Hybrid Theory is the debut studio album by American rock band Linkin Park, released on October 24, 2000, by Warner Bros. Records.

Four singles were released from Hybrid Theory: "One Step Closer", "In the End", "Crawling" and "Papercut", all of them being responsible for launching Linkin Park into mainstream popularity.

It also reached the top 10 in 15 other countries and has sold 32 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling debut album since Guns N' Roses's Appetite for Destruction (1987).

[7] High school friends Rob Bourdon, Brad Delson, and Mike Shinoda formed the rap rock band Xero in 1996.

Though limited in resources, the band began recording and producing songs within Shinoda's makeshift bedroom studio in 1996, resulting in a four-track demo album, entitled Xero, released in November 1997.

[9] Delson, who by that point was a student at UCLA, then introduced the band to Jeff Blue, the vice president of A&R for Zomba Music, whom he had interned for in college.

The vacancy was filled by Scott Koziol and Ian Hornbeck, who alongside Delson all contributed bass tracks for the band's recordings.

[12] The band was signed by Warner Bros. Records in 1999, due in large part to the constant recommendations of Blue, who had joined the label after resigning from Zomba.

[12][13][15] Despite initial difficulties in finding a producer willing to take charge of the debut album of a newly signed band, Don Gilmore ultimately agreed to head up the project,[13] with Andy Wallace hired as the mixer.

"[26][27] Bennington later described the songwriting experience to Rolling Stone in early 2002: It's easy to fall into that thing — 'poor, poor me', that's where songs like 'Crawling' come from: I can't take myself.

Bennington's singing style is influenced by acts such as Depeche Mode and Stone Temple Pilots,[12] while the riffs and playing techniques of guitarist Brad Delson are modeled after Deftones, Guns N' Roses,[13] U2, and The Smiths.

[12] The lyrical content of the songs primarily touches upon the problems that Bennington encountered during his childhood, including constant and excessive drug and alcohol abuse,[12] the divorce of his parents, isolation,[28] disappointments, and the aftermath feelings of failed relationships.

The music video for "Papercut" features the band performing in a hallway opposite a completely dark room on the walls of which are scribbled the song's lyrics.

Various supernatural themes are present in the video, and special effects are used to create eerie renditions, such as the "stretching" of Shinoda's fingers and the "melting" of Bourdon's face.

[52][53] Although the background for the "In the End" video was filmed in a California desert, the band itself performed on a studio stage in Los Angeles, with prominent CGI effects and compositing being used to create the finished version.

[55] "Points of Authority", the fourth track on the album, has its own music video that can be found on Frat Party at the Pankake Festival, the band's first DVD.

[12] With Hybrid Theory being Linkin Park's first album, Mike Shinoda, who had worked as a graphic designer before becoming a professional musician, has stated that the band had looked through books for inspiration on how to present themselves for the first time.

[69] PopMatters reviewer Stephanie Dickison wrote that they are "a far more complex and talented group than the hard rock boy bands of late" and "will continue to fascinate and challenge music's standard sounds.

"[63] The Village Voice's Robert Christgau gave the album a two-star honorable mention rating and cited "Papercut" and "Points of Authority" as highlights; he quipped, "the men don't know what the angry boys understand".

[70] In a more critical assessment, William Ruhlmann of AllMusic found that on Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park sound "like a Johnny-come-lately to an already overdone musical style.

"[71] NME critic Noel Gardner said that it was a "decent" album in need of editing, writing that "otherwise damn fine soaring emo-crunchers like 'With You' and 'A Place for My Head' are pointlessly jazzed up with tokenistic scratching".

[65] Rolling Stone's Matt Diehl felt that the album "works in spots" and the band "knows its way around a hook", but panned Bennington and Shinoda's "corny, boilerplate-aggro lyrics".

[67] Reviewing Hybrid Theory in 2006, Tyler Fisher of Sputnikmusic perceived a lack of musical variety on the record, but concluded that it "stands as a defining mainstream album at the turn of the century, and for good reason.

"[72] Writing for Stylus Magazine the following year, Ian Cohen found that while the album is "almost completely forgettable" outside of its singles, it "was strangely fresh for mainstream rock radio, particularly placed in relief of its ugly post-grunge peers and the staunch revivalism of the Strokes/White Stripes front.

[98] Contributors to the album included Black Thought, Pharoahe Monch, Jonathan Davis, Stephen Carpenter, and Aaron Lewis.

[99] As Shinoda explains the difference in the sound between Hybrid Theory and Meteora: "That electronic element has always been there in the band – it's just that sometimes we bring it closer to the front.

[105][106] The website was updated frequently leading up to the announcement of the 20th anniversary re-release on August 13; a previously unreleased song, "She Couldn't" was released on the same day.

[109] One of the three DVDs was previously released on November 20, 2001, during the promotion of Hybrid Theory, documenting the band's time on the road, titled Frat Party at the Pankake Festival.

In November 2023, Kyle Christner, who played bass guitar on the Hybrid Theory EP, filed a lawsuit against Linkin Park, seeking compensation for songs that appeared on the 20th anniversary release of the album.

[110] All tracks are written by Linkin Park (Chester Bennington, Rob Bourdon, Brad Delson, Joe Hahn, Mike Shinoda), except where notedThe 20th Anniversary Edition includes the original album (in CD, vinyl and digital) on disc one.