What do you get when you put together one of hip-hop’s industrialists who holds three Grammy awards and nearly 10 platinum albums with one of metal’s prevailing groups who earned one Grammy award and three platinum albums?

A “crash collision,” to say the least. Seen over and over again by rock and rap duos such as Aerosmith and Run DMC, and Limp Bizkit and Method Man, music genre collaboration has proven victorious over the years.

DJ’s have even tried to concoct their own, underground, rock-rap alliance albums, which, as desperate of an attempt as this may seem, proved to be successful. The rap-retro release of The Beatles’ “White Album” fused with Jay-Z’s own “Black Album,” generating the “Grey Album,” caused a lot of commotion as fans quickly tried to obtain their unlicensed bootleg copy of the album that was not commercially sold.

This time around, MTV and Warner Brothers decided to play DJ, mixing up previously existing Jay-Z hits with Linkin Park’s list of number ones. As fascinating as this may seem to excited rap and rock heads all over the nation, this Jay-Z/Linkin Park collaboration album, titled “Collision Course,” falls a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

Being a fan of both Linkin Park’s “Numb” and Jay-Z’s “Encore,” joining forces seemed to be unavoidable and essentially inevitable but the outcome resulted in an undersized, 21-minute accident.

As it became difficult for Linkin Park’s lead vocalist Chester Bennington to record their dark, depressing lyrics over Jay-Z upbeat melodies, one has to wonder why they continued to pair up songs such as “99 Problems” with “Points of Authority” and “One Step Closer.”

To add more salt to the wound, Warner Brother Records also released a CD/DVD version that contains alternate versions of the mixed songs.

Supportive fans need not worry. One form of relief from this hip-hop/ rock mistake is that this is not the end for neither Linkin Park nor Jay-Z.

We will now be anxiously awaiting the next album release follow-up from Linkin Park’s successful “Live in Texas.” As for Jay-Z, he joined forces with Linkin Park and other bands in February to raise relief funds for Tsunami victims.

-Return to March 2005 Issue-