired by Salvador Dalí's works - possibly The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946) or The Elephants (1948).
 * Faint - MTV's $2 Bill Show Concert
 * Faint - reduced-colour concert-like footage, directed by Mark Romanek
 * Lying From You (Live in Texas)
 * Numb
 * Numb (Live in Texas)
 * From The Inside (International)
 * Breaking The Habit, traditional anime
 * Numb/Encore (live)
 * Izzo/In The End (live)
 * Points of Authority/99 Problems/One Step Closer (live)
 * High Voltage (live from the Docklands)
 * Papercut (live from the Docklands)
 * From The Inside (Europe Only Release)
 * Faint (Meteora)

Awards and nominations

 * Won Favorite Artist - Alternative Music; 31st Annual American Music Awards; Sept 16, 2003
 * Won Best Group, Best Hard Rock; 2002 MTV Europe Music Awards. Nominated for Best Website.
 * Won Best Foreign Rock; Swedish Hit Music Awards; November 17th, 2002.
 * Won Best Rock Video; 2002 MTV Video Music Awards (In The End). Nominated for Best Video of the Year (In The End), Best Group Video (In The End).
 * Won Best International Nu-Metal/Alternative Artist; ECHO 2002 awards in Germany.
 * Won Best Hard Rock Performance (Crawling); 2001 Grammys. Nominated for Best Rock Album, Best New Artist.
 * Won Best Foreigner Artist of The Year; Finland's 2001 Emma Awards.
 * Won Best International Newcomer; 2001 Kerrang Awards. Nominated for Best Video, Best Album, Best Band in the World.
 * Nominated for Favorite Artist - Alternative Music; 30th Annual American Music Awards; Sept 1, 2002
 * Won Best Rock Video (Somewhere I Belong); 2003 MTV Video Music Awards.
 * Nominated for Best Rock Video (Breaking The Habit); 2004 MTV Video Music Awards.
 * Won Viewer's Choice Award (Breaking The Habit); 2004 MTV Video Music Awards.
 * Won Song of the Year — Rock Alternative Radio (Numb); 2004 Radio Music Awards
 * Won Artist of the Year — Rock Radio; 2004 Radio Music Awards

= Xero Era = When Mike Shinoda was 15, a friend’s dad chaperoned them to a Anthrax and Public Enemy show during Anthrax' Attack Of The Killer B's tour in 1991. Guitarist Scott Ian said, "I had one of the dudes from LINKIN PARK, a long time ago, one of them told me he was at the ANTHRAX/PUBLIC ENEMY show in Los Angeles on the tour, and he loved it, and it was a very important night for him. So that was nice to hear." Shinoda was so inspired by the musical melding that when he decided to form his own group, he wrote with both rhymes and rhythms in mind.

"When we started, we wanted to play something that we weren’t hearing. The first show I went to was Anthrax and Public Enemy. They did ‘Bring the Noise’ together, and I was like, ‘That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.’ Everybody in our band —– and our fans, too —– has just been raised on different styles of music. Everybody’s mixing everything. When you hear Redman do a song with Roni Size, or Busta Rhymes with Ozzy, you know something’s happening."

Mike's first instrument was an upright piano his family had in the house. His mother made him start taking piano lessons when he was about 6 years old. He made his first performances at piano recitals when he was 6 or 7 and later started singing at a youth theater group with his friends. He was into Dungeons & Dragons, so his first song was inspired by videogames and medieval themed movies. He wrote it on piano when he was 11 or 12 for a contest his piano teacher ran and won first place (15 dollars prize). He was obsessed with Dr. Dre and at some point he asked a keyboard so he could try to make sounds like he was making. At about 13, he ended up wanting to go in a direction (hip hop / production, jazz, blues) that his teacher, Eileen, wasn't familiar with, so he left. In 1993, at 16, Mike started building a library of sounds and making rap demos on a cassette four-track. He bought some production equipment (a keyboard and then a sampler with the help of Styles Of Beyond's producer Vin Skully) and started making beats and playing with MIDI and digital-based music. "I literally learned how to produce by making mashups. I had been making mashups since '96 or '97 when I got my first sampler. That's what I did. That's how I learned to use a sampler because I didn't have enough recording gear to actually make a full song. I would just throw a vinyl a cappella down over a beat that I made. I ended up mashing up my favorite hip-hop records and my favorite rock records. It might be Depeche Mode and Wu-Tang, and Nine Inch Nails, The Jackson 5 and Public Enemy. It would be fucking bonkers the whole time. I wasn't making music for anybody else, I was making it for myself." He was nicknamed "Spooky" by his friends because his beats were always creepy. The beats were inspired by old-school rock & roll or blues songs and he eventually started rapping over them. For the most part, he made a lot of Gangsta rap joke songs, resulting in a demo tape called Pooch Pound. In highschool, Mike was involved in the Student Gov't and used to freestyle on the PA during lunch on Fridays.

Brad Delson has been interested in music as far back as he can remember. He played trumpet in his elementary school orchestra, and started learning to play guitar with his guitar teacher, Keith, when he was 12 or 13, taking lessons for about 5 years before he started teaching guitar and playing with friends in local bands. Mike Shinoda said, "When I was a kid one of my best friends lived right across from Brad, and all you could ever hear coming from his bedroom was Metallica, Metallica and more Metallica. If you were lucky you might hear some Exodus, or maybe some Sepultura, but that was it - the guy was an obsessive metalhead." In June 2020, Mike elaborated when asked about his first impression of Brad, "Brad lived next door to my friend Mark. And their bedroom windows were directly across from each other. And it was almost like a TV sitcom. He'd like play guitar in his room and you'd hear him shredding like Metallica. But it was always that really funny thing, you could out Mark's window and you could talk to Brad. I didn't know Brad at that point, he'd just like yell out the window and talk to Brad. Mark would. He seemed like a cool dude, though."

Brad's first band was The Pricks. He was neighbors with Mark Wakefield in high school and the two of them were in the band together. Mike noted, "they were both in several bands before Xero. Mark and Brad were in one called The Pricks, they were this awesome rap-metal band. I loved their stuff." Their most famous show happened in June of 1995, during the summer, at Douglas Robb's parent's backyard. They played as an opening act for Hoobastank's very first show with around 150 people in attendance. Members of both bands had been friends since long before The Pricks was formed and to prepare for the show they stole stages from their local high school in the middle of the night, set them up in Doug's backyard and hired security, charging a dollar for admission.

Mike Giangreco, a local promoter, met Hoobastank through Incubus and booked shows for them. Hoobastank then introduced him to The Pricks. Besides giving Brad jobs as a bouncer at The Roxy and Whisky A Go Go and as a waiter in his restaurant, Giangreco heard The Pricks' cassette demo and, although it was pretty raw, decided to work with them in the hope they would develop their sound and get better. The band played at many frat parties and he would let them borrow sound systems to play shows with the condition that they would carry everything by themselves and bring it back to his garage afterwards. The band would also spend a lot of time in local record stores searching for new releases and "showcasing their musical talents".

When he was 8 or 9 years old, Rob Bourdon and his brother used to play along to Aerosmith and Faith No More on their parents' couch with a pair of drumsticks. Later his brother got a drum kit and Rob started playing piano. When he was 12, he started taking drum lessons and switched to playing drums full time. He was inspired to play the drums after his mom took him to an Aerosmith concert when he was in the 4th grade and introduced him to Joey Kramer (Aerosmith's drummer). In 6th grade Rob started playing in a band with 3 friends called No Clue, that would play cover songs in backyard parties. In 7th grade they switched their name to Physical Evidence and covered Nirvana, Bad Religion, and Suicidal Tendencies. When they started writing their own original music, the songs sounded like a blend of those 3 different artists, with most of the lyrics being about the teachers they hated in their junior high school. When he was in the 10th grade his parents made him join in his high school's jazz band (the Calabasas High School Jazz Band). He was in the band for a couple of months and played one show, but he didn't like it. In the audience, two musicians who were contemplating forming a new band called Karma saw Rob performing and recruited him to audition. He didn't get the job, but through the bass player of Karma, Dave Garrett, he met Brad Delson and Mike Shinoda who both lived nearby in the San Fernando Valley. Relative Degree played a show at The Roxy Theatre on May 17, 1996 before disbanding. Mark, Brad and Rob, along with Dave Garrett, then started a band called Relative Degree. They had a dream of playing one show at The Roxy Theatre, so they set it as their big goal. The Roxy was a popular club for up and coming bands located on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood, California. The band wrote 12 songs and rehearsed for a year before playing the show at The Roxy which finally happened on May 17, 1996.

Brad said, "People laugh at me when I say this but my goal was - as a musician - to play a show at our local club, the Roxy, in L.A. in high school for my friends. I did it. Now I say this, and it may sound like bullshit, everything that's happened from that point on is all gravy. We're really proud of the music we've made, and for everyone that gets to hear it, that's more love for us. We're totally happy." After playing only one show, the members of Relative Degree started losing focus and the band eventually broke up.

Although Mike never joined the band, he would occasionally put samples into their songs and watch them practice. He developed a strong friendship with Brad when they were both in 8th grade. "I loved the drums so much growing up, just listening to them. The reason that I got to know the Linkin Park guys because in high school I was really good friends... I started it with my friend Mark and we were both in art class together every day, we hung out outside of school all the time. I always gave him rap recommendations. He was in a band with these other guys from school (Relative Degree) that I didn't really know, and the drummer was from another school. And I would literally go watch them practice just to watch the drummer play. And then that ended up being Rob and our guitarist Brad. Eventually it was Mark on vocals but that didn't work out and we parted ways and found Chester. People always think "wouldn't suck to be the guy that didn't make it Linkin Park?" but he's a successful music manager and a good friend of mine."

Still in his development stage of rapping, Mike used to record demos with Ryu of Styles Of Beyond in his bedroom. He went on to design Styles Of Beyond's original logo and produce an unreleased version of "Marco Polo" for the album 2000 Fold. He would also create album art for DJ Frane's Fantastic Boatride and Saukrates' The Underground Tapes as well as for the Styles Of Beyond album.

Mike and Mark have been friends since they were 12 and they loved a lot of the same groups. Mark would introduce Mike to more guitar-based music like Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana and Pearl Jam while Mike introduced Mark to hip-hop artists such as Biggie Smalls, Tupac, Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang Clan. They went to high school together and had a reputation as the guys who made funny songs. After both graduated, they started a new band called "Xero" (pronounced "zero") in the winter of 1995/1996. "We named it Xero with an X because we thought it looked cool," explained Mike. At that point, Mike was mainly doing beats for various hip hop acts (and for himself as well), but decided he wanted to experiment with mixing different styles of music together. After one or two writing sessions, they enlisted the help of Brad and recorded a demo containing 4 songs with a few of them having guitars done by him. The artwork was a Xerox photo of what appeared to be a mountain and the inside featured a faded photo of four band members and a close-up photo of Mike Shinoda. The tracklist featured "Fuse", an untitled track, "Stick And Move" and "Reading My Eyes". They sent it to an A&R representative from an indie label/publishing company whose mailing address was included in one of the CDs they owned and got a phone call from Paul Pontius, the representative from Immortal Records, a day later asking them to come over. He was shocked to learn the duo recorded a professional sounding demo on a 4-track recorder in Mike's bedroom and encouraged them to put a band together and start playing shows. Rob said, "we haven't really figured out the exact date, but it was somewhere in ‘97 that we came together, most of us came together."

After the demo, the band came together and started writing new music. Their goal was to have songs to play live. Joe explained, "Those songs have a very suspenseful energy going on, especially in the verses, with an outpouring of emotion in the choruses. Part of our goal was to get this personal idea that has conflict, and that was easy to do because of our age at that time and that universal emotion of not fitting in and teen angst (laughs). The other intent was to have those songs explode at a certain point, and how that translates live into people getting really charged up, eventually leading to a mosh pit-type moment."

They eventually created a new demo tape with the second track, the band's least favorite, being replaced by "Rhinestone". In regards to making the demo tape cover, Mike said it was an art project for school that he intended to use for the band. He explained, ''"So I started the band, the first songs were at the end of high school, me and Mark Wakefield. After that, we started to get a little interest and encouragement from this guy who worked at the label. So we started recording more in my house and playing some shows once a month or once every couple of months. We were practicing once or twice a week and recording once or twice a week. I didn't have time to do more than that. The further I got through school, towards the end the workload lightens up a bit. I was really good at consolidating my work. If I needed to make an album cover for us, like we had these demo cassettes that we'd hand out. CD burners were really unreliable at that point and we didn't have money to burn a whole bunch of them. But cassettes were cheap, so we'd send it over to the guy and he'd make a bunch of cassettes and they'd look professional. And everybody had cassette players. I was making the art for one of those, and one of my school projects was kind of an open ended design project. We're going to use these techniques, but whatever you make with the techniques... you can make whatever you want to make. So I'd do my project, and that would be the cover of the thing. So I was killing two birds with one stones, trying to be efficient."''

They set their first goal to play at the Whisky A Go Go and the demo tape was eventually passed out to friends and new fans and sent out to record companies to try and get signed. Mike said several new demos were sent to Paul Pontius but he wasn't interested in the band anymore.

Brad was in his first year of college, studying communications at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), when he attended a class taught by Jeff Blue, who had just signed Korn and Limp Bizkit. Jeff was also developing a young woman named Macy Gray and told everybody in the class he was looking for an intern to help build her career and help him showcase artists, and Brad volunteered for the job. The next morning, Jeff walked in his office and his sister told him there was some kid waiting to speak to him (even though he had no appointments). He then saw Brad spinning on his seat, told Brad to don't ever sit on his seat again and asked him to talk about himself. He told Jeff about his dream of becoming a lawyer and about his band that he was developing. Brad then pointed to a big Limp Bizkit poster Jeff had in his office, which he was really proud of, and said "That band is not that great. I may have a band that's better than that." Jeff liked his confidence and hired Brad as his intern. Funny enough, Jeff had been playing the band's demos for DJ Lethal of Limp Bizkit from the very beginning. He met Joe Hahn at Jeff's birthday party on November 20, 1999 and gave Joe several tips. In addition, DJ Lethal said, "I helped linkin park when the were hybrid theory,mike shinoda came to my house and I gave him music plugins and adive and sounds."

After the end of Relative Degree, Rob went through a rough period in his life, struggling with drugs and alcohol, and became isolated from everyone. Towards the end of high school, he got his life back on track and went back into playing drums full time again. Around that time, he got a call from Mike asking if he wanted to listen to some songs he had written with Brad and Mark. He was impressed by their work and became involved right away.

Dave Farrell's older brother, Joe, started playing cello in fourth grade. Dave wanted to learn it too, but the cello was too big for a first-grader, so he started playing violin instead. He did a classical training for eight years and in the process learned a bit of cello and viola. His mother, Kathy, played piano and sang and, in the beginning of high school, she showed him the basics on a guitar. He switched instruments a couple years later when members of his first band, Tasty Snax, decided that they had too many guitarists and nominated him to play bass. He got the nickname "The Phoenix" around this time; it comes from the Ben Stiller movie Mystery Man. He explained, "It was just a joke between a bunch of my high school buddies. Long story short, a girl once told me my real name ... was boring. Can you believe it? She was pretty annoying herself." He and his bandmates gave each other ridiculous stage names, but his was the only one that actually stuck. He says he's glad they decided on that name because the other option was "Little Bitch" from BASEketball.

In college, Dave entered UCLA as a biology major (pre-med), but finished as a philosophy major with a minor in classical Greek. He was a college roommate of guitarist Brad Delson and the duo were playing small jazz events together. Dave had been excited about the progression Brad had been making with his high school friends in Xero, so when the opportunity arose, he joined the band.

Since the begining, the band knew they would need a DJ in order to perform their songs live, but the DJ would need to be someone who could handle more than just scratches. ''“I’ve always wanted our show to be energetic. We use drum pads, samplers and turntables with original vinyl to perform all the sample parts live on stage, which I think brings an exciting uniqueness to the songs,”'' Joe explained. Mike met Joseph Hahn when both were studying illustration at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. They had similar interests and shared a love for music, especially hip hop. Because of how expensive the school was, Joe only went there for about a year before he started working as a Special Effects designer/illustrator, dealing primarily with character design and storyboarding for television and movies such as Phantoms, Virus, Sphere, X-Files, Dune, The Outer Limits, and Species. A couple years after their initial meeting, Mike approached Joe about a project named Xero. "Joe came in like right when we started rehearsing as a band," Rob explained.

Joe was born in Dallas, but moved to Glendale when he was 8. Like Mike and Dave, Joe had been a classically trained musician and brought new capacities for sounds to the band. Joe played violin in school for a few years and then played guitar for a bit before he started getting serious about DJ-ing in high school. He says, "Around high school I loved music, hip-hop and all the stuff going on in KROQ back when people listened to the radio. I was DJing and I got into scratching and all that. The idea of a sound wave on a record and being able to manipulate it with speed and turning the volume up and down and having that turn into something totally different was really new and experimental at the time. I love the idea of just twisting sounds and manipulating beats; the idea of distortion and where that can go and how powerful sounds can be." He started off with drum machines and turntables, laying down demos on a four-track tape recorder, until it became obvious that he would have to turn to computers to fully develop sounds and create more atmospheric music.

Once in college, Mike also turned to computers to further develop his craft. "Having spent years honing my skills drawing and painting, I hadn’t yet had the chance to bring those illustrations into the computer. At Art Center, there was a computer lab–a huge underground complex of rooms filled with computers. And the computer of choice for the designers and artists at Art Center was Apple. I loved the design, inside and out, and it seemed built for making art. And once it was my computer for art, it became my computer for music. It’s hard to think of all the ways that Steve Jobs’ vision has built a foundation for the products on which I work and create: Apple products have been used in making every piece of music Linkin Park has ever written, every album cover or poster we have ever designed, and all our music videos, ads, LPTV, and websites."

Xero played their first shows as a band on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, with the first one taking place on November 14, 1997 at the Whisky A Go Go, playing before SX-10 and System Of A Down. Rob explained how they got in the bill, "Basically, with clubs of that magnitude, you pay to play. If you can sell enough tickets, you can play. But, actually, we made a little bit of money, because we could sell a lot of tickets. At that time, all of us were either in school, or just out of school. I was in between high school and college. So, we had a lot of friends at school, and all of us would each try to sell 50 to 75 tickets. We would just go crazy, and try to sell them to everyone; family members, it didn't matter. We had to sell them to everyone just to play there."

Talking about the show, Mike said, "I remember that gig. I was wearing the most ridiculous thing ever. I had this white beanie hat on with blue goggles and white gloves, I think because it made me feel more like a performer and not the normal dude that I knew I was. So I had to get into costume in order to get psyched up and get into character. We were awful, just horrible but we survived." The club was packed with A&R scouts that had all fled by the third song. Jeff Blue added, "The place was empty. You could hear crickets." He saw that the group had potential but were pretty far from actually "making it", so he offered them a development deal with a little financial support from Zomba Music Group. Brad received the proposal on December 4th, but the band didn’t accept the deal right away. Mark and Brad were convinced Jeff Blue was the right person to help them, but Mike and the others disagreed. They shopped the deal to other managers for 9 months in hopes they would find something better. When the band decided to sign it, Jeff's surfing buddy Danny Hayes was hired to represent them. The deal was signed by every band member except for Phoenix at the law offices of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in Los Angeles. The moment was registered with several group photos. This was followed by a Zomba Signing Party at Hollywood Athletic Club on October 10, 1998.

With the help of a publishing company, the self-managed band was able to buy new instruments and equipment, get a decent recording and a better show. Jeff Blue also hired an L.A.-based vocal coach named Lis Lewis to help them improve their vocal skills. She would work privately with Mark Wakefield and help both Mike and Mark warm up backstage before their shows. Left to right: Mark Wakefield, David Benveniste and John Dolmayan at the Rock En Seine Festival 2013. Mike said, "We would write a lot more than we played. A lot of bands rush their songs, and go out and play a ton of shows; we spent weeks and weeks on the music, and probably only played one or two shows a month." Dave added, "We definitely weren’t polished but we had a lot of potential. We only really played shows as an excuse to get our friends together for a party afterwards. In the early stages, it wasn’t about getting a record deal. But the more we played, the more we realised we might have a chance." It was at one of those after show parties in February 1998 at Brad and Dave's apartment that Mark Wakefield introduced Mike to his friend Anna Hillinger (Mike's future wife) from Long Beach.

Xero played several shows to mostly empty venues with almost no one in attendance. The sets consisted of around six to eight songs and were 25-30 minutes long. The public was mostly there just to support friends. Local bands like Incubus, Hoobustank (now Hoobastank) and Xero would attend each other's shows. The band played in-store at Backside Records in Burbank for around 20 people and Andy Gould (whose management company would later work with Linkin Park) recalls watching Xero play at The Roxy Theatre in front of 10 people. When questioned if any footage of these shows exist, Mike said, "As Xero, there's probably. I think there's some footage. That was with my friend Mark and we just looks, you know. Like, we were children, right? Part of it it's like it's not the most flattering footage, but it's also that we don't have very much. Like people, you forget back then there wasn't very much... like having recording... what you call it? Like a camera even. You'd had to have literally a camera to do that."

In 1998, Joe worked at the Urban Network magazine where both him and Mike contributed with artwork and original Xero songs for Lee Cadena's Rapology compilation series which promoted new and upcoming hip-hop artists. Cadena founded LCM, his own artist management and development company, and worked with Xero introducing them to music venues such as Whisky A Go Go, The Troubadour and The Mint. He also helped Joe improving his skills by getting him with some of the Beat Junkies. That year Mike and Joe had a photoshoot with Howard Min, an LA-based commercial photographer and creative film-maker, at the Los Angeles River. He said, "i met mike shinonda a handful of times - he was a fun, chill guy. joe was a very good friend since the 7th grade".

A re-recorded version of "Rhinestone" from the Xero tape was released in 1998 by Zomba! Music Services on their New Music Sampler 1999 CD. This new version of the track eventually found its way to producers of The Crow: Stairway To Heaven landing the band their first soundtrack appearance. However, the episode only aired in 1999.

The band would go by the name "Xero 818" at some point in mid-1998, 818 being one of the area codes for the San Fernando Valley area, which is where the band is from. They changed it because there were other bands named "Xero". Brad explained, "so we called ourselves Xero 818, like when you can’t get the Gmail account you want, [so] you just put a number… That’s what bands were doing at the time."

Mark Wakefield was fired from the band by the end of the year and joined System Of A Down's manager David "Beno" Benveniste on the Velvet Hammer Music and Management Group. Beno was also the founder of Streetwise, a marketing company which would later help Linkin Park build their street team. Mike explained, "Mark and I started my band, our band together. Eventually, like, he wasn't a singer, he would get like crazy ulcers and stuff from the stress of doing band stuff. Having to get on stage made him physically nauseous. Then he went into management, he's really good at a lot of stuff that has to do with music, and so he ends up managing, like basically number 2 at the management company at the company Velvet Hammer who manages System of a Down, who he loves, Alice in Chains, who he has always loved, Deftones, like talk about a dream job. Just working with bands that you love." The decision came following a public showcase at the Whisky a Go Go on December 10, 1998 with over 30 industry scouts in attendence. Both Jeff Blue and Danny Hayes thought the show was a bad idea because if it went bad the entire industry could decide Xero wasn't worth signing, but the band insisted on playing. They were 15 minutes late and had to stop and restart the first song so Brad could re-tune his guitar. The band played for 30 minutes and when the lights came up only Jeff Blue, Danny Hayes, Scott Harrington and a few of their friends were still in the venue. They received 7 official rejections in the next 36 hours, two executives from Geffen who wanted to hire Jeff Blue were fired, Danny Goodwin (who had shown interest in the band after listening to a demo) was fired from Virgin Records and Mark Wakefield was fired from Xero. Most of the rejections centered on how bad the vocals were. He was described as being horribly off key.

Dave would soon leave Xero too. He was also committed to another band, Tasty Snax, with whom he had been close friends since high school. They released their debut album, Run Joseph Run, in 1998 and when they left on tour, Dave went with them. They would release a second studio album, Snax, in 2000 and break up in the following year. Their vocalist, Mark Fiore, would later become Linkin Park's videographer.

Writing and Recording
Mark Wakefield, lead singer of Xero. The songs were mostly written by Mike Shinoda and Mark Wakefield in 1996, with Brad Delson and Joe Hahn also being credited for "Rhinestone".

The demo was recorded in 1997 in a makeshift studio set up in Mike's bedroom with gear he had been collecting one by one, starting when he was about 13 years old. He explained, "Circa 1997, my parents house. I bought this mixing board from a reseller for a couple hundred bucks, and I felt like such a pro. Some of the tracks were broken, but it was what I needed to make my beats sound decent (it had EQs and I could route a guitar pedal for effects). It sat here in the corner of my bedroom in my parents house, with other gear piled up on the shelves of the closet to my right. Mark and I made all the earliest demos (Dialate, Reading My Eyes, Rhinestone, Esaul, Stick N Move) on this setup. We were shooting a roll of black and white photos because we thought it looked “artistic.”"

The songs were recorded straight to tape on a Tascam Porta 07, a little 4 track recorder, without any live drums. Joe explained, "We could only record four tracks at the same time and if you had more than that, you had to bounce onto other tracks, all on a cassette. There was also a limitation of recording time on a sampler, so you had to record really important sounds to that." Mike would record on three of those tracks and bounce the recordings to the 4th, then record over the initial 3. The final products would be bounced out to a separate cassette recorder. Since nothing touched the computer, no master digital files exist for these exact versions of these four songs.

Guitars were played on a Fender Strat guitar (Mark's first and only guitar) with a Crate G20 Amp. A Yamaha PSR 510 was used for keyboards, mostly bass. All vocals were recorded with a Shure SM58 microphone. A Roland MS 1 (that played up to 4 samples and was meant to be played by hand) and an Akai S900 (a 12 bit sampler that saved on floppy disks) samplers were also used. Since those samplers didn't have an internal sequencer, Mike used an Alesis HR 16 drum machine as his sequencer.

On the band's influences at the time, Mike said, "in our most rudimentary version of our band back in 1997, our earliest demos sounded like the Roots meets Alice In Chains meets Aphex Twin or Prodigy or something. It was all stuff that we were currently listening to that was kind of current at the time. Those were our earliest demos. Over time we just simply started listening to more stuff."

The strings on "Reading My Eyes" were sampled from "Why You Treat Me So Bad" by Club Nouveau.

"Fuse" features a sample of "The Very Long Fuse", a story narrated by Laura Olsher on Disneyland Records' 1964 album Chilling, Thrilling Sounds Of The Haunted House.

On "Stick N Move", Mike did a reference to "Check The Rhime" by A Tribe Called Quest.

Releases
There were two issues of the Xero tape, both with the same tracks but different covers. The black and white shopping cart was the first issue and is very rare, having a small number of copies made.

Only two known copies of the shopping cart version exist in the current Linkin Park community, owned by "JomJom" / Giorgio from Italy and "Falloon19" / Chad Dix. According to BPercy from LPCatalog, "A lot of people thought it wasn't legit until Mike confirmed it was legit at a meet and greet in Europe before A Thousand Suns was released. My buddy Giorgio from Italy owns it and showed Mike and asked him. Giorgio and myself actually started the first catalog in 2005 (known as lpcollectors.com) and ran it for a couple years. Then life got in the way. Mike Shinoda told him, the shopping cart was actually a joke for a cover for the demo tape but then they actually had some made before the baby version was made.. If I remember he implied fewer were made. Most hardcore LP fans know how rare a Xero tape is. Try and find one for sale (needle in hay stack.) Now the shopping cart version is like a needle in outer space in my opinion. There might be 2 or 3 in existence that didn't get tossed." Tentative logo created by Mike's friend Ryan Conlan, with whom he went to college. This version was apparently a joke between Mike and Joe, who said while in a grocery store that the first release they had would be of a shopping cart. In 2003 or 2004, a second shopping cart version was listed on eBay and known collectors were outbid; the buyer has never surfaced in the community. To date, only JomJom's, Falloon19's, Anna Shinoda's, and the mysterious eBay auction's tapes have been the only ones confirmed to exist outside of possible copies that the band still might have.

When JomJom showed his shopping cart version of the tape to Linkin Park in 2008, they proposed adding "Reading My Eyes" to that night's setlist for him. While Chester said no, this was the first time that Mike decided to rap a verse of "Reading My Eyes" over "Bleed It Out" (Heineken Jammin' Italy, 2008).

After the shopping cart issue, a version with a blue cover featuring a baby was made and is now most the most commonly associated cover when referring to Xero and the tape. More copies of this version were made, and these are the source for the current rips of the tape circulating online. No rip of the shopping cart version has been made, but due to JomJom's copy, we are able to confirm that the tracks on both issues are the same exact versions. While more copies with the blue cover were made, only a few of these are also known to exist in the Linkin Park collectors community, outside of the band.

The shopping cart version of the tape was confirmed to have been made in 1997. According to Anna Shinoda's story of meeting Mike after a Xero show in February 1998 and Mike handing her a shopping cart version of the tape, fans have speculated that the blue cover version could have possibly been made in 1998 after this meeting. No more information on the subject is available.

= Hybrid Theory (1999) Era = Following the release of their self-titled demo tape and many showcases, vocalist Mark Wakefield left Xero in 1998. Bassist Phoenix explained their situation, "We went through a period where we kinda didn't know what to do with the band, like, the singer we had been playing with was transitioning out and we didn't know if we wanted to continue; if we did, if we wanna continue with just with five guys or how that would even look or work out. And, you know, we tried a bunch of different guys that were LA-based, whatever, and nothing was really working, nothing we're excited about. When we heard Chester stuff he had done, we're just like 'ok, this guy can sing, we need to get him out here quick and see what the deal is.' We got him out and then 'ok, if the band is gonna work then this is gonna work. Otherwise, that's the end of Linkin Park as it is, kind of thing."

Mike talked about being the sole frontman during this period, ''“I only sang on my own for around two months. When we did shows, I’d get friends to the other vocals. It was really fun. It’s strange, though, whenever I’ve written vocals, I’ve always written them with two people in mind. I think it adds a cool depth and vibe to the songs.”''

Back when Chester Bennington was in Grey Daze, his band opened shows for hundreds of national acts and this introduced them to a lot of people in the music industry. They drew the attention of an independent record company, Real Records, and decided to hire an entertainment attorney to help review the contract. After several interviews, they selected a Los Angeles based attorney named Scott Harrington. However, the label ran out of money and nothing materialized from the relationship.

Grey Daze released two independent albums to local acclaim, but to very little national interest. The overall frustration over the band's seeming disability to make it to the next level has led to personal conflicts between the band members. Chester and Mace Beyers left the band following a bad show at the Big Fish Pub in 1998. This happened the weekend before they were supposed to go into the studio to record a 4 song demo for Warner Bros. Records.

After the group was dissolved, Chester remained friends with Scott Harrington and would receive demos from him every once in a while.

Danny Hayes, the attorney who helped sign Xero to a publishing deal, was partners with Scott at the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. They were at South By Southwest in Texas talking about a band that needed a singer and Scott recommended Chester. Jeff Blue was also at the music conference when he was told about the singer from Phoenix. He was so desperate he called him up when he was still in Texas and told him he would be sending the music and the original songs for the singer to sing over them. Scott called Kerry Rose, Grey Daze's manager, and asked if it was possible to approach Chester about another project, called Xero. Kerry came through at the cost of his job with the remaining members of Grey Daze.

Xero's previous singer, Mark Wakefield, couldn't perform live because of a really bad stage fright, so they were looking for a new singer. "I wanted somebody in the band who had the same drive and passion for melodic singing vocals as I had towards rapping vocals," said Mike Shinoda.

Following Grey Daze's break-up, Chester took on jobs in restaurants and coffee shops to pay the bills while trying to find a new band that could match his ambitions. Lee Bennington, his father, said, ''“He spent a year-and-a-half or so trying to find something else to do. He’d call up the local rock people and go to their studios. I asked him one day, ‘What are you gonna do if you don’t find something?’ He said, ‘I’m gonna give it another six months and then I’ll get a real job.’ And that’s when he was contacted by the guys that were putting Linkin Park together. The rest of it is history. If music had not happened for him, he was capable of doing anything he wanted to do. He was very smart. He could been a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer.”'' Xero with Chester Bennington outside a pizza place near UCLA. Scott called Chester, who at the time really wanted to quit music all together after a bad band audition for Kongo Shock in 1998, and told him about a band he thought "could really go somewhere." Upon learning the band was consisted of teenagers, Chester dismissed it as a waste of time, but Scott insisted he should listen to their music. The next day, on a Friday, Chester then received a tape. One side had vocals on it and the other side was just instrumental. Chester listened to the instrumental side first and was really impressed, it was different from anything he had heard. However, when he flipped the tape over and listened to the songs with vocals he started to have some doubts about it. He turned it back over to the other side, and started singing the parts and thought to himself "I can do this." Among the tracks on the tape were early versions of "A Place For My Head", "Forgotten" and "Pictureboard".

"I noticed that Mike's rapping was really good, and I felt I could improve on their melodies as far as where their choruses were concerned. Something did tell me that, yeah, this is the one. This was the golden ticket to get inside Willy Wonka's chocolate factory!", said Chester.

Chester called Jay Kereny of Lemon Krayola and asked if he would help with he tracks they sent him. Jay, his brother John, and Bart Applewhite of Kongo Shock learned the songs, Jay helped Chester with the melodies and they videotaped the session. The three musicians were playing together in a band called Size 5 at the time. Their frontman, Chuck Moore, said, "One awesome memory I will always have is the night that him and Sam came to the base at a Size 5 practice and asked me if he could "borrow" the band for a few hours and record an audition video for a band in LA called "Hybrid Theory"..of course I was "absolutely" and Jay Kereny John Kereny and Barton Applewhite went to work on this video. Sam recorded this amazing work of vocals and history was born."

Chester threw a 23rd birthday party for himself the next day but skipped it to record the demo of his vocals over Xero's music. He called Mike Jones, who handled engineering and production work on ...No Sun Today, to use his studio, but said he didn't have much money. He charged a hundred dollars an hour. Mike then called his partner, Ghery Fimbres, who met with Chester in a late Saturday evening at the studio. Ghery transferred the cassette to a 24-track-2 inch-tape, cleaning it up as much as possible, and set up a Neumann U-87, a pop filter, and a headphone rig to start the recording. After 3 hours in the studio, the final audition tape was committed to DAT, and also burned in a CD.

Chester went home and called Jeff Blue (who was back in Los Angeles) on a Sunday, asking when he could come out. At first, Jeff didn't believe Chester had actually finished the tracks in such a short time. Jeff told him he had to listen to the recording first, but Chester refused to send it via mail because he wanted to be sure he was going to listen. Chester then put the tape in his stereo and played 30 seconds of it via the phone and Jeff was impressed with what he heard. Not only Chester had sung Mark's parts but also added his own flavor to them. "What I heard floored me. Every crack of his voice had a story to tell. It was iconic, genuine, vulnerable, urgent, beautiful and hit you in the gut. I ­immediately called Brad and Mike and told them I was flying Chester out to Los Angeles."

Chester was working in technology, at a digital services firm that was taking maps of newly developed local sub-divisions and scanning them to put the entire county library of maps on 13 discs. He left his job being assured by his boss that he could have it back if things didn't work out with this new band. In Los Angeles, he was essentially homeless for months, shuttling between friends' and relatives' sofas, a rehearsal studio, and even slept in his old Toyota.

On Monday morning, Chester drove to Los Angeles and, at 8:30, got to the Nine Thousand Sunset LLC and Cord Partners Inc. building on Sunset Blvd. The doors were open at 11 o'clock and Chester met Jeff in his office. "Into my office walked a kid with Coke-bottle glasses; a ­glittery, ­button-down black shirt two sizes too big; spiked black hair; and an ­unstoppable smile from ear to ear that lit up the room. I couldn’t believe the voice I heard on the demo came out of the shy kid sitting before me," said Jeff. He started calling people from the label, announcing they got a new singer for Xero and setting up showcases. Jeff Blue gave Xero a development deal in 1997 after seeing just one show at the Whisky a Go Go. The club was packed with A&R scouts who had all fled by the third song. Hybrid Theory in the Los Angeles subway. Taken by Kyle's friend Suzy. In Los Angeles, there was a magazine called Music Connection in which the band had announced a vacancy. When Chester met the band, he personally gave them his audition tape and they really liked what they heard, but they had already booked appointments with other singers. For 3 days, they frequently had to interrupt the rehearsals to let other people do their audition, even though they had already started writing new songs with Chester. "There was one guy who never wore shoes, and he told us he wanted to do stand-up comedy during our show," said Mike. At one point, one person came up, heard Chester singing, said "If you guys don't take this guy then you're fucking idiots" and walked away. Chester tried to convince him to do the audition, but he said "There's no fucking way I'm going back into that room. Singing after hearing you sing, there's no way! If they don't take you call me up we should start a band."

Prior to meeting Chester, the band had been auditioning for a new singer for 4 to 5 months, meaning they had started while still performing with Mark Wakefield.

One of the people who auditioned for Xero was Boris Bouma of the Dutch progressive metal band Frozen Sun, and who would later be known as the frontman of the American band Epidemic.

A new name, "Hybrid Theory", was suggested by Joe Hahn after the mix of styles they brought to their music. However, the band felt this style of music could be blended better, not so jagged and forced. So they scrapped most of the songs they had and started working on new ones. Brad Delson explained, "I don’t want it to sound like ‘Here’s the rap part, now here comes the huge rock choruses.’ I wanted it all to fit together, so there wasn’t one part that sounds like rap and another like rock. [...] It wasn’t easy at first. If you heard our first demos, it wasn’t as much as now. There’d be rock sections and rap sections." Mike Shinoda added, "We are a constantly evolving experiment. Our goal is to bring seemingly distant elements together." Mike would first work with Brad on the music before writing lyrics with Chester, often bringing up painful memories from Chester's childhood.

As Mike pointed out, the two had very different upbringings. "My parents are still married. They took great care of us, and I feel like I had a good upbringing, and Chester had a very dysfunctional home system that he grew up in. One of the things that made our not only our friendship really strong, but it played into the music. It was peanut butter and jelly. We were so different, and I had a way of, as he would describe it, writing the things that were on his mind."

Chester was still in the process of developing his own identity as a singer. Mike recalls he would sometimes unconsciously sing in the style of his favorite singers such as Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode and Layne Stale from Alice In Chains. "Basically he would come in my house and it would either be just me and Chester or me, Chester and Brad. We would work on new material. It was '99 maybe, or '98 and we'd work on new material and see what directions we could push his voice. At the time he was still developing his own identity as a singer. And I say that because when he would sing a new thing, he was very good at imitating somebody else's style and he would often fall into his favourite singer's style, even to the extent that he would accidentally form words with an accent."

With the addition of a new vocalist, Jeff Blue invited all the label reps who passed on the band to watch them rehearse one by one and every one of them passed on the band again. Brad commented, "We probably showcased for every major label except Warner and no one really gave us a shot. They thought that what we were doing was too different. A lot of bands are coming out doing rap and rock, but a lot of A&R guys made a bad assumption that there's only one way to do it. For instance, our music's not really that 'party-oriented'; we're drawing from different elements in hip hop like Black-Eyed Peas, the Roots, Common and Mos Def a little more dark, a little more intellectual."

Dave Farrell's involvement as a member of The Snax prevented him from writing or recording with the band. Before Chester came in, Dave left to go tour for what he calls "one very long year" (closer to a year and a half) and was replaced by Kyle Christener of Waffle, who would play some shows in California and Arizona as well as label showcases before being kicked out of the band and joining the band Nosedive. More recently, he has played with The Hobo Code.

"I think we spent nearly a year bugging him to come back to the band. Touring without him, the balance of personalities in the band felt like a constant nagging issue. We knew the chemistry was off," said Mike about Dave's absence.

Before the band settled for Kyle, they played a few times with another bass player named Andrew Lanoie. At the time, Lanoie was in the interview process for a job as talent agent at William Morris Agency. He said, ''"I started to get the itch to play a little bit play to go play bass. So I started working through ads in the recycler, which was all pre internet really, back then. And so started playing with this one band. And we traded music and got together two or three times. And they had just signed a publishing deal with a big publishing company called zamba. And went into this little crappy studio, rehearsal studio and they had like $60,000 worth of brand new gear. I’m like, how did you guys get this and what’s happening? They’re like, oh, well, we just signed a publishing deal. So did that played with them a bunch of times they ended up going with the other was I was the runner up bass player for that band. Got the job at William Morris, which is like a six month interview process, which is just pretty wild. Working at William Morris, and probably a year goes by and my friend called me who was managing the Goo Goo Dolls and he’s like, that band you played with just put out their first record and they sold like 650,000 albums first week and it was Lincoln Park. So pretty funny, right?"''

Writing and Recording
Not much is known about the writing of the Hybrid Theory EP. It's mentioned in the re-issue insert that the EP was recorded in a local studio and at Mike's apartment in 1999. Jeff Blue booked Mudrock for about a week in the studio with the band in June 1999. Kyle Christener also mentioned the band wrote and rehearsed in a small rehearsal room. The band's rehearsal space at the time was at the HiFi Hollywood Rehearsal Studios, located on Hollywood Boulevard between the intersections of Hollywood Boulevard and Ivar Avenue, and Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.

The band felt the material they already had wasn't good enough, so as soon as Chester joined the band, they immediately began writing new songs with him. The Hybrid Theory EP is the first release with him on vocals.

Due to Phoenix being out of the band at this time (1999 to October 2000) to tour with The Snax, he did not record bass on any songs on the Hybrid Theory EP or Hybrid Theory. Kyle Christner recorded bass on the Hybrid Theory EP.

Speaking about the EP, Mike said, "That was a little project we put together when Chester first came to California. It was the first time we were in the studio. Actually it was with Mudrock who did Godsmack’s tracks. He was someone we had met who was really nice and we could do something for a small amount of money." When asked why older songs that later appeared on Hybrid Theory weren't on the EP, he answered, "We had, at that point we were like jelling with Chester so like we were trying to make new music, you know what I'm saying? We had already like put out like demos with those songs on it so people kind of knew they, like existing fans, knew they existed so we didn't, you know? I think that was part of the idea. But more of the idea was to like move forward and like do, you know, new material." Andrew "Mudrock" Murdock co-produced three songs on the EP with Mike Shinoda. The EP was produced by Mike Shinoda with Mudrock, who produced Godsmack's 1998 eponymous debut album, co-producing three out of the 6 tracks (7 counting the hidden track). They were "Carousel", "And One" and "Part Of Me". Those three songs are credited to Mike Shinoda, Joe Hahn, Brad Delson, Chester Bennington and Rob Bourdon; while "Step Up" and "High Voltage" are credited to Mike Shinoda, Joe Hahn and Brad Delson; "Technique (Short)" to Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn; and the hidden track to Mike Shinoda.

Not much is known about the individual songs or their composition. It has been stated many times by the band (sometimes as an intro to the song live) that "And One" was the first song written when Chester joined the band. "Technique" was originally a full song that was shortened and became an interlude. "High Voltage" is derivative of "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys, which came out in 1998 on the album Hello Nasty. When questioned who the "Akira" in the lyrics was, Mike said, "akira is a name i used to go by for a short period. it's from the movie, and it's the long version of my brother's middle name, akio". "Part Of Me" was originally called "Chair" and was built around a sample of a car alarm that was recorded by Brad. On "Part Of Me" at 9:58, the band placed an instrumental track that has no title, but is commonly referred to as "Ambient", "Secret", or "Track 7". Mike said that, although the track sounds like a video game theme, he didn't plan it that way, it just happened.

Composition
A business card by Mike Shinoda advertising his graphic illustrator skills. With the LP Underground CD releases, fans have come to know several other songs recorded around the Hybrid Theory EP era as well. The November 2002 LP Underground 2.0 CD presented to fans a track called "Dedicated", which was produced by Mike and is credited to Mike, Brad, Joe and Chester. On the November 2011 LP Underground X CD, tracks entitled "Slip" and "Blue" were released. These songs have the date of 1998 (although they actually date from 1999) and "Slip" gives credit to both Mark Wakefield (Xero singer) and Chester, which means the song was worked on for several years (1997 to 1999, at least). The track "Esaul" (later to be renamed as "A Place For My Head") was a song from the Xero era that was worked on in this time as well. The LP Underground 12 CD saw the release of "So Far Away", a track entirely sung by Mike Shinoda, and a song called "Hurry" was released as a downloadable track for the LP Underground 15 CD. Both tracks share some common elements. According to Mike, "Hurry" was created around the same period as a few of the songs on the EP. Finally, it is likely that the song referred to as "Pictureboard" was touched in 1999 too, since Mike mentioned the band performed the song with Chester once live.

The point of mentioning these songs (even though they are not on the Hybrid Theory EP) is that the band was writing quite a bit of new music with Chester as well as resurrecting past Xero demos to rework with him too, all for the Hybrid Theory EP and Hybrid Theory releases.

Linkin Park re-recorded several of the songs from the Hybrid Theory EP for possibly inclusion on Hybrid Theory, but none of these songs made the cut for the album. At least "Carousel" and "Part Of Me" were re-recorded, but a completely different live version of "And One" compared to the Hybrid Theory EP version indicates that it possibly was re-recorded as well even though no studio version has been released to verify that. According to Brad, they took the outro and made it the bridge and pulled the rhythm tighter. Mike remixed "High Voltage" likely for this purpose as well since the end of "Cure For The Itch" blends perfectly (same strings) into the start of the "High Voltage" remix. Since it did not make Hybrid Theory, the track was then released on the "One Step Closer" single in January 2001 with "My December". "Step Up" was released on the "In The End" single in 2001.

Artwork
The booklet shows a baby on the cover that, when opened, is connected to another version of the baby through an umbilical cord. Joe Hahn explained, "Everything has two sides, alright? Actually, Mike did the front, this side. I did the back. I'm glad in hindsight that my drawing is on the back cause I wouldn't want to look at this all the time. I'd rather look at that."

Releases
With Kyle, the band created its own label, Mix Media, recorded five songs and printed 1,500 copies of a self-titled EP, selling a few hundred at first then giving the remainder away. In search of a more effective outlet for their music, the majority of the songs were made available on the Internet for free on MP3.com. They would post links to their page all over the internet, on music forums, chat rooms and other band's websites. Rob said, "I would assign everyone in the band to go on the Internet and recruit five or six people a day. We'd go into a Korn chat room and say, 'There's this new cool band called Linkin Park, go check out their MP3,' pretending like we weren't in the band." Their street team started building off those MP3s. People were able to download all of their music and they started calling the band, who would send them copies of the EP and some promotional items. They would spend 10 hours a day using Rob's apartment as a packing facility for stickers, compact discs, t-shirts, letters from the band, and other items. "They got so pissed off at the post office next to my old apartment. Priority Mail boxes are free, so I would take all of their boxes and run out of there. We would package the stuff in my apartment. My living room became a total mailroom." The positive feedback from the fans was what encouraged them to keep going as a band and made them start taking the idea of making a record and going on tour very seriously. Original 1999 Hybrid Theory EP (left) vs. LP Underground 2001 reissue (right). The Hybrid Theory EP was reissued under the band name "Linkin Park" and with a different artwork on November 19, 2001 as the very first LP Underground exclusive CD. The first 500 people who joined the fan club had their copies autographed by the band. This version was remastered by Pat Kraus and sounds louder than the original release.

Starting on September 02, 2008, the official LPU store sold a limited number of copies of each of the fan club's CDs from previous years, including the Hybrid Theory EP for $10. On January 23, 2012, the EP was sold at the LPU store once again. This time, it was part of a $65 bundle containing the first 4 CDs from the fan club. Only 90 bundles were available and they sold out in less than a minute. This was their last batch of copies of the EP, with a very small amount being saved in their inventory for future giveaways or contests. A few copies have been used on LPU Giveaways and signed copies have been used for LPU Auctions over the years. Digital copies of the album can be purchased exclusively at the LPU store.

The Hybrid Theory EP was issued for the first time in vinyl format as part of the Hybrid Theory (20th Anniversary Edition) super deluxe box set in 2020.

Track Listing

 * Note: "Part Of Me" contains an untitled hidden track by Mike Shinoda.

Hybrid Theory is:

 * Rob Bourdon - drums
 * Joseph Hahn - turntables, programming
 * Kyle Christner - bass
 * Brad Delson - guitar
 * Chester Bennington - vocals
 * Mike Shinoda - vocals, programming

Production

 * Produced by Mike Shinoda
 * Tracks 1, 4, 6 produced and mixed by Mudrock and Mike Shinoda
 * Tracks 2, 3, 5, 7 produced and mixed by Mike Shinoda
 * Mastered by Pat Kraus

Artwork

 * Art direction by Mike Shinoda
 * All art ©1999 Mike Shinoda except back cover ©1999 Joseph Hahn

Songs Played Live

 * "Carousel" (Only as Hybrid Theory; Never as Linkin Park, but rehearsed in 2001 by Linkin Park)
 * "Step Up"
 * "And One"
 * "Part Of Me" (Only as Hybrid Theory; Never as Linkin Park)

Trivia

 * "Step Up" was sampled on "It's Goin' Down" and "Kyur4 Th Ich".
 * A live medley of "Step Up", "Nobody's Listening" and "It's Goin' Down" was registered on the LP Underground 4.0 CD.

= Hybrid Theory (2000) Era = The band formed under the name "Xero" in 1996, the original lineup consisting of Mike Shinoda, Mark Wakefield, Brad Delson, Rob Bourdon, Joe Hahn, and Dave "Phoenix" Farrell. Vocalist Mark Wakefield left the band to pursue a different career as things weren't working out with Xero. Phoenix left the band around the same time to fulfill his commitment with Tasty Snax and was replaced by Kyle Christner. Chester Bennington joined the band in 1999, after auditioning via recommendation of his lawyers to Jeff Blue of the A&R Recordings branch of Zomba Music Group. They independently released the Hybrid Theory EP under the name Hybrid Theory in 1999. Some time after the EP was released, Kyle Christener was kicked out of the band.

For three years, the band had been using their connections at Zomba to get the demos out to people who would listen to them and were rejected by every major label and by a lot of independents as well, including by Clive Davis. The rise of other rap/rock fusion groups like Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock and Korn only made things worse for them. "For the first few years, the first couple of years trying to get a record deal, people were telling us pretty much that we weren't great and that we should change our approach and be more like some of the groups that were already popular. That was exactly what we didn't want to do, and we stuck to our guns. We wrote the record we wanted to write," said Brad. After nine months playing forty two label showcases — including a showcase performance arranged by promoter and impresario Mike Galaxy at The Gig-Hollywood on Melrose Avenue — with no results, the band finally went to Warner Bros. Records as a developing artist in November 1999 after a buzz started building up in the label industry and Jeff Blue took a position as vice president of their A&R (Artist and Repertory) department. "Several labels pursued me to do A&R after I secured a deal for Macy Gray, whom I developed at Zomba. I insisted that I bring Hybrid Theory under my new contract as my first signing. The one label executive who was truly interested in Hybrid Theory was Warner Bros.' Joe McEwen. Despite being the smallest offer, I knew the label provided the perfect environment for the band to thrive. However, before we started the album, McEwen moved on from Warner Bros., ­leaving the fate of the band uncertain." Things almost fell apart in late February or early March 2000 when Warner CEO Russ Thyret (who liked the band) turned over many of his duties to Phil Quartararo starting February 28th, then Joe McEwen got demoted from A&R on March 8th and was replaced by David Kahne. The more songs they made and re-recorded, the more interested in signing the band the label got. Jeff made Hybrid Theory his first signing in April 2000. Warner Bros. had passed on the band three times before that.

Handling all its own management duties until that point, the band hired Rob McDermott at Andy Gould Management in February 2000 after previously being offered good deals with bad managers and bad deals with good managers. McDermott recalls the moment they first met, "It was October 1999 when some scrawny rock kid with glasses and Jeff Blue met with me at a cafe on Sunset Blvd to discuss managing a new band Jeff was bringing with him to Warner Bros named Hybrid Theory." They also signed with the booking agency Artist Group International in September 2000.

The band decided that they wanted to make an impression with their new "teammates" at Warner Bros. Records and immediately put out a message to the entire staff saying they wanted to meet them. They set a date, and took over their conference room. They sat them down, exchanged pleasantries, and gave them some paperwork that outlined who the band were, what they intended to do, and how they thought their music, marketing, and fan club should be treated.

The band didn't realize how risky it was at the time, but luckily, label employees were enamored by their stunt, and decided to roll with them. The entire Warner staff was suddenly talking about the new band they just signed. Despite this, the band would soon start facing many problems within the label.

The first problem was the name Hybrid Theory. Another band in the label was called Hybrid and was considered "the next big thing", so they didn't want Hybrid Theory getting confused with them. Each band member wrote different names on separate lists and met to decide which one they liked better. Some of the proposed names for the band were Clear (as in "Clear Plastic", but the label didn't like it), Probing Lagers, and Platinum Lotus Foundation. Chester came up with "Lincoln Park" when driving and coming across a hometown park with that name. Among 30 potential names, this was the only one all members of the band liked. Brad suggested that it would be important to acquire the domain lincolnpark.com, but it was already taken. It would take around $10.000 to acquire the domain, so they changed the new potential band name from "Lincoln" to "Linkin" in order to get it. linkinpark.com was registered on May 24, 2000, and the park has since been renamed to Christine Emerson Reed Park. The band also registered one domain name for each of the rejected names.

What the band didn't realize was that there was a Lincoln Park in virtually every major city in the country. Brad said, "There's actually a park in Santa Monica, where we live, called Lincoln Park, so we thought that was a cool name and started using it. We went on tour right after we changed the name, and we pretty quickly realized there was a Lincoln Park in every town. Kids would come up to us and go, 'Dude! You're from Lincoln Park too? What side?' The joke, basically, is that everywhere we go, people think we're local. So in that aspect, it's a really cool name." Phoenix added, "There's been radio stations in Chicago that have said, 'Here's this local band, from Chicago, Linkin Park' — and that's actually been happening all over the country. In every major city you go there will be a Lincoln Park that's either a park, or a community... For a while, everybody thought we were local, like a support act."

In the end, Mike said he was glad they changed their name. "It was a legal thing, but in retrospect, I think we’re glad we did. (rapidly) For one reason, because Hybrid Theory is a very descriptive name and it almost says, “This is what the band’s about”, whereas Linkin Park does not, and Linkin Park is the kind of name that does not define the band – other than the name defining the band."

The next problem was their music. In the lyrics of Get Me Gone, which Mike describes as "a little glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes," Mike claims someone suggested they should just be a rock band and he should quit rapping. Chester was the first to receive the news through Don Gilmore. Chester was told he was "the star" and that Linkin Park should be his band. Mike would be relegated to just being the keyboard player or, worse, jettisoned. The band positioned themselves against it. Then the label wanted to bring in another rapper, a reggae vocalist called Matt Lyons. After that, they told Mike to try and rap like Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit. This led the band to cut off all communications with the label unless absolutely necessary.

"At one point, one of the label reps came into the studio and was like 'I don't know, man. This doesn't sound right. This song was weird. This song doesn't sound right.' So our producer was like 'Hold on. Let me try something real quick.' He reaches over and turns a nob. Dude's like 'I don't know whatever you did, man. That's fucking perfect like this. So cool.' All he did was turn the volume up," said Chester.

The band's image was also questioned by the label. When Mike submitted the original logo for Hybrid Theory to the record label, it was shot down by an A&R for appearing "too Asian." Someone brought an image consultant who suggested the band should have a gimmick, saying Joe should wear a lab coat and a cowboy hat and call himself "The Doctor".

Although Phil Quartararo, who was president of Warner Bros. Records at that time, takes credit for personally directing and overseeing the signing, recording and marketing of the band, Chester says the president of the company didn't like the band and didn't want to release their album. "We had support from a couple people within the record company but the top guy at the time was not a fan. He made that very clear that he was not a fan, made it very clear that he couldn't care less about the record and that we were literally the last item on the priority list beyond, below even probably getting the toilets cleaned. So it was pretty clear." Scott Koziol was Linkin Park's bass player for most of 2000. Ian Hornbeck, a musician from Seattle, was asked to play bass, but didn't join the band because of drug issues. His bass lines, however, were used on three songs on the album - "Papercut", "A Place For My Head", and "Forgotten". He said, "Yeah, man. That was me. It was ages ago. I just filled in to help them finish their album. Pretty awesome experience!" Ian would hear himself on the radio for the first time at the age of 20 during his first visit to rehab. "That was a bit of a surreal experience; one that kicked off a sometimes seemingly endless stream of "what if's" over the years. What if I hadn’t had only four days to learn an entire albums worth of songs? What if I hadn’t chosen to stay up for several days on methamphetamines trying to learn them all, before popping enough Valium to neutralize a stampeding rhinoceros and hopping on a flight to Los Angeles to go meet the rest of the band for the very first time? What if they hadn’t decided to try and mend their relationship with their original bass player? What if they hadn’t seen me as being a talented, nice guy, but “too much of a liability?” What if I had taken things just a little bit more serious? Sure, I got the job done, but what if? More importantly, what if I screwed up my only chance at truly being able to pursue my passion in life: music? While they would go on to become one of the biggest bands in the world, I was left behind, contemplating the if's."

Many other bassists auditioned for the band, namely Chester's friends Mace Beyers of Grey Daze and Jay Kereny of Lemon Krayola, before Scott Koziol officially joined them as a fill-in member. Another candidate, Geoff Antonio, described the audition process. ''"They put an article out in the Recycler. I had just moved to LA from Virginia Beach. The ad said something like, Rock/Hip-Hop Band looking for Bassist. Signed to major Label, sound is between the Def Tones and the Black Eyed Peas. I was always a fan of rock and hip-hop. So I went and picked up the CD from Rob the drummer. He was living in Westwood at the time. From the moment I heard the CD I knew these guys were onto something. The production level was great. The sound was unique. I was particularly impressed with Mike Shinoda's skills as an MC. They were then called Hybrid Theory. I learned the songs, came in to play with them. They had a lock out in Hollywood right off of Hollywood Blvd. They asked if I was ready to play the songs and I said yes. Before we played they asked for me to play looking at the wall in front of us as if we were in a stadium. That's what I did, I played as if we were in the stadiums the would soon be rocking in the near future. Afterwards they had some interesting questions for me. They wanted to know the latest book I read. They also wanted to know if I graduated from college. Then they asked me if I drank and were waiting intently on my answer. I told them I did occasionally, but not when I play. They said that was good because they had an issue with the other guy and they could not risk all of what they had going on someone who wasn't sober. I told them if this is a sober band, that I would be sober as well and was actually happy to hear that they were focused. Afterwards we kept in touch for a while. Mike and Rob called a few times, they wanted to know what I was up to and I would ask what they were doing."'' Mike Elizondo was also asked to play bass for the band at some point but chose to work with Dr. Dre and Eminem instead.

Scott had only been in Los Angeles for about 6 months when he met them. He was referred to the band by Barry Squire who runs a LA musician referral service. Rob Bourdon gave Scott a call, they chatted for a bit then he sent Scott a CD of a few tracks to learn. He had a few auditions with the band before they started rehearsing in Hollywood six days a week for about eight hours a day in preparation for live performances and the recording of Hybrid Theory. The only song Scott recorded bass for on the album was "One Step Closer".

Linkin Park worked throughout 1999 and early 2000 to complete work on Hybrid Theory. The album name is derived from the previous alias the band had. The name still matched the concept of the sound of the album, so they went with it. Brad said, "If you like The Roots you'll like Linkin Park, if you like Slipknot you'll like Linkin Park, and if you like Depeche Mode you'll probably like Linkin Park. That's one of the reasons we called our album 'Hybrid Theory', and that was the original band name. Was because we really approached songwritting from day one, which was really about almost four years ago, as a way to bring together different styles of music and really create a music that would be almost a new sound, that would be unique indentifiable as ourselves."

Writing and Recording
After Chester joined Hybrid Theory in 1999, the group began writing new music immediately. They felt there was something special in their musical style, but it still needed work. "All of us, collectively, felt that this style of music could be blended a little bit better, not so jagged and kind of forced in there. We stopped practicing the songs and started working on new stuff," Chester said. After releasing the Hybrid Theory EP, they continued work on their debut album, originally advertised as being due out in late summer 2000.

Between February 2000 and June 2000, the band changed their name from Hybrid Theory to Linkin Park and recorded the album at NRG Studios in Los Angeles, California. Linkin Park working on ‪Hybrid Theory‬ at NRG Recording Studios with Don Gilmore. About the writing process, Mike said, "When we write, we write by recording, we don’t jam or anything, which means we have to record somewhere loudly. In the past, the place that we found was easiest to record in was my room. My walls are about three inches thick and my neighbours must have thought people were dying in my house! The whole neighbourhood could hear it!" Chester jokingly said the band should be called Ten PM Stocker. "He thought of that name because I lived on a street called Stocker Street and, if we tried to record after 10pm, my neighbour would literally kick the wall connected to my bedroom. We were in the bedroom screaming our brains out and the guy next door and his wife were trying to sleep on the other side of the wall." Each member would write their own parts and everyone would meet at one point or another to critique the songs and make changes from there.

One big problem the band faced in recording Hybrid Theory was getting a producer. Jeff Blue, who acted as executive producer of the album, asked quite a few industry producers to work with Linkin Park, but had no luck. Finally, they were able to work out a deal with Don Gilmore, who helmed the project. Chester said, "We met with a lot of people and had a very difficult time choosing a producer. But Don, aside from making things sound good, stood out as someone who could really push us to work harder as songwriters." Mike said, "The thing about working with producers is that we initially just did it because it was what everyone else did as well. We don’t know why we did it; rather, we just did it because we knew that that’s how a record is made in our minds. I learnt a lot from Don Gilmore on our first two albums about how to record great guitars, drums and vocals. Basically learning the ins and outs about your basic pop or rock song, and he was really great at that."

Speaking of how he first met the band, Don said, "I produced their first two records. This is going back a long time; we're talking like 1999 or something. The demos were brought to me through my manager and I thought it was good. I didn't necessarily think it was amazing, but I liked that they were trying to do something unique. So I met with them -- they were looking at some other producers -- and I went to a rehearsal, and Chester started singing and I was just like, "Oh my god, this is really special." I'd never really heard somebody sing that incredibly just in a little crappy rehearsal room. He wasn't really singing like that on the demos, and I just felt like, if he can sing like this in the studio, then we might have a chance of doing something."

Don was quite intense with the band, being essentially a perfectionist with how the final songs should sound. The band has often talked about how many times he would make them rewrite the lyrics to songs and rework other instrumental parts. In an interview with Kerrang!, Chester talked about Don "hating all of their songs", "Well, actually he liked two – "Points Of Authority" and "With You". We basically had to write a new record in two months. We stayed at Mike’s house around the clock and wrote that album." Don said, "There was all this talk about how it was a hard record to make, but as a producer, when I ask artists to do certain things -- like, "I think you can rewrite that and make it better," or "I think you can sing that better" -- and sometimes they don't come back with it written better or they don't go out and sing it better, then I'll try again a few more times, but sometimes you just never get there and you go with whatever. But with these guys, when I'd ask for these things and I'd push them to do better, they would. They would maybe get frustrated and angry, but the results were insane."

When questioned if there was any hesitation to work with him at first (considering he had worked mainly with alternative acts), Mike said, "Obviously, we were going for a much heavier sound on our album, so it was a concern at the beginning. But it all turned out good in the end. Don was really good to work with." Regarding lyrical changes and restructuring of their older material, he said, "I am obviously happy with what’s on the album (or else we wouldn’t have committed it to tape!) but I do like the older versions as well. Most of the changes were done in order to make things a little more accessible. I wanted to make sure that people understood my lyrics. So I used metaphors that were a little more straightforward." Hybrid Theory writing session, Apple Computer, circa 1998. Mike would first work with Brad on the music before he and Chester would write lyrics. "When we did Hybrid Theory and Meteora, Brad and I did the bulk of the writing. We would write the music and I would write the vocals and we'd give them to the rest of the band to make notes or change it, but essentially we were doing it like a hip-hop production team. This is the track, these are the vocals," said Shinoda.

As for the lyrics, Mike said, "Chester and I started writing our best stuff when we talked about the parts and their meanings without defensiveness or pride. The importance is placed on the best part, not who is writing it." Chester added, "I can't talk about this crappy thing that happened to me and expect him to be able to sing it. It has to be vague enough for both of us to go, 'We can relate to it.' And we found that by writing in that way, our lyrics were hitting home with a lot of different people and a lot of different age groups." Mike further elaborated, "Personally, I have always been more interested in composition and songwriting, and honesty in my lyrics. I’m not so sure the latter is at the top of everyone’s priority list, in our genre at least. Our lyrics are more introverted than most. We probably focus more on an emotion, not the response. We’re not really an “I’m gonna kick your ass” type of band." Jeff Blue commented, ''"Mike's lyrics had a dark vibe, his early demos all had rain, concrete, references etc. I loved Points of Authority, but the first demos are what kept me motivated. Mike is very prolific and cinematic, that grabbed me instantly as opposed to other artists at the time simply writing aggressive lyrics." As for Don's influence on the lyrics, Chester said, "Our producer, Don Gilmore, made it a point to keep telling us, 'I want to be entertained, I don't wanna hear about your problems!' So, as much as it killed us, we tried to balance out the 'poor-me' parts with the entertainment."''

A fact that caught the attention of many people at that time was that Linkin Park was one of the few bands in their genre that didn't have swearing in their lyrics. Dave Farrell explained, "Really what it came down to for us is when Mike and Chester would sit down to write their lyrics, there was a challenge laid down to them both by the band and Don Gilmore, the producer of "Hybrid Theory," to express themselves to the utmost of their ability. Part of what came with that was when they had the feeling that they wanted to use an obscenity, there's always a better way than swearing to express yourself, if you have the time to sit down and think it through. It was almost a byproduct of that process. It wasn't even intentional that at the end of that process, there wasn't any swearing on the record." Mike further elaborated, ''"It was scary in the beginning, when we started writing about what we felt. But once we realized we weren’t the only ones who felt that way, once we saw the audience was coming along with us on that, it freed us up. We wanted to be a little more descriptive, instead of just going ‘fuck’ all the time. We wanted to go into detail."''

Speaking about the sound of the album, Mike explained, ''"We love so many different types of music that it’s hard to differentiate where we’re getting our ideas from. We may write something and it doesn’t necessarily come from one genre. Sometimes it does and sometimes it comes from a bunch of different things. We have always wanted to do that within our band. When I first talked to the guys about starting the band it was always something like this. We wanted to do something that was a melting pot of these styles. I had said in an interview once that there was a theory of people in America being like a salad bowl or a melting pot. A melting pot is where they all come together and a salad bowl is where they hold their individuality and they exist together. At one point I thought our band was more of a salad bowl where each sound maintains its integrity and just exists in the song together but I totally have changed my mind. I think that it’s a melting pot where we’ve got a lot of things that come together but in the end they all just gel and just become one song and that’s what is most important to us. It’s just a song. It’s not the rap part and the rock part and the electronic part and the singing part and the rapping and the screaming and the whispering." The band tried their best to make all those elements come together without feeling forced. "As part of the writing process, I record everyone directly into a computer to best integrate our digital and live elements. We spend countless hours mixing and matching parts until we get the right combinations and composition."''

While promoting the album, the band have stated their influences were Black Star, The Roots, Mos Def, Roni Size, Aphex Twin, Depeche Mode, Deftones, Sunny Day Real Estate, Nine Inch Nails, Dido, Black Eyed Peas, Jurassic 5, Pharoahe Monch, Portishead, among others.

Later in his career, Mike explained how their engineer influenced the sound of the album. "There's so many different choices you can make when you're recording a record, and the farther along you are in your career, the more you know about all of your options. When we were making our first album, we basically left it up to our engineer to kind of help shape our drum sound. We said, 'Our drummer wants to play these drums,' and he was like, 'Cool, let's supplement those with these, and we'll A-B 'em, and see which ones you like.' But we didn't talk about how to mic them, we didn't talk about what room to use, we didn't talk about what gear the snare mics are gonna go through." Ian Hornbeck recorded bass for 3 songs on Hybrid Theory.

Personnel-wise, Dave was fulfilling his commitment with The Snax, which left Brad to play the majority of the bass tracks on the album. According to Scott Koziol, the band's touring bass player, the payout for Hybrid Theory says “Scott - 1 song, Ian - 3 songs, Brad - 6 songs.” Mike explained, "Dave was gone and so we played his bass parts, me, Brad, our producer Don at one point was putting them in. We were just like... I didn't want Don playing bass on the record, it was our record. He's a good bass player but it's just the premise of it. We tried out of a couple of other people at the time. You mentioned Kyle Christener, he was in the band and we played with for a while. Scott Koziol was in the band for a while, we actually toured with Scott for a little bit. And there was another kid who played... he just like played on a couple of tracks but he wasn't a great fit." Ian Hornbeck was asked to lend a helping hand by recording bass for "Papercut", "A Place For My Head" and "Forgotten". Scott Koziol recorded bass for "One Step Closer".

Dave did end up with songwriting credits for two of the twelve songs on the album, "A Place For My Head" and "Forgotten", and is credited as the band's bass player on later US pressings of the album (even though there's no photos of him in the booklet). On the versions where Dave is listed as a band member, Scott Koziol isn't credited for playing bass.

While still on The Snax with his high school friends, Dave and his bandmates gave each other ridiculous stage names. His was "The Phoenix", a name they got from the movie Mystery Men. In the end, his was the only nickname that actually stuck, and was printed on the Hybrid Theory booklet. He says he's glad they decided on that name because the other option was "Little Bitch" from BASEketball.

While looking for a producer, the band met the Dust Brothers who helped supply the sampled beats on "With You", which was the first collaboration by the band on an album song. The Visionaries rapper LMNO was introduced to the band by Kevin Sakoda and invited to be on the album as well but turned down the offer to focus on his solo album instead. He later recorded an unreleased song with Mike.

Don Gilmore asked the band for a chance to mix the album himself. After a week, he mixed 4 songs and delivered them on May 9. Jeff Blue didn't think it was good and booked Andy Wallace to mix the record instead. They initially were going to have Jeff, Mike and Brad meet with Andy in New York on May 18 until David Kahne, Jeff Blue's boss at Warner Bros. Records and one of the people who weren't 100% impressed with the band, offered himself to mix a few songs in order to improve them and convince the band to let him mix the rest of the album. He promised that if they didn't like the mix they wouldn't be charged for studio time. Kahne mixed "Plaster" at Quad Studios in New York over the Memorial Day weekend and played it for Jeff on May 30. Mike said that although his mix was good overall, the band had a feeling that Andy Wallace, who mixed Nirvana's Nevermind, would be a better fit for them and chose him to mix the album. Kahne didn't keep his promise and charged $4000 for his mix. The band met with Andy Wallace in New York on June 18 and finished mixing the album on June 27. It took 3 attempts before they arrived at a version with which everybody was satisfied.

Jeff Blue explained how the songs for the album were picked, "so we had dozens of songs, we narrowed them down to 14, and only 11 could make the album (plus Joe's cure for the itch) since contractually the band would only get paid on a certain amount of tracks. The band, Don, and I chose the songs we felt were strongest!"

The album was mastered / sequenced by Brian Gardner on July 6. He noticed some songs had non-lyrical titles and suggested they'd change them. "Plaster" became "One Step Closer" on the same day and "Untitled" was changed to "In The End" a little later.

A memorable moment for producer Don Gilmore was "When we finally played it for the record company... The record company had kind of just signed this band that they thought was a normal rap-rock group that would do okay. And when they first came in and listened to it, their jaws were on the floor, they couldn't believe it. They were bringing everybody from the record company over to listen to the album in the studio and there was so much excitement. And then it became a huge priority instantly for the label."

Talking about the choice of which song gets a music video, Joe said "the record label decides". As for the ideas for the videos, he said, "we have input but not up to us. not do we want to have the responsibility to choose. just write the best songs we can".

The band's first goals included: making a 4-song demo, selling out the Whisky-A-Go-Go, and winning a Grammy. With the release of Hybrid Theory, they would finally achieve the last one.

Linkin Park moved away from Jeff Blue after the success of the album, making Tom Whalley, who had known Rob McDermott (the band's manager) for years, their main contact at Warner. Regarding his relationship with the band, Jeff only said that it was "sensitive."

Composition
Linkin Park and Jeff Blue at the Gold Album presentation for Hybrid Theory in Sacramento on December 22, 2000. In early 2000, Linkin Park sent out quite a few demos to the record label to show their progress on songwriting. Several of these CDs have since leaked online in the decade or so following the album's release.

Some of the songs came together quickly while others took quite a long time. A risky move was to stick with most of the songs found on the demo CDs that Linkin Park sent out to record labels, which got them turned down from record deals. However, Don Gilmore's perfectionist attitude and the hard work of the band paid off, as the reworked versions turned out to be big hits. People who passed on the band would come to Jeff Blue and say the songs that made the album weren't in the demos he sent out to them, but all the songs were actually there. Even Warner Bros. Records made up a story about always believing in the band from day one.

Before Hybrid Theory's release, Chester made a bet with Myra Simpson, national promotions manager at Warner Bros. Records. She had a triple-platinum Stone Temple Pilots plaque and said, "If you go gold by Christmas, I'll give it to you." The album was gold by Christmas 2000 and Chester got the Stone Temple Pilots plaque. He slept with it in his bunk on the tour bus every night.

The original demos for "Forgotten" ("Rhinestone") and "A Place For My Head" ("Esaul", named after a friend of the band) date back to when the band was called Xero and had Mark Wakefield on vocals. Because of this, he and Phoenix have songwriting credits on these songs. Both songs were on the audition tape the band sent to Chester in March 1999.

The earliest known version of "Rhinestone" was released in 1997 on the Xero cassette tape, with programmed drums. After the band got a development deal from Zomba Music Group, they were able to buy new instruments and equipment to do better recordings. It's unknown how many songs the band recorded after this, but a new version of "Rhinestone", still with Mark Wakefield, was featured in the 1998 series The Crow: Stairway To Heaven. The episode with the song aired in May 1999. The earliest known version of "Rhinestone" with Chester Bennington on vocals came from a 9-track demo CD that dates from January 7, 2000 and already had different lyrics. The band can be seen rehearsing the song during Marc Ostrick's Lockout webseries which was recorded on February 24, 2000. According to Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson never got past the working title of the song and still calls it "Rhinestone". In the LP Underground 12 booklet, Brad says the song is "definitely a fan favorite" and its spirit is "intimately interwoven into the formative identity of the band." Its original version was created by Brad, Joe, Mike and Mark.

"Stick N Move" was another track on the 1997 Xero tape and, like "Rhinestone", had programmed drums. A short instrumental version of the song, dating from 1998, was released on the LP Underground 9.0: Demos CD and is labeled as a "Runaway" demo.

Written by Mike Shinoda and Mark Wakefield, "Stick N Move" was played at all their early shows with their original singer and was always a popular song with the audience, so they brought it into the studio for Hybrid Theory; but producer Don Gilmore didn't like it. The tempo and the main riff was then used in the creation of "Runaway". Because of this, Mark received songwriting credits for the song. Chester has said "Runaway" was the most difficult song to write/record because it "took literally like 6 years to write." He has also said it's one of the worst songs they've written.

Mike stated in 2003 that "A Place For My Head" was written "seven years ago" (1996). As soon as Chester joined the band, the band re-recorded the song with him, still with the original lyrics. This version is available on the LP Underground Eleven CD and a rehearsal video of this same version can be found on the Frat Party At The Pankake Festival DVD as an easter egg. A completely reworked version of the song was included in the 2-track CD the band recorded in 1999 after the release of the Hybrid Theory EP. The band can be seen rehearsing this version during Marc Ostrick's Lockout. Curiously, by the time it was filmed (February 24), a version of the song with slightly different lyrics had already been recorded, found on a CD dating from January 7, 2000. Sometime around April 8, 2000, another version of the demo was released for free download on the band's website.

Brad went to Ibanez and played on a lot of different guitars until he found one with a piezo pickup, a setting that allows an electric guitar to sound like acoustic guitar. The first song he thought of playing was "A Place For My Head" and he liked how it sounded. The guitar was borrowed to record the album version.

Another Xero song named "Pictureboard" was written by Mike, Brad, Mark and Joe and re-recorded with Chester, but the band abandoned it. According to Mike, it contains a Barry White sample that prevented its release to the LPU in later years. He confirmed it was never reworked into another song and, describing the song, he said "it isn't even that good." "Pictureboard" was on Chester's audition tape and Brad recalls it being the first song he heard Chester's voice on.

A song named "Slip", for which Mark also received songwriting credits, was in the first batch of songs the band worked on with Chester. Various versions were recorded, but they never felt compelled to release it. The band can be seen rehearsing a version of this song during Marc Ostrick's Lockout. An earlier version was eventually released on the LP Underground Eleven CD.

There was another Xero song recorded with Chester and brought to Don Gilmore for Hybrid Theory but its title is unknown. Mike said the song was "terrible" and didn't make it past being a demo. It's possible this song could be either "Dreamer" or "Weight".

Other Xero demos written by Mark and Mike like "Deftest", "Dialate", "Fuse" and "Reading My Eyes" were likely never recorded with Chester. On "Deftest", Mike said they "were just testing out ideas" and "it sounds like shit"; "Dialate" contained a Wu-Tang Clan sample that had to be cleared for inclusion on the 20th anniversary edition of Hybrid Theory; Mike has said "Fuse" was one of his favorites back in the day, but "it stayed in a hard drive;" and "Reading My Eyes" would only be played with Chester for the first time in 2006.

A beat called "Emo" evolved into the song "She Couldn't" which was written in 1999 by Chester, Brad and Mike and discovered in a 8-track demo CD from February 2000, but the band had to abandon it. Just like "Pictureboard", "She Couldn't" had samples which prevented its release. The song it sampled was "B-Boy Document '99" by High & Mighty. According to Mike, this was one of the earliest demos created with Chester and exactly the type of song that would become part of Linkin Park's identity way down the line on albums like Minutes To Midnight and A Thousand Suns. 4-track demo owned by Mike Rittberg. "And One" from the Hybrid Theory EP was the very first song the band wrote with Chester. After releasing the EP, they continued work on the track for inclusion on the debut album but it didn't make it to the final tracklist. While there's no different studio recording of the song (the version on the demo CDs are basically the same but with the audio channels switched), its live version featured a different arrangement than the one on the EP. According to Brad, they took the outro and made it the bridge and pulled the rhythm tighter.

In the first batch of songs the band worked on with Chester, there was also a song called "Blue". The band didn't like the song, but they thought there was something special about the vocal at the end of it. Chester and Mike took the melody and wrote new words to it. Chester recorded the vocal track, Mike wrote the guitar under it, then they took it into the studio so everyone could work around it and it became "Crawling", a song that had its beat originated from another demo titled "Sky".

The earliest known demo of "Crawling" was featured on a demo CD dating from January 7, 2000. A second version of the song with new instrumental and vocal takes dates from February 2000. By April 25, 2000, the song had lost its rap bridge. Brad describes Chester's vocals on "Crawling" as an example of how he expanded their writing ability in the sense of vocal range. However, Chester said "Crawling" has caused him "the most trouble live more than any other song." The lyrics deal with Chester's struggle with drugs and alcohol and is about taking responsibility for his actions, admitting having a problem with himself. According to Mike Shinoda, the music on "Crawling" was heavily influenced by Depeche Mode. The song was the second single released from the album and won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2002.

While trying to figure out ways to add a hip hop flavor to their music creation process, the band created "Hurry", a demo with guitars and drums recorded straight into Mike's MPC and played off of pads. As an attempt to play with a particular back-and-forth song structure, the demo evolved into "So Far Away", a song described by Brad as "a foreshadowing of Shinoda's melodic facility." Mike said the song was an experiment to figure out if he could sing, but it was eventually scrapped. A version of "Hurry" was released as a downloadable track for the LP Underground 15 CD while "So Far Away" was released in the LP Underground 12 CD.

"Could Have Been" was another early song that didn't make the album. It was written by Chester, Brad and Mike and released in the Hybrid Theory (20th Anniversary Edition).

Two other songs from the Hybrid Theory EP, "Part Of Me" and "Carousel", were re-recorded for inclusion on the album. Reworked versions of the songs are featured on a demo CD dating from January 7, 2000. A third version of both songs dates from February 2000. Both tracks were written by Chester, Brad, Joe, Mike and Rob. The original demo of "Part Of Me", "Chair", was written around a sound that Brad collected of a car alarm. Mike sampled and looped it, Brad wrote the guitar, and they both worked on the song around it. Regarding its lyrics, Mike said they are self-explanatory.

"By Myself" originated from elements of a short instrumental piece called "Sad", which was released on the LP Underground 9.0: Demos CD and dates from 1999. According to Mike, Chester had never screamed in a song before and they had to loan him CDs to get tips on how to do it. He eventually found it "fun to let all that energy out" when screaming. The song was created by Mike, Brad and Chester.

The first known version of "By Myself" can be found on the 2-track CD the band recorded in 1999 after the release of the Hybrid Theory EP. After the CD was released, the song name was changed to "Super Xero". A demo CD dating from January 7, 2000 featured a new version of the song, on which the band worked on until at least February 2000. A version of the song (now called "By Myself" again) released for free download on April 8, 2000 on the band's website was similar to the version on the 2-track CD but slightly different lyrics during the bridge. Another early version of "By Myself" was released on Warner Brothers Records' Raw Power sampler CD sometime before May 30, 2000. This version has the exact same lyrics as the one on the 2-track CD but features a different vocal take.

Like "By Myself", "Points Of Authority" was derived from a short instrumental, called "Oh No". The earliest known version of "Points Of Authority" is the one from the LP Underground 12 CD. In this version, the bridge from the album version is actually the chorus. A similar, but still different, second demo of the song dates from January 7, 2000. A third demo, closest to the album version, dates from April 25, 2000. This version already featured the final chorus, but the intro and bridge had alternate rap lyrics. It was released on the band's website for free download sometime around June 8, 2000.

Mike said "Points Of Authority" was the most difficult song to write on the album. It didn't have a chorus for months and Don Gilmore was putting a lot of pressure on them to write more to it. Mike, Brad and Chester eventually finished it. The original riff for "Points Of Authority" was created by Brad. When he went home, Mike decided to cut it up into different pieces and rearrange them on the computer. Brad had to learn his own part from the computer, but he wasn't bothered. He has stated "Points Of Authority" is one of his favorite songs from Hybrid Theory. The song was intended to be the fifth and final single from the album, with a release set to January 7, 2002, but was ultimately cancelled. Despite this, a music video was still released.

The original title for "In The End" was "Untitled", but the band decided to change it after D'Angelo released a single called "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" in early 2000. The song was created by Mike in the band's rehearsal studio on Hollywood and Vine. He worked overnight in a room with no windows until the song took shape. Mike played the original seed, which included piano and the chorus, to Rob and he told Mike how much he wanted a song that was really true about some aspect of life and this was exactly what he had been thinking. Chester however, wasn't so fond of the song. He thought it was a "pile of shit" and didn't want it on the album, but since then, he has changed his mind, saying "In The End" is a good song that stands the test of time. About the lyrics, Mike said, "I think I was reacting to the things we as a band had gone through in the beginning. The song almost doesn’t know if it wants to be optimistic or pessimistic – the beginning is a little dark, but you can’t tell (lyrically) if it resolves or not. That’s what I like about it." The whole verse for "In The End" is harmonics which Brad came up on his clean guitar. He and Mike worked together on the bassline and composition.

The earliest version of "In The End" is the one from the LP Underground Eleven CD. Right before the band went into the studio to record their debut album, the beat Mike had originally written for the verse was scrapped and Rob recorded a new one. This new version can be found on a demo CD dating from January 7, 2000.

"In The End" was released as the fourth and final single from Hybrid Theory, with a music video inspired by the anime film Princess Mononoke. The Hybrid Theory EP track "Step Up" was a b-side in the single.

The first known versions of "One Step Closer" ("Plaster"), "Papercut" and "With You" ("Dust Brothers") are found on a CD that dates from April 25, 2000.

"One Step Closer" came about after the band had spent about 2 weeks trying to write "Runaway". The band was taking out their frustrations at the inability to finish "Runaway" as well as the problems they were facing with the record label and the constant pressure from producer Don Gilmore. Mike said he and Chester were "just fed up with everything that was going on and we got to the end of our ropes and wrote the song." The song was written in Mike's apartment. While the music came together quickly, the lyrics would take a few tries. The lyrics "I cannot take this anymore/I'm saying everything I've said before/ All these words make no sense," and the chorus, "Everything you say to me takes me one step closer to the edge." came from the band's frustration of handing Don lyrics and he grabbing them and telling Chester to do it again, without even looking. Mike wrote "Shut Up" as a rough example for Chester to scream and they kept that lyric. After the song was done, the band thought for a minute that it wasn't a good idea to write that song and it sounded bad. Chester in particular thought it was a "pile of shit" and didn't want it on the album. Despite this, the song was released as the album's first single and Linkin Park's first single overall. Its title, "Plaster", was changed to "One Step Closer", which Mike said was a little bit more descriptive. Scott Koziol recorded bass for the song and can be seen playing in the music video. The album version was mixed by Andy Wallace, but a version mixed by David Kahne exists and dates from June 2, 2000.

According to Mike, "Papercut" was a song that came together relatively quickly and never lost its working title. Describing the song, he said it has jungle and hip-hop elements. Brad, Chester and Mike all have mentioned "Papercut" as being their favorite song at some point because it "best integrates all our influences into one song and does it in a way that's tasteful and cohesive." The song was released as the album's third single exclusively in the UK. The Dust Brothers in 2005. From left to right: John King and Mike Simpson. Photo by Mr. Bonzai. Linkin Park met the Dust Brothers while looking for someone to produce the album. After the meeting they decided to try writing a song together. The Dust Brothers came up with drum loops and different Moog and synth sounds and the band centered in on those Moog and synth sounds, coupling them with guitar and live drums. During the same sessions, they worked on a second together which was revisited in 2001 for inclusion on Dust Brothers' debut album. To this day, the song remains unreleased and its title is unknown.

The song "Dust Brothers" soon had its title changed to "With You" and a new version was released for free download on the band's website sometime around June 8, 2000. This same version was released under the name "Now I See" between June 20, 2000 and July 11, 2000 as part of a Ozzfest 2000 sampler issued by Warner Bros. Records in conjunction with Reprise Records.

A mostly-finished "Studio Finals" version of the album from May 7, 2000 indicates the band had picked the twelve songs for Hybrid Theory (despite them being in a slightly different order) by that point and had versions that were very close to the final songs. This CD had the first known versions of "Pushing Me Away" ("The Cure For Mr.Hahn's Itch"), "Cure For The Itch" ("The Cure"), and "Runaway" (not counting versions of "Stick N Move"). All songs, with the exception of "With You" ("Now I See"), are different versions from the ones found on previous demo CDs and on the final album. Like "Crawling", "Pushing Me Away" was a song heavily influenced by Depeche Mode. According to Chester, the song deals with being "in a relationship you just can't seem to get out."

The band started a beat called "Grr", which was completely made in a MPC, in an attempt to create a "straight up rap song" for the album, but it was discarded once "Cure For The Itch" was made.

Mike has stated Mr. Hahn has a split personality named Remy who is the person talking at the beginning of "Cure For The Itch" to which Joe later said "'Remy' is a lie. Some idiot made that up." The song was created by Mike and Joe. Joe did the beat and the drums and Mike arranged the strings. From there, the song went off in an electronic direction Mike thought was cool. He said "Cure For The Itch" was his attempt at doing a song without words that would fit into a movie. Its working title was "Mr. Hahn".

By July 18, 2000, the album was already mixed and mastered.

Despite the album being finished by that time, the unmastered version of "One Step Closer" was used on the professional wrestling television program ECW as Nova's theme song between August and November 2000. This version was also featured on the ECW Extreme Music Volume 2: Anarchy Rocks CD in 2001.

Right before Hybrid Theory came out, the band wrote and recorded a new song specifically for Kevin & Bean's 2000 Christmas album The Real Slim Santa. "My December" was recorded at The Loft, in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 9, 2000 (a day before Linkin Park's show in the city). The song would be later released as part of the "One Step Closer" single and the Japanese edition of Hybrid Theory in 2001. Most versions of the "One Step Closer" single credits Mike as the sole songwriter of "My December", but some versions also give credits to Brad and Joe. The song was written inside Linkin Park's tour bus and deals with going home after being on the road away from loved ones.

"High Voltage" from the Hybrid Theory EP, which was evolved from an instrumental called "Siamo" to a song derivative of "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys, was completely remixed by Mike after the album was finished. The new version shares the same string arrangement in its intro that "Cure For The Itch" has in its ending, meaning the two would flow seamlessly. While only Mike, Joe and Brad were credited as songwriters for the original version, Chester is also credited on the remix. According to Mike, the "Akira" in the song was a name he used to go by for a short period. It came from the animated movie of same name, and it's also the long version of his brother's middle name, Akio. The remix was released in January 2001 on the "One Step Closer" single and as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of Hybrid Theory.

Artwork
The art direction and design for the album was handled by Frank Maddocks (his second album cover for Warner Bros. Records), with line art sketches and drawings done by Joe and Mike. Freelancing after college, Frank spent time at the label helping with ar﻿t before he was offered a job and the first album he was involved with was White Pony by Deftones. The members of Linkin Park noticed that and wanted to work with him for Hybrid Theory.

The original concept for the "hybrid soldier" was created by Mike. According to Chester, "The idea of bringing heavier elements and softer elements of music together was represented through the visual art of the album – the soldier and the dragonfly wings. The really hard jaded looks with the really soft frail touches of the wings is something we really like to do." Frank further elaborated, "After numerous creative conversations with the band about the idea of merging aggressive and soft imagery for the album cover, Mike brought in the line art for the soldier to explore further. I hand cut the soldier stencil, sprayed the image and combined with the painterly dragonfly wings, textures and pieces of lyrics. LINKIN PARK Logo was also executed as a hand cut stencil. This was my second major project and album cover I designed while getting my start at Warner Bros. Records. Proud to have been a part of this album and of continuing to work with Mike, Joe and the band for so many years." The cover was inspired by Banksy.

When asked about the artwork, Mike said, ''"When we were doing the art for Hybrid Theory, I remember the label put us in the room with... we told them the art was going to be important for the album, just the art for the band in general, because Joe and I both went to art school. We weren't necessarily going to do our own art, but we cared a lot about what it looked like. We realized that we were just out of art school and somebody who has been working in graphic design or illustration or photography for many years, and does that all day every day, is probably going to be a better choice to create the art. With the head of the art department, they showed us a few rough ideas of what they might do for us and we didn't love them. It was not an immediate match. We realized that this guy named Frank had done all the Deftones art and that was starting to look really cool, like from the first album to the second album, like we had seen a couple other things they had done. We were like, 'Frank works for Maverick which is related to, it's in the same umbrella as Warner, can we get that guy?' and they're like, 'Yeah, probably so.' So we kind of poached Frank from a different part of the company. And Joe and I worked with Frank. One of the things we wanted to do was the stuff like... Shepherd Fairy and Banksy were still underground and starting to become a little more well known and we loved that stuff... what would eventually become street art and it was mostly stencil-based stuff at the time. So we were like, 'we want to do stencil art for our cover.' I ended up drawing the soldier and Frank ended up adding the wings. When we had that combination together, we really liked it. He sprayed it, I drew it and asked him to like stencil it to figure out how that's supposed to look best when reduced and with the texture and everything. He did it, we just loved how it had that toughness of the soldier with the other soft element of the wings."''

The photos on the album were taken on July 29, 2000 when the band was in Pittsburgh opening for The Union Underground. Mike and other members of the band had to borrow some of Frank's clothes for the pre-show photoshoot.

Discussing the wingless soldier seen at times after the album came out, Mike Shinoda said in 2021, ''"Once in a while you'd see a wingless Linkin Park soldier. Originally it was because it was a mistake. I generated a couple of soldier designs and then Frank liked them and wanted to stencil them. So he cut them out and sprayed them, and took a picture of that. And then as a second layer, he did the wings separately and then superimposed them in the computer. So they weren't done together. They weren't actually done actually on the same cardboard or piece of paper or whatever. So, at some point he probably just used the soldier without the wings. Specifically, the one to the side, the one looking to the side. It got used without the wings. And then we didn't catch it, but we did catch it later and said, "Oh, I think we should always use the wings", and he's like, "Oh ok." So the idea of just using the soldier was just kind of a nod to that story, I guess. Good question. See what happens when you pay attention?"''

Physical
Hybrid Theory was released on the North American territory on October 24, 2000 in CD, vinyl and cassette formats. The album was released elsewhere throughout 2001. The Japanese edition, released on January 24, contained two additional tracks taken from the "One Step Closer" single: "My December" and a rendition of "High Voltage". While the initial US press listed Scott Koziol as a touring member, his name was removed from subsequent issues and Phoenix was listed as a band member. Elsewhere, Koziol is still credited.

A special 2 disc edition was released in 2002 on Asian and Australian territories. The first disc contains all 12 tracks from the original album while the second disc contains the two bonus tracks from the Japanese edition plus three tracks from the "Papercut" and "In The End" singles, all recorded live at the Docklands Arena in London on March 24, 2001.

Hybrid Theory was reissued on gatefold vinyl on April 20, 2013 as part of the Record Store Day. It was limited to 3000 copies worldwide and every copy came with a bonus 10 inch "One Step Closer" vinyl single with a poster and a street team sticker. That same year, on November 5th, Hot Topic issued an exclusive clear vinyl of Hybrid Theory limited to 1000 copies worldwide.

A transparent red vinyl of Hybrid Theory was issued and sold exclusively on Walmart on November 21, 2021.

Digital
Hybrid Theory was first issued in digital format on August 29, 2006. iTunes released a "bonus version" featuring "My December" and "High Voltage" as well as a live version of "Papercut" recorded live at BBC Radio One's Evening Session from the "Crawling" single. For the first few years this version was available, it was also accompanied by an interactive booklet in MOV format.

A digital video compilation for the album was released in 2009 featuring the music videos for "One Step Closer", "Crawling", "Papercut", "In The End", and "Points Of Authority".

To celebrate the release of Living Things, Linkin Park partnered with Spotify to release a set of "best of" live compilations to correspond with each of their previous studio albums. Hybrid Theory was released on May 31, 2012, but since all live tracks were taken from the band's Digital Souvenir Package (DSP) program, which was started in 2007, the album was missing several Hybrid Theory songs.

Sometime in 2012, HDTracks started selling Linkin Park albums in audiophile 48kHz/24bit format. On January 15th of the following year, iTunes used the same masters for their Mastered For iTunes versions of Linkin Park albums. Hybrid Theory was issued both as part of the Studio Collection 2000-2012 digital box set and as a standalone deluxe version album. While the first only contained the 12 tracks of the standard album, the latter featured four bonus tracks: a previously unreleased live version of "High Voltage" recorded at Wantagh on August 09, 2001; "My December"; "Points Of Authority (Crystal Method Remix)" from the LP Underground 2.0 CD; and "Papercut" taken from the Milton Keynes show on June 29, 2008. This is the first time "Papercut" was made available in audio format, as the track wasn't included in the Road To Revolution: Live At Milton Keynes CD.

On October 2, 2020, Amazon announced a partnership with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to remaster thousands of songs and albums to Ultra High Definition, upgrading the digital streaming audio quality of these songs to the highest available. In addition, music from Linkin Park, among other artists, was remixed in 3D Audio formats including Dolby Atmos and Sony 360RA. Linkin Park’s 20th anniversary edition of Hybrid Theory was available to stream in 3D Audio exclusively on Amazon Music HD. Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio were released to Apple Music subscribers beginning June 2021, but only the standard edition of Hybrid Theory was available in this format.

20th Anniversary Edition
Main article: Hybrid Theory (20th Anniversary Edition)

Production

 * Produced by Don Gilmore
 * Executive producer: Jeff Blue
 * Recorded at NRG Recordings, North Hollywood, CA
 * Engineered by Don Gilmore
 * Additional engineering & Pro Tools: John Ewing Jr.
 * Assistant Pro Tools: Mike Shinoda
 * Assistant engineer: Matt Griffin
 * Mixed at Soundtrack, NYC
 * Engineer: Steve Sisco
 * Mixed by Andy Wallace
 * Mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering
 * Digital editing: Brian "Big Bass" Gardner

Linkin Park is:

 * Chester Bennington: vocals
 * Rob Bourdon: drums, backing vocals
 * Brad Delson: guitars, bass, backing vocals
 * Joseph Hahn: records, sampling, backing vocals
 * Mike Shinoda: emcee, vocals, beats, sampling
 * Phoenix: bass

Additional Musicians

 * Additional beats on "With You" by The Dust Brothers
 * Ian Hornbeck - Bass on "Papercut", "A Place For My Head" and "Forgotten"
 * Scott Koziol - Bass on "One Step Closer" and touring bass player

Management

 * A&R: Jeff Blue
 * A&R coordination: Natalie Preston & Ariana Murray
 * Marketing director: Peter Standish
 * Worldwide representation: Rob McDermott for The Firm with additional servitude by Ryan Demarti & Ryan Saullo
 * Booking agent: Michael Arfin for Artist Group
 * Legal: Danny Hayes for selverne, Mandelbaum and Mintz
 * Business managers: Michael Oppenheim & Jonathan Schwartz for Gudvi, Chapnik & Oppenheim

Artwork

 * Art direction + design: Flem aka Frank Maddocks
 * Photography: James Minchin III
 * Soldier drawing: Mike Shinoda
 * Line art sketches + drawings: Joseph Hahn & Mike Shinoda

Songs Played Live

 * "Papercut"
 * "One Step Closer"
 * "With You"
 * "Points Of Authority"
 * "Crawling"
 * "Runaway"
 * "By Myself"
 * "In The End"
 * "A Place For My Head"
 * "Forgotten"
 * "Cure For The Itch"
 * "Pushing Me Away"
 * "My December"
 * "High Voltage" (Mike Shinoda Remix)

Tours

 * An Education In Rebellion Tour
 * Ridin' High Tour
 * Kings Of The Game Tour
 * Master Bay Tour
 * European Promo Tour
 * Street Soldiers Tour
 * Back To School Tour
 * US-to-Europe Tour
 * Ozzfest
 * European Tour
 * Family Values Tour
 * Countdown To Revolution Tour
 * Projekt Revolution Tour

Promotion
The tracklist for Linkin Park's debut album Hybrid Theory was revealed on August 5, 2000 with a tentative release on October 24th. The tracklist had "In The End" listed as "The Untitled (In The End)" while all other tracks already had their final titles. The cover art was revealed to street team members on October 5, 2000.

In order to build their fan base, the band had been working with StreetWise, a marketing company started by David "Beno" Benveniste which was in essence a street team. By the time the group signed with Warner Bros., they had fans in Scotland, Japan and Australia and a worldwide thousand-person unpaid street team. Phoenix with a promo cassette. Several promotional items were released by the band before the album. Besides the Xero tape and the Hybrid Theory EP, the band did a two-track CD containing early versions of "A Place For My Head" and "By Myself" in 1999 which was distributed during their shows. A cassette tape containing the final versions of "With You" and "Points Of Authority" was available for free on the merch table at the band's first shows as Linkin Park. An EP entitled 3-Song E.P. was released in August 2000. Another cassette, entitled Linkin Park Sampler, containing "One Step Closer" and "With You" was sent out to street team members via Streetwise and given away by radio stations, namely New York City's KROCK and San Francisco's Live 105, and at their shows to promote the band's debut single. The band also had a few songs featured on samplers such as Ozzfest Sampler 2000, Bullshit Free, and Raw Power.

The band's biography from hybridtheory.com, written in 2000, reveals the band had plans to release a five song EP and tour in the US West Coast in May, but the EP never materialized. The potential content of the EP is unknown.

Mike Rittberg, who was vice president of promotions at Warner Bros. Records, is credited with conceptualizing a marketing plan key to propelling formerly unknown Linkin Park's debut record, Hybrid Theory, to $10M in global sales and multi-platinum status.

Jeff Blue said, "In 2000, at a radio convention, programmers got an early taste of "One Step Closer" and began demanding to play the track. Warner Bros., in poetic synergy, rushed out the single to rock radio and moved up the release date for the album, now called Hybrid Theory, to October 2000. A few weeks later, Chester and I were ­vacationing in Mexico. A girl walked past Chester, saw his wrists adorned with fire tattoos, and said to her friend, "That's the guy in the video I told you about!" The "One Step Closer" video had been out only a couple of weeks, and that was all the ­confirmation I needed to know that Chester, along with the rest of the band, was on his way to stardom." "One Step Closer" was followed in 2001 by the singles "Crawling", "Papercut" (in the UK) and "In The End".

Linkin Park toured in 2000 as a supporting act for The Union Underground, Kottonmouth Kings, P.O.D., and Papa Roach, embarking on headline tours in North America and Europe the following year. They also supported Deftones on their Back To School Tour and took part on Ozzfest and The Family Values Tour.

Brian Bennington, Chester's brother, ran a newsletter called Insider from mid-2000 to 2001, giving fans updates on the band's activities.

Critical Reception
Mike Shinoda said:

"When we released Hybrid Theory. Our first album was painful to make, because it seemed like everyone was trying to tell us to change. They wanted us to be more like this band or that band, and we fought it tooth and nail the entire way.

So, that is to say: we made the album we wanted to make.

But once it came out, it took off surprisingly fast, and we got a lot of criticism for it entering the mainstream so quickly!

We had to overcome a lot of our own fears about what it meant to “sell out,” and realized that we never “sold out” at all—we did what we wanted to do, and people reacted to it in a positive way.

As long as we didn’t compromise our integrity, we could stand behind the record, which is what we did."

Awards
= Reanimation (2002) Era = Reanimation is the first of Linkin Park's remix albums. Featured on the record are remixed versions of songs found on Hybrid Theory - including B-sides - and a few interlude tracks. Some tracks include new parts and different lyrics. It began small, with Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn intending to create remixes of a few tracks from the record, not the whole album. The record features many collaborations, every song featuring a different artist. The tracks the band remixed themselves are "Wth>You", "Kyur4 Th Ich", both remixed by Joe; "P5hng Me A*wy", "Krwlng", both remixed by Mike; and "By_Myslf", remixed by Josh Abraham and Mike. There wasn't necessarily a specific set of studio time the band gave to this record; instead, the band began working on sending out remixes to different artists during their 2001 tours for Hybrid Theory, recording new parts at the back of their tour bus. As stated by Brad Delson, the band didn't seek out big names to attract attention - they sought out a variety of artists, including those who people may have not have heard of yet. Mike Shinoda took the reigns on the production of this record instead of going with a traditional producer, and came up with different characters to "remix" the titles of all the tracks on the album.

Initially shooting for a May 2002 release date, the album took longer than expected to complete. The band had to put the recording of Meteora on hold in order to finish the album. Mike explained, "we are having a very difficult time selecting which remixes are going to be on the album. for each track, numerous artists have submitted material, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to choose. so far, we're pretty sure that the following artists are going to appear on the final album: aaron lewis, jay gordon, pharoah monche, the alchemist, chali 2na of jurassic 5, mickey petralia, dj z-trip, and there is a possibility that a number of others will be contributing vocals and other instruments on various tracks."

The band preferred to call the remixes "reinterpretation" rather than the former term, as it was more than just the songs' backbeats that received a makeover. In a blog post celebrating the ten year anniversary of Fort Minor's The Rising Tied, Mike briefly touched upon Reanimation, stating that it was "an attempt at showcasing the variety of (underground) influences that moved us, past and “present"."

Regarding the decision to make an album that didn't focus primarily on the crunching guitars and heavy aspect of the band, Chester Bennington said the following to Rolling Stone: "There are a lot of different elements to our music. And there are certain elements that are easier and more recognizable than others. We have never been a strictly rock band, as we have a very heavy electronic and hip-hop influence and try to combine the two together. When we did Reanimation it was a chance for us to show what our music would sound like if we took all the guitars out. It showed that Linkin park is a very hip-hop driven electronic idea."

First tastes of the tracks on Reanimation came in the background of the Frat Party At The Pankake Festival DVD, where "X-Ecutioner Style", "My>Dsmbr", and "H! Vltg3" could all be heard. Additionally, a demo of "1stp Klosr" was hidden as an easter egg on the DVD.

In early 2002 while A&R executive Jeff Blue was doing budget work for Reanimation was when Rob McDermott told him the band didn't want to work with him anymore. Phil Quartararo left Warner in May 2002 and Jeff Blue went on to work for Interscope after getting an offer from the label. Tom Whalley, former president of Seagram’s Interscope/IGA record division, had accepted back in 2000 an estimated $30-million deal to run Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Records division as Chairman/CEO when his contract expired, so he took over and became Linkin Park's main contact at Warner. Blue wasn't thanked in the album notes of this record.

Writing and Recording
Reanimation was recorded primarily during the band's tour for Hybrid Theory. The band recorded new parts of the songs on the back of their tour bus from Ozzfest to the end of the year, while sending out stems to different artists and producers so that they could collaborate with them. Mike said, "on every track, rather than having the remixer submit a final piece of work, we've collaborated in the writing process. some songs have been simply trading files, some have involved sitting down and re-writing entire sections of the song. in any case, though, the songs have changed a lot. it's very exciting."

Requests for a remix were sent out on a whim, and some remixes either didn't end up making the cut or were finished too late. The latter happened to be the case with Marilyn Manson's remix of "By Myself", titled "Buy Myself", which was finished later than the band desired and ended up being a B-side for the record. Mike said in a LPU Chat in January 2002 that "he [hadn't] had time to yet. We don't know him very well, so we don't really feel that we're in a position to bug him." Manson later responded with "I have not yet remixed Linkin Park but I have been asked to do so. It is possible I might make one of their songs something that people who dislike them could appreciate. I enjoy challenges and the opportunity to create. Money doesn't make a difference as long as I enjoy doing something." The status of the remix was finally revealed by Brad in June, just weeks before the release of the record: "We worked with Manson on a version of By Myself that will appear as a B-side on some upcoming release."

The band sought out several other artists to work with, including Björk. Mike expressed a deep interest in working with her, though nothing ever substantiated from getting into contact with her. Brad claimed that when they approached her to work, she wanted to work on a full song collaboration with them rather than just a remix. In a 2003 interview, Chester revealed other artists the band looked to work with, citing Björk, Aphex Twin, and PJ Harvey.

This was a very Mike-centered project. "i've been put in charge of helping the writing process along and coordinating with the remixers and performers," he said. Other band members recorded various other parts (Joe providing the biggest contributions in the form of full remixes), but it was Mike who really took hold of the project. Rob claimed that his only input on the record was providing his opinions on the remixes.

Mike commented on the stressful times he had coordinating over thirty artists' schedules in order to work on the remixes, claiming he would never do it again - this all changed in 2013 when the band released their second dedicated remix album Recharged.

Mixing for the record began on May 19, 2002. On the same day Mike gave an update saying "so far, we've mixed about four songs. mark "spike" stent is mixing. he works with bjork and massive attack, among many others. its cool swapping stories with him, and talking about all the different ways people work in the studio. but more importantly, the songs are coming along well. i can't wait for you to hear them."

Composition
Reanimation consists of remixes of tracks from the band's debut record Hybrid Theory and its b-sides. There is a stronger emphasis on the band's electronic side than the rock side - as Chester claimed, the band wanted to show that they weren't just about rock and hip-hop. The album blends different elements of electronica, hip-hop, underground, and rock, differing dynamically from Hybrid Theory. Mike explained, "Overall, its a very challenging album, one that is very complex in structure. You will hear that we had a lot of fun with our collaborators, rewriting our old stuff and writing a lot of new parts. In style, you find that it's a very sample driven album, and also something just for the fans to get to know more about us and the people our band has been influenced by."

On the band's website, Mike talked about how the concept of the album evolved over time: "it began as a simple remix idea, and has become something very different--not only from the original, but different from what most people think of when they hear the word "remix". this album is much more than putting a beat over the old vocals; these songs have new parts, new words, new melodies, and new themes. and for all of you that complained about the short length of the first album, we have a treat for you: this album is probably going to end up being about 60 minutes long, with about 15 tracks."

Some newer parts of the remixes were inspired by earlier versions of the material. For example, Mike reworked the lyrics of "Rhinestone" (a demo of "Forgotten") and used them in his verse for "Frgt/10", and "By_Myslf" features scratches similar to those in the Studio Finals version of "By Myself".

Remixes that remained unreleased on the record included DJ Crook's remix of "My December", DJ Z-Trip's remix of "Points Of Authority", a remix of "Points Of Authority" featuring Ryu by The Crystal Method, and unknown remixes by Tricky and Prince Paul.

Music Videos
Music videos were created for every song on the album for MTV:Playback by directors who were handpicked by the band themselves. The special was aired on July 27, 2002 at 2:00pm with a rerun on July 28th at 8:00pm.

Nathan "Karma" Cox ("Pts.Of.Athrty") had previously co-directed music videos for "Papercut" and "In The End" with Joe Hahn. Ryan Thompson ("Wth>You") had also worked on "In The End" as a visual effects producer. Additionally, Scott Patton ("P5hng Me A*wy") was someone Joe used to work with when he worked on movies. Kimo Proudfoot ("Rnw@y") would later work as director on Linkin Park's first live DVD, Live In Texas. While the full band isn't featured in any of those videos, Joe made appearances on "Ppr:kut" and "Kyur4 Th Ich", and Mike Shinoda is featured on "Enth E Nd" alongside Kutmasta Kurt and Motion Man.

The videos of "Frgt/10" and "Kyur4 Th Ich" were later included in the Reanimation DVD alongside a second video of "Pts.Of.Athrty" directed by Joe Hahn and its making of. The video for "Pts.Of.Athrty" was also released on the Reanimation CD as enhanced content.

After summer 2002, the videos became pretty rare and hard to find. In 2009, LP Association posted a download of the videos for the first time, taken from a VHS rip.

Physical
Due to a problem with the distributor of the CD, a company called WEA, Reanimation didn't arrive to select Best Buy stores until July 31, 2002. Rob McDermott, Linkin Park's manager, issued an apology through the band's official website.

Reanimation was also released in DualDisc format. On one disc, one side is a CD and the other is a DVD. The DualDisc format was only announced officially in the late 2004, two years after this edition of the album was released. It has become quite rare since then. Adam Ruehmer, said, "Funny. When I was at Machine Shop we had boxes and boxes and boxes of these things around the office. We couldn't get rid of them fast enough. I used to give them out at shows or throw them in made good LPU packs, etc."

In 2019 Warner Music Group's license to the "Warner Bros." name and shield logo with WarnerMedia expired. Warner Bros. Records was then rebranded as "Warner Records" and the entire Linkin Park catalog was reissued with the new Warner Records logo, new catalog number, Warner website address changed from "warnerbrosrecords.com" to "warnerrecords.com" and the Label Code "LC 00392" removed from the credits. The new issue of Reanimation comes with the digipak booklet (which presents a different cover) in a jewel case packaging in an apparent mistake by the label.

Digital
Reanimation was first issued in digital format on August 29, 2006. iTunes released a "bonus version" featuring live versions of "One Step Closer" and "My December" as well as a remix titled "Buy Myself". For the first few years this version was available, it was also accompanied by an interactive booklet in MOV format.

[01] Opening // Mike Shinoda

 * Violin and Cello by Phoenix
 * Recorded at The Stockroom

[02] Pts.Of.Athrty // Jay Gordon

 * Reinterpreted by Jay Gordon/Nova for The Astro Americans
 * Additional Programming and Production: Doug Trantow
 * Additional Production by Brad Delson
 * Engineered by Doug Trantow and Jay Gordon
 * Recorded at Division One Studios
 * All Programming by Jay Gordon/Nova

[03] Enth E Nd // Kutmasta Kurt featuring Motion Man

 * Reinterpreted by Kutmasta Kurt
 * Recorded at Total Recall Studios & The Stockroom
 * Motion Man Appears Courtesy of Threshold Recordings, LLC

[05] Frgt/10 // Alchemist featuring Chali 2na

 * Reinterpreted by The Alchemist
 * Recorded at The Stockroom & DND Studios
 * Scratches by Mr. Hahn
 * Chali 2na Appears Courtesy of Interscope Records

[06] P5hng Me A*wy // Mike Shinoda featuring Stephen Richards

 * Reinterpreted by Mike Shinoda
 * Guitar by Brad Delson and Mike Shinoda
 * Recorded at The Stockroom
 * Stephen Richards Appears Courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp.

[07] Plc.4 Mie Hæd // AMP Live featuring Zion

 * Reinterpreted by AMP Live for 418 Hz Productions
 * Recorded at Blue Room Studios & The Stockroom
 * Zion Appears Courtesy of Live Up Records

[08] X-Ecutioner Style // featuring Black Thought

 * Elements of "One Step Closer" & "Fortgotten" reinterpreted by Sean C & Roc Raida
 * Recorded at Adiar Cor Studios & The Studio
 * Additional Recording at Purple Velvet Studios
 * Engineer at The Studio: Jeff Chestek
 * Assistant Engineer at The Studio: Ray Wilson
 * Black Thought Appears Courtesy of MCA Records

[09] H! Vltg3 // Evidence featuring Pharoahe Monch & DJ Babu

 * Reinterpreted by Evidence
 * Additional Production by Porse 1
 * Mixed by Troy Staton
 * Editing by DJ Revolution
 * Cuts by Babu for Dilated Junkies
 * Recorded and Mixed at American Recordings and The Cutting Room Studios, New York, NY
 * Pharoahe Monch's vocals Recorded at The Cutting Room and Millenia Music
 * Pharoahe Monch Appears Courtesy of Rawkus Records
 * DJ Babu Appears Courtesy of Capital Records, Inc.
 * Original version available on Linkin Park's DVD: Frat Party At The Pankake Festival

[11] Wth>You // Chairman Hahn featuring Aceyalone

 * Reinterpreted by Chairman Hahn
 * Guitar by Mike Shinoda
 * Recorded at The Stockroom & Joe's parents' house
 * Aceyalone Appears Courtesy of Project Blowed Recordings

[12] Ntr\Mssion // Mike Shinoda

 * Violin and Cello by Phoenix
 * Recorded at The Stockroom

[13] Ppr:kut // Cheapshot & Jubacca featuring Rasco & Planet Asia

 * Reinterpreted by Cheapshot & Jubacca
 * Recorded at The Pressbox Studios
 * Planet Asia Appears Courtesy of Interscope Records

[14] Rnw@y // Backyard Bangers featuring Phoenix Orion

 * Reinterpreted by Backyard Bangers
 * Additional Production: Mickey Petralia
 * Recorded at Rowena Projects & The Stockroom
 * The Backyard Bangers are Josh Kouzomis and Eric Moss

[15] My<Dsmbr // Mickey P. featuring Kelli Ali

 * Reinterpreted by Mickey Petralia
 * Programming: Mickey Petralia and Mike Fitzpatrick
 * Keyboards: Mickey Petralia and Greg Kurstin
 * Recorded at The Stockroom, Rowena Projects & Olympic Studios
 * Kelli Ali Appears Courtesy of One Little Indian Records
 * Original version available on Linkin Park's DVD: Frat Party At The Pankake Festival

[17] By_Myslf // Josh Abraham & Mike Shinoda

 * Reinterpreted by Josh Abraham
 * Engineered by Ryan Williams
 * Second Engineer Jonas G.
 * Additional Guitar by Stef Carpenter
 * Additional Programming by Erik Gregory of XSM
 * Bass by Phoenix
 * Remixed at Pulse Recordings, Hollywood, CA & The Stockroom
 * Stef Carpenter Appears Courtesy of Maverick Recording Company

[18] Kyur4 Th Ich // Chairman Hahn

 * Reinterpreted by Chairman Hahn
 * Recorded at Joe's parents' house

[19] 1stp Klosr // The Humble Brothers featuring Jonathan Davis

 * Reinterpreted by The Humble Brothers
 * Bass and guitars performed by Saki Kaskas
 * Recorded at The Humble Bros. Studio, Elementree Studios & The Stockroom
 * Jonathan Davis Appears Courtesy of Epic/Immortal Records

[20] Krwlng // Mike Shinoda featuring Aaron Lewis

 * Reinterpreted by Mike Shinoda
 * Violin and Cello by Phoenix
 * Recorded at The Stockroom & Bus #2
 * Aaron Lewis Appears Courtesy of Elektra Entertainment Group

[21] Buy Myself Remix // Marilyn Manson

 * Reinterpreted by Marilyn Manson
 * Engineered and mixed by Marilyn Manson and Tim Skold
 * Co-production by Tim Skold
 * All programming by Tim Skold
 * Loops and keyboards performed by Marilyn Manson and M.W. Gacy
 * Guitars performed by John 5
 * Marilyn Manson appears courtesy of Interscope Records

Production

 * Produced by Mike Shinoda
 * Mixed by Mike "Spike" Stent at Olympic Studios, London
 * Assisted by David Threahearn
 * Protools Engineer: Paul "P-Dub" Walton
 * Mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering
 * Digital Editing: Brian "Big Bass" Gardner
 * Sample Clearance Services: Music Resources, Inc., Nancie Stern
 * All tracks except 1,4,8,9,10,12,15,16 originally appear on the Warner Bros. album Hybrid Theory
 * Produced by Don Gilmore, Mixed by Andy Wallace
 * Original versions of "My December" and "High Voltage" produced by Mike Shinoda

Linkin Park is

 * Chester Bennington // Vocals
 * Rob Bourdon // Drums, Backing Vocals
 * Brad Delson // Guitars, Bass, Backing Vocals
 * Joseph Hahn // Records, Sampling, Backing Vocals
 * Mike Shinoda // Emcee, Vocals, Sampling
 * Phoenix // Bass, Backing Vocals

Management

 * A&R: Tom Whalley, Kevin Sakoda & Jeff Blue
 * A&R Coordination: Natalie Preston
 * Marketing Directors: Peter Standish & Kevin Sakoda
 * Worldwide Representation: Rob McDermott for The Firm
 * With additional servitude by Ryan DeMarti and Ryan Saullo
 * Booking Agent: Michael Arfin
 * Legal: Danny Hayes for Davis, Shapiro, Lewit, Montone & Hayes
 * Business Managers: Michael Oppenheim & Jonathan Schwartz for Gudvi, Sussman & Oppenheim

Artwork

 * Photography: Clay Patrick McBride
 * Art Direction & Design: Mike Shinoda & Flem
 * Art: Mike Shinoda & Joseph Hahn
 * Page Design: Flem

DVD-Audio

 * Producer: David May
 * Remixed to Surround Sound by: Mr. Hahn, Ted Hall, David May
 * Assistant: Bruce Balestier
 * Mastered by: Bob Ludwig, Gateway Mastering
 * Graphics Design: Sean Donnelly
 * Production Director: Penny Marciano
 * Graphics Coordinator: Raena Winscott
 * Authoring: Spencer Chrislu, Craig Anderson and David Dieckmann

Making of Animated Pts.of.Athrty

 * Directed and Produced by Bill Berg-Hillinger for id playground
 * Editor: Kim O'Bryan
 * Camera: Mark Fiore
 * Special thanks to everyone at Radium Studios, Santa Monica and Craig Murray Productions

Songs Played Live

 * Pts.Of.Athrty (Partially, as an extended intro for "Points Of Authority")
 * Enth E Nd (Performed by Fort Minor)
 * Frgt/10
 * P5hng Me A*wy
 * Plc.4 Mie Hæd (Partially, in Joe's Solo)
 * Wth>You (Partially, as an instrumental in an alternative version of "With You")
 * 1stp Klosr (Partially, as an extended bridge for "One Step Closer")
 * Krwlng (Partially, as an extended intro for "Crawling")
 * Buy Myself (Partially, in Joe's Solo)

Promotion
"Pts.Of.Athrty" and "H! Vltg3" served as promotional singles for Reanimation and were the tracks radio programmers were encouraged to play. An official music video was directed by Joe Hahn for "Pts.Of.Athrty". Promotional CDs for both songs were sent out to members of Linkin Park's Street Team.

Linkin Park's 2001 DVD Frat Party At The Pankake Festival featured an early demo of "1stp Klosr" along with a preview of the Reanimation website as an easter egg. The procedure to accessing this easter egg was intentionally revealed only a month prior to the album's release. It is accessed from a chapter conveniently titled "The Future".

The proposed track listing for the album was unveiled in two parts on the band's website on June 14, 2002. Building up to Reanimation's release, a series of chats were hosted in July on linkinpark.com with collaborators featured on the album as well as band members. Linkin Park also launched a special site for the album at reanimation.linkinpark.com with a Reanimation Player featuring exclusive content. "P5hng Me A*wy", "Wth>You", "Frgt/10", "By_Myslf", "Pts.Of.Athrty", and "H! Vltg3" were all featured in the site before the album's release.

Linkin Park named July 30, 2002 "Wear your LP Shirt Day" to get fans excited about the album coming out. They were prompted to put on Linkin Park clothes in stores all over the world when picking up Reanimation.