re: Greatest Rock Album of the 2000s?

Girlfriend and I did some research into this recently looking at things like album sales etc. and we came to the conclusion that Hybrid Theory by Linkin Park is the most universally loved and iconic record of the 2000s.

A lot of lists gave bullcrap Arcade Fire and Wilco type records that were big for a minute, but Hybrid Theory was a damn near perfect record at the perfect time much like Nevermind.

Musically, I think Lateralus is the best in terms of musicianship and song craft, but it’s not a complete record, there were definitely some duds and filler songs on there.

Toxicity was a complete record but had that weird Armenian thing going that precluded it from crossing over and attracting new “unlikely fans” like Hybrid Theory.

American Idiot is in the running, but as a big time Dookie fan, it felt like Green Day saw Good Charlotte and was like, “k, lets dress like that and sing about hating George Bush.” It was a cash grab/reboot record for them.

My favorite though? Contraband by Velvet Revolver. In fact, I think it is the purest rock n roll album of the past 20 years. If some alien from Xanthakkus came to Earth and said, “explain to me what rock music is.” Then I would hand them Contraband.