Writing and recording a sophomore album is hard enough already, doubly so if that album is highly successful out of the gate. The pressure to meet sales and critical expectations can cause just about any band to fold under the pressure. When you drop a debut album that eventually goes on to sell over 30 million copies worldwide and immediately start playing Ozzfest, that weight immediately becomes even more substantial. So it’s with that in mind that Linkin Park’s 2003 sophomore album Meteora, which was released on March 25th, 2003, is an even more impressive achievement.
On Meteora, Linkin Park truly pushed themselves to their creative limit. That is most evident on songs that stretch their rap-rock framework into something more, like on album standout “Breaking The Habit”. Tracks like this one, which are free of aggression but not lacking in emotional turmoil, rank as some of the most vulnerable moments of the band’s career.
The album is jam-packed with touches of electronica (foreshadowing the band’s mid-period material), hip-hop, and alt-metal, setting a sonic template for many bands that tried to recreate what is a defining modern rock record. It’s a record, like Hybrid Theory, where every song could have been a potential single. Those supposed “filler” tracks aren’t actually such, though. Opener “Don’t Stay” starts the album with a healthy dose of aggression, yet it’s tempered by the massive single to follow, the mid-tempo and chorus-driven “Somewhere I Belong”. The latter’s vocal interplay between Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda is, in a word, unforgettable. Linkin Park was always at their best when utilizing those vocal trade-offs to their full effect, and that also goes doubly so on “Lying From You”.
Meteora is more than just the hooks and choruses on “Faint” and “Numb”. Meteora is an album that wraps emotional turmoil and relatable situations into its rap-rock framework, and remains one of the few modern rock records that won’t have you hitting the skip button at all.
