hybrid theory anniversary

it’s very strange to think that it was seven years ago today that hybrid theory, our first album on a major label, was finally in stores. we were in seattle to play a show, and i was driving our RV with a trailer full of our gear behind it. we didn’t have any crew to help us move, setup, or tune our gear–we were doing everything ourselves. we were all pretty tired, and we hit seattle around midnight. i was racing to try to get to the (now extinct) tower records just before the clock struck 12 so they would let us in to buy our album.

we got there at about 12:05, and the lights were still on in the record store. we jumped out and ran to the window, knocking and yelling. the kid who was closing up looked at us over his shoulder. we told him through the glass that we were a band in town to play a show, that our first CD just came out, and we were hoping he would open the door so we could buy a few copies. he said no, and turned around.

it didn’t matter. there is nothing that could have gotten us down that night. it didn’t matter that we would have to wait until 10am the next day to buy the album, and it didn’t matter that we were exhausted from non-stop shows for the past few months, starting in florida and working our way steadily across the states. we had invested everything we had into this process, and the release of the album felt like the pinnacle; we couldn’t imagine anything better.

in the days that followed, we drove our RV south, playing shows, trying to guess the first-week sales number. the low guess was a couple thousand. the highest bet was 12K. the following tuesday, we were told that we sold over 42,000. a few months later, it went gold.

“diamond” is the highest category of RIAA sales certification, an award for U.S. sales in excess of 10 million copies of any album. hybrid theory went diamond in 2005. to this day, it still sells many thousands every week.

at this point, linkin park has sold around 40 million albums around the world. that means we owe 40 million (plus) thank-yous, one to each one of you that has ever enjoyed one of our songs. i’m celebrating tonight in our fans’ honor.

thank you,
-m