Hybrid Theory had done the impossible: a debut that sold by the tens of millions and made Linkin Park, for a while, the biggest rock band on the planet. Meteora, in 2003, is what happens next. A second record made under the exact pressure that breaks most bands, the demand to do that again, on purpose, on a deadline, with the whole world now listening.

You can hear the band refusing to simply repeat itself, pushing the edges of what their sound could hold while a label and an audience wait for the familiar payoff. It is tighter, harder, more deliberate than the debut, a record that knows it is being measured against a giant.

And it closes on the song that would outlive the argument entirely. The last track on Meteora became the one people reach for first. The record ends quietly certain of itself, on the one that got away with everything.