Hybrid Theory was all about Linkin Park finding their footing but with Meteora, they stood tall, sturdy and proud. This is their most assertive and decisive collection of tracks to date, and the sense of confidence permeated throughout as Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda once more found a duality that's rare in rock and roll. At that point in time, it was groundbreaking on a commercial scale and as MTV would attest, LP transcended a lot of music out on the market at that point.

Tracks like "Don't Stay" and "Lying From You" were so well-polished yet didn't get enough praise on the front-end, probably because they sandwiched "Somewhere I Belong". The latter was mainstream gold -- just ask Transformers fans. The hooks and singalong essences of all these songs had everyone in a frenzy. Shinoda really let his rap skills shine early on too, making the most of LP's drive to add more melody to their sound. Being so unafraid to move away from their rough-cut, experimental style of old definitely needs to be commended. Shinoda steps up. It's no surprise he comes to the fore because the reception of Reanimation showed that fans wanted the rap-rock to lean a tad more to the band's hip-hop style of play.

That's not to say Bennington doesn't have his cake and eat it too. Radio would go crazy for the aggression of "Faint" and the cerebral, slow-burn of "Numb" -- all caked with layers of emotional vulnerability. That's rare.