Is everyone here aware that Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory album has sold 19 million albums to date? That's just insane. I read that the other day at Wikipedia and had to do a double take. I don't even think Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em sold that many copies.

For a while there, it looked like Mike Shinoda's solo project would be a relatively monumental flop. It was executive produced (read cosigned) by Jay-Z, and there was a mixtape by, um, some mixtape DJ, but the shit didn't move very many units at all its first week. The video for "Petrified" waved bye bye to MTV like that.

I reviewed it on my own site at the time and found it to be aiight bordering on kinda wack. The production was interesting in parts, but Shinoda's flow is extra cracka-ish (with a hint of Japanese) and motherfucking Styles on Beyond are on like half the tracks. You can't have a very good album if Styles of Beyond are on half the tracks.

I notice Jay-Z couldn't be bothered to drop a verse, even though his name appears as the album's official cosigner. You would think that with them having been boys, from doing that Collision Course album together, that Jay would help him out. But I guess it makes sense, since Fort Minor is down with Warner Bros. and not Def Jam.

As it turns out, the Fort Minor album is doing much better than it has any right to, Jay-Z verse or not. I notice both the album and the single for "Where'd You Go?" have been at the top of iTunes' hip-hop charts, as you can see on the front page of this site, for as long as this site's been up, and probably a while longer than that.

"Where'd You Go" seems to be on the radio at least half the times I get into my car. I can hardly drive to work without hearing it. And since Mike Shinoda is a crackety-crack, his shit gets played on three or four "rock" (read white) stations, rather than the "urban music" ghetto that pretty much all black artists are relegated to.

On the one hand, I think it's cool that Mike Shinoda is bringing "backpacker rap," which I enjoy, to the masses. But on the other hand, I can't help but think that if he was black, he wouldn't be nearly as successful. Talib Kweli has been putting out similarly wack shit for years, and you don't hear him on any radio station.

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