Linkin Park will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first album, Hybrid Theory, next month and according to Mike Shinoda, the global success of the album meant that fans and critics were always going to compare future records to the debut LP.
Appearing on a new episode of The Green Room with Neil Griffiths podcast to promote his latest solo album, Dropped Frames, the California-born songwriter said that the band dealt with scrutiny about evolving their music "every single time" a new album came out.
"Everything since the beginning - the second album got compared to the first album," Shinoda told host Neil Griffiths.
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"If you go back and just listen to Hybrid Theory versus Meteora, the standout tracks in terms of evolution are, on Hybrid Theory, we did Cure For The Itch. On Meteora we did Session... and then the next album came and it was utter chaos."
Following the success of Hybrid Theory (the highest selling album in the US in 2001) and 2003's Meteora, Linkin Park followed it up with Minutes To Midnight in 2007 and A Thousand Suns in 2010.
"A Thousand Suns in particular, for the first couple of years that it was out... any place you would go where there was reviews, we had a three star rating out of five because the reviews were only one star or five stars," Shinoda said.
"Nobody was on the fence about what Linkin Park was doing creatively.
"You loved it or hated it."
Check out the full The Green Room episode with Shinoda on Spotify, Apple Podcasts (below) or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.
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