Linkin Park - Reanimation (2002)
The other night, I was on Discord with some of my buddies, and halfway through the call, one of the guys' mom came in and started yelling at him, and all of us, I guess we were being too loud, and then I had to yell "WHO'S YOUR MAIN IN SMASH 4??", she didn't know what that was, my bud said something around the lines of "it's a video game" and she said "I'd beat all of y'all in GTA". Later on in the call, she started rapping out "Rapper's Delight" and I joined her, because I have no idea what she looks like but I guess I wanted to become my bud's stepdad in that moment, and that was pretty cool that she knew the song, but it also made me nostalgic because that was one of the first hip-hop songs I can remember loving, which brings me to this album: When I had first asked for this for Christmas when I was 12.. I'm not sure if I knew if it was a remix album or not. My memory's shit, y'know. Anyhow, even if I knew it was full of remixes, I was a big fan of the band and was excited to hear remixes, which, you might know, I generally really dislike most remixes now due to not bringing much to the table. When I popped this motherfucker into my stereo that Christmas day, holy fuck, I was -not- expecting anything like this. This album is fucking CRAZY, dude. I think it's really easy to write off remixes, and I know that from experience AND the fact that most of my friends who liked Linkin Park growing up never got around to hearing this album due to, y'know, "Why the fuck would I want to listen to Linkin Park remixes?" and I can crank my hog to that ideology, but Goddammit, this is a remix album, sure, but it's way, -way- more than just sliding a slightly different beat underneath the vocals. This album might as well count as their second studio album because, for the most part, it's way fucking different than the original versions of the songs. The original songs weren't just remixed, they were reinterpreted, reworked, and remixe- Fuck.
Really, the only remix on here that feels even somewhat close to half-assed is "Wth>You" because it's pretty much the original song with additional percussion + another rapper, but I'll be fucking damned if the rest of these songs aren't a trip. "Enth E ND" is fuckin' GOAT: The keyboard is chopped up to fuck, Motion Man trades bars with Mike Shinoda, the latter of which provides a new verse to the song that almost serves a humble-boast about Mike's newfound victory lap, and just.. Fuck, man. This entire album either assaults you with its genuine love for raw hip-hop, or the band's not-so-secret crush on industrial music. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised to learn that Trent Reznor ghost-produced some of this shit. This album really helped spark my initial love for hip-hop as a preteen, because it was one of those "What the heck are these noises?! I need my mom!!" kinda things that comes with hearing Black Thought annihilate over "X-Ecutioner Style". In between this album and my picked-up-by-chance copy of "Paul's Boutique", I knew that I was going to become a lifelong fan of hip-hop, and look at me now: I'm fat. Well, I'm fat but I'm ALSO a big fan of hip-hop! Yeah!! Woo!!
I can't tell you how many times I used to walk around my dad's 11 acres of property back in the day, during the winter, blaring "My<Dsmbr" in my headphones as I thought "it's that time of the year again.." sadly, which is cringe as fuck looking back on it because I didn't know -SHIT- about depression back then, I just wanted to be able to relate to my favorite songs, and since my favorite songs weren't about being a chubby, socially-awkward preteen who threw up on the side of the road when his older sister (as instructed by his mother) told him about the birds and the bees during a car ride to see one of his female friends, so of course, I guess I had to adapt to different walks of life to be able to relate to my favorite angsty nu-metal tunes as being "my life's theme song". Times were simpler once, don't you know? Anyhow, people like to say that this is better than "Hybrid Theory" and I don't know about that: This album is definitely more interesting on an instrumental level, but "Hybrid Theory" is generally a lot more consistent in its quality, plus you get more Chester Bennington presence in it, which is noticeably lessened on this album to the point where my brother asked me "Do you think they recorded this album without him? Do you think he was mad when he found out?" so there's a thing. Still, this helped me get into hip-hop as a lifelong commitment, and it helped pave the way for me to get into industrial music heavily for like two weeks when I was fifteen years old, so hey! What a rap on these songs, eh?? Many good words out Mike Shinoda's mouth! That Mexican sure can rap!!
8/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
