After promoting Hybrid Theory, the album that introduced Linkin Park to the world more than a quarter century ago, the band found itself in a position many successful musical acts have faced in the past: How does one follow a generation-defining, world-shaking album?
It is difficult enough for any act to score one blockbuster, and producing another while filming music videos, writing, recording and touring is no easy task. Linkin Park managed to do the nearly impossible with Meteora, the group’s highly-anticipated sophomore set. The successful release proved that Linkin Park was here to stay, and also that the nu metal subgenre the band helped popularize at the turn of the century was not done ruling the airwaves.
More than two decades after Meteora conquered a number of Billboard charts, the album continues to live on several of them and helps the Grammy-winning act return to a milestone it has reached only once before.
Linkin Park’s Meteora Reaches Five Years
Meteora celebrates 260 weeks on the Billboard 200 this frame, which is exactly half a decade somewhere on the ranking of the most-consumed albums and EPs in the United States. That run accounts for roughly a quarter of the project’s lifespan, as Meteora was released in 2003 and is more than 20 years old at this point. The full-length only dips one space this week, settling at No. 70.
Meteora Spent Two Weeks at No. 1
Meteora debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in April 2003 and spent two weeks running the tally. It remains the only one of Linkin Park’s half-dozen leaders on the roster to manage more than a single frame at the summit.
Here are all of Linkin Park’s No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200.
- A Thousand Suns
- Living Things
- Meteora
- Minutes to Midnight
- MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups Presents: Collision Course with Jay-Z
- One More Light
Only Two Linkin Park Albums Have Celebrated Five Years
Only two Linkin Park releases have spent at least five years on the Billboard 200. Hybrid Theory is easily the group’s longest-charting title, with 428 frames somewhere on the roster – a figure that expands again this period.
While it has spent years longer on the tally than Meteora, the band’s debut never reached No. 1. Hybrid Theory peaked at No. 2, a position where several subsequent Linkin Park projects have also stalled.
Linkin Park Charts Two Classics Together
Meteora and Hybrid Theory appear on the same five Billboard charts this week, and both titles decline on every roster. The two classics even sit side-by-side on the Top Hard Rock Albums ranking, where Meteora dips to No. 4 and Hybrid Theory follows at No. 5. Linkin Park claims a third space on that ranking, as the band’s Papercuts greatest hits compilation reenters at No. 22. All three releases have taken turns at No. 1 on the genre-specific roster.
Linkin Park Claims Three Hit Songs This Week
Linkin Park also has three songs on the Billboard charts this week, and two of them come from Meteora. “Numb” appears on the Billboard Global 200, the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. and the Hard Rock Streaming Songs chart, while “Somewhere I Belong” can only be found on the latter tally. “In the End,” the breakout smash that helped turn Hybrid Theory into a colossal success, also appears on both worldwide rankings and lands at No. 4 on the Hard Rock Streaming Songs chart.
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