Jay-Z and Linkin Park Collision Course. Release Date : November 30, 2004. Label: Warner Records. Rating: Andy doesn't dig rating stuff. Well now this is interesting. In the same vein as that amazing "Grey Album" thing DJ Danger Mouse did with Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatles' White Album (and the Double Black album, and The Black Album Unplugged...), this has melded together Jay-Z and Linkin Park. Two things you normally wouldnt plunk together, but it's stunning how cool they sound intertwined. I can't claim to be a huge fan of either on their own, but far be it from me to reject a project so creative and well thought out. It's an MTV thing that apparently does or will have more parts to it... a series. Or at least a common thread somewhere with some MTV project. It becomes a truly electronica album, rather than the electronic-tinged-rock of Linkin Park, or the hip-hop of Jay-Z. It's almost like they wrote the songs to fit together. Which I don't think is the case... it's just the product of a talented mixer. But it gets so hard and loud and raging. Car chases, guns, video games.... this is perfect for it. I need to listen to this over a giant club soundsystem or something. We go from heavy beats, to Indian sounds on track 2, "Big Pimpin'/Papercut". "Dirt Off Your Shoulder/Lying From You" is a great track. Those weird electro-strings in Linkin Park's music sound so perfect in these songs, alongside the hip-hop. "Numb/Encore" is nice. Yeah that's right, nice. It's flute-y sounding, light, more songish. "Numb" was kind of a cool song anyhow. It's sad sounding. "Izzo/In The End" makes them all sound like goofy nice guys with the disco strings in the background and all the izzles. We kinda bounce back and forth between more hard-hitting rock-electro songs and more hip-hoppy songs. Such raging angry guitars on here that I think remind me of a Crystal Method song. Man I thought we were over things like black guys getting dinged and pulled over just for that reason alone... It's a theme visited in Jay-Z's tunes.... that may be moot considering I'm reviewing the blend of this album, but it's just interesting. Sadly there's only six songs on this album - I kinda want to hear more! Luckily there's a DVD crammed full of special features, plus an enhanced portion of the CD, all wrapped up in some swank digipak to keep the fun going. Let's hope these projects keep coming out. They've done so many with Jay-Z... I'd love to see what can turn up from mixing some other artists (and I don't mean that thing where they put two Nickelback songs on top of each other to show how much they're exactly the same song, but that was pretty amusing anyhow). Song of choice : I think I'd pick track "Dirt Off Your Shoulder/Lying From You" - it's so hard-hitting, with the grippy guitars and chunky starts and stops. -Andy Scheffler Elsewhere Jay-Z website Linkin Park website Published : February, 2005.