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California's Linkin Park are the most successful nu metal band to date. The band mixes the genre's crunching riffs with heavy vocals and chopped up turntable interludes. Dual vocalists Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda trade anthemic choruses with angst-ridden raps. After shuffling around LA's local scene under various monikers since high school, an incarnation of the band finally hooked up with Bennington at the recommendation of lead guitarist Brad Delson's A&R records mentor. It proved the magic combo for Linkin Park, who released their smash debut Hybrid Theory in 2000. It easily found airplay on Modern Rock stations, but it was their crossover singles "Crawling" and "In the End" that broke them through to mainstream audiences and even bagged the hard-edged quintet a Grammy. Bennington takes his vocals from a scream to an intense whisper and Shinoda's rhymes tackle heartbreak and self-loathing. Hybrid Theory just wouldn't stop selling and the band's debut went diamond (10X) platinum. The band routinely give the love back to their fans with their Linkin Park Underground street team?they send members packages with exclusive EPs and t-shirts. Shinoda's personal musical style led him to remix several Hybrid Theory tracks. The hobby-project took off and led to a full-blown album of beat-heavy remixes by everyone from Korn's Jonathan Davis to turntable killers The X-Ecutioners. The resulting disc, Reanimation, featured cover art of a classic anime battle robot, a figure who'd become one of Linkin Park's mascots. Linkin Park's most recent project has been a genre-bending mash-up collaboration with megastar rapper Jay-Z. Both artists found the unprecedented collaboration inspiring and the resulting EP Collision Course is a unique piece of rap-metal. Linkin Park have leaked tracks off their upcoming third album to fans, and hint it'll be done sometime in early 2007.

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