re: Is Hybrid Theory the GOAT rock album of the 00's?

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Dude, WTF is Korn, then?

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better than Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit obviously but not in the class of Rage or Deftones

So i guess tier 2?

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Creed was never the biggest band in the world, not even close.

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sadly you're wrong. For a hot minute there they were everywhere.

Jesus, it was With Arms Wide Open followed by One Last Breath every time I turned on VH1. It was a tough time to live through lol.

Old video, but it's relevant at the moment

Creed Shreds 3

GOAT, not even close. At the time, for the target audience, it was good. Lyrically, every song was about an unknown "you" or you-ooh", but at least they didn't want to skin my arse raw with a chainsaw.

Bring the criticism, but I like the Jay Z mashup.

Part I.

This thread is about whether Hybrid Theory is the best album of the 00’s. Could be troll thread, and I wouldn’t know, because I’m still trying to figure out what 00’s rock is (or was).

So as an early Gen-Xer let me share my perspective on rock music and why almost nothing after Smells Like Teen Spirit does anything for me. And maybe it shouldn’t. I’m middle aged now. Rock music is essentially for the young and sexually frustrated (teenage angst and all).

Notes and disclaimers . . .

1. I’m truly only trying to share an OG perspective here, not crap all over modern rock just for sake of being a jerk.

2. This is how I remember things and I did very little research so a few dates or band names may be incorrect/misremembered. If you want to nitpick, go ahead, I think I can still make my basic case.

3. As a hack guitarist you may notice that much of my opinion involves the absence of the instrument in current rock music.

So, without further ado, I present:

A SHORT HISTORY OF MODERN ROCK MUSIC ACCORDING TO RANTARDOMONTALBON © [kidding, I don’t give crap about copyright]

The generation before mine witnessed the actual creation of rock ‘n roll music. So they get to define exactly how rock ‘n roll began. Perhaps it started with Fats Domino, Chubby Checker, Elvis, and Little Richard. Maybe it started with The Beatles, The Yardbirds, and Hendrix. Either way the first golden era of rock music ended in the mid-70s with monstrously popular bands like Aerosmith, The Who, Stones, and Zeppelin. Some of these bands continue to make music but they are generationally different than what followed.

Defining musical eras is pretty difficult but the second golden generation of rock music started with the eight-bass-beat intro to Running With The Devil (VH1 - 1978). One could certainly argue that it started with KISS or maybe even Montrose (1972) but for me it starts with VH1 and ends with, say, XYZ – Face Down In The Gutter ( LINK)

The real big bang happens around 1981-2. And there is rock music for everyone.

In ascending order of ‘rockish-ness” if your parents’ Joan Baez or Gordon Lightfoot albums didn’t scratch your rock itch you’ve got Chicago, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, Toto, Journey, Loverboy, Triumph, Night Ranger, Sammy Hagar, Def Leppard, The Michael Shenker Group, Fastway, Vandenburg, Quiet Riot, Priest, Maiden, and Ozzy. Among many, many others.

In 1983 you get Dio and this guy ( Alcatrazz - Hiroshima Mon Amour).

For those of you still reading this is ~34 years ago and well before Al Gore invented the internet. Also this is the era when albums co-existed with the cassette tapes. Beside radio, music took a while to get around.

So this post is still about the GOAT 00’s rock album so let’s move ahead to the end of the second golden era of rock, setting aside the 80s pop rock stuff aside (The B2s, The Outfield, INXS, etc.) to keep the focus on rock, hard rock, and metal.

Much has been said about how the hair band era played itself out and there is some truth to that. Despite making more money, drinking more booze, and getting much more stinky finger than I ever will, the band Poison sort of epitomizes the problems with the genre. Cinderella gets a pass because you should go back and listen to more of them.

But there was still a lot of great hard rock going on that mostly eschewed the big hair, mascara wearing, cheesedick rock scene. [And the cheesedick stuff wasn't all bad TNT - 10,000 Lovers)( White Lion - Little Fighter) (Britney Fox - Girl School)( Ugly Kid Joe)


At the end of the 1980s I was listening to, e.g.,: Whitesnake ( Bad Boys), Dokken ( Tooth and Nail), Slaughter( Up All Night), Skid Row ( 18 and Life) , Extreme ( He Man Woman Hater), Badlands ( High Wire) , XYZ ( Inside Out), and Megadeth Symphony of Destruction).

*Point coming*

Around the same time Appetite For Destruction (GNR) dropped out of the sky. A generational album which rather loudly informed modern rock that it was time to reconnect the dots back to Zeppelin and return to more fundamental blues-based hard rock. And then this happened:

Nirvana. Nirvana happened.

Like an entire generation of American kids simultaneously decided that playing guitar wasn’t cool anymore. And chicks and partying and having a good time wasn’t cool anymore either. And thus an entire generation of musical figgots was born. Sadly, this is, musically speaking, the back half of Gen-X.

80s rock limped on a little into the 90s bit with super groups like Winger, Mr. Big, and Chicken Foot. But it all just stopped. Nobody took up the mantle after GNR to make the next great rock album. Stone Temple Pilots sort of went with it, until heroin. But the scene was still there for the rock mantle to be passed.

Tool, Bush, NIN, Mud Honey, Goo Goo Dolls . . . none of this stuff is good rock music. The closest I came to liking 90s grunge was the Temple of A Dog collab album.

The best rock album of the 1990s was Dookie. The second best album was Alice in Chains – Greatest Hits (2001). After that, as a hard rock fan, no music happened at all. Later on I would learn about some progressive bands like Dream Theatre and Bozzio Stevens Levins but that was well after the fact.

But this post is still about the GOAT 00’s album and I’m still working around to that.

Part II.

Rock basically split into the wrong directions starting in the 90s. The dominant strain went to grunge which is mopey, depressing, and musically childish. The other (worst) part went towards ‘shock rock’ - Maryiln Mason, GWAR, Slipknot and ‘we’re more edgy and hardcore than you’ attitude.

This latter branch of wayward rock is what seems to have dominated the 00’s scene.

There’s no joy or fun in the ‘00s rock music. First they tuned down to D. Then the tuned down to C. Chunka, chunka, chunka. Boring. And those stupid guttural vocals. Sure, maybe as part of one song on your album, but everything is musically so wrong with ’00s music. What used to be singing, often with harmony vocals, became angry shouting. Lyrics about having a good time (for the most part) became about . . . well who knows because you can’t understand them. And FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT HIS HOLY WHY ARE THERE NO GUITAR SOLOS?

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m all about throwing horns, banging heads and elbows in a mosh pit. But there’s no middle ground anymore with rock music. It’s either grind core (for lack of the correct term) savageness, wrist-slitting emo indie music, or weak, lame- arsed corporate Top 40 bands masquerading as rock.

Here is a song from 1982. Night Ranger – ( Don't Tell Me You Love Me). 35 years ago. Everything about this song is better than anything about 00’s rock or Top 40 rock today. And they’re just an 80s chick rock band in the grand scheme of things. Rock music 35 years before 1982 wasn’t even born. Mainstream rock music 35 years after 1982 is pretty much dead.

GET OFF MY LAWN!

P.s. This post is supported in substantially equal parts of both good faith and beer.

P.p.s We all love music. And music is like sex. It has to be really, really bad for me to not like something about a song.

P.p.p.s. Credit to bands like Avenged and 5 Finger (and few others) who still carry the bands with guitarist’s mantle. You’re out there but need more brothers.

'Cause I give a shite about rock music.

Put on your hoodie and turn up Jay-Z on your headphones.

It'll be OK.

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Stripes- A case could be made. Just as talentented as anything in the 90s.

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You mean Jack White only, right...his sister couldn't really drum her way out of a wet paper bag.

Fred Durst is the undisputed king of nu metal

Zach de la rocca is up therep

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No it hasn't. Now is the best time for music probably in history. it has never been easier for artists to get their stuff out there. 

What is true though is that it's that good music is much harder to find than it used to be.

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It's harder for band's to get developed now though.

It's much harder to make it.

Band's have to tour relentlessly to make money.