A rap-rock outfit with a jones for Depeche Mode? Is this a glitch in the matrix? Linkin Park's debut album, Hybrid Theory, is a freaky-deaky fusion that works in spots — on "Crawling," MC Mike Shinoda's catchy rhymed refrains bounce off singer Chester Bennington's New Wave croon, proving that synth-pop can get with the hip-hop. This Southern California five-piece knows its way around a hook: Crashing, loud-soft dynamics run through the album, and producer Don Gilmore (who has worked with Eve 6, Lit, Pearl Jam) gives the guitars and samples a raw-meat heft that will sound right at home on modern-rock radio. Maybe too at home — Bennington and Shinoda often slip into corny, boilerplate-aggro lyrics: Thanks to "voices in the back of my head" ("Papercut"), they're "one step closer to the edge" ("One Step Closer"), suffering "wounds [that] will not heal" while the "walls are closing in" ("Crawling"). As a result, Linkin Park too frequently come off like another Hybrid song, "Papercut": They can slice and dice, but just not deep enough.

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.