Audio By Carbonatix
This MTV-sponsored mash-up between megaplatinum rapper Jay-Z and megaplatinum rockers Linkin Park isn’t the first time Chester Bennington and his bandmates have looked to rap to spice up their airtight emo-metal crunch-and-munch. For 2002’s Reanimation, the band invited Kutmasta Kurt, Chali 2na, and the X-ecutioners, among others, to remix cuts from Hybrid Theory; the result offered deep headphone thrills, but not a lot of cross-pollinated drama. Collision Course fares better in that regard. These six tracks tease out each act’s latent alliance with the other’s form: In “Big Pimpin’/Papercut,” Mike Shinoda’s suburban motor-mouthing accrues some grit via Timbaland’s vehement throb; in “Numb/Encore,” Jay rhymes over a nifty slice-and-dice of Linkin’s space-station guitars and digs up more of the triumphalist oomph he found in “99 Problems.” Pop in the accompanying DVD to watch Bennington and Shinoda hilariously defer to Jay in the studio, and to see a club full of Linkin fans struggle awkwardly with the dirt on their shoulders.
