Reanimation is the first remix album by American rock band Linkin Park as a follow-up to their first studio album, Hybrid Theory and released on July 30, 2002. Recorded during the Hybrid Theory tour in 2001, it features hip hop and electronic-influenced remixes of songs from Hybrid Theory. The remix album is produced by Mike Shinoda and mixed by Mark "Spike" Stent.

Release and promotion

Singles

"Pts.OF.Athrty", the remix of "Points of Authority" by Jay Gordon of Orgy, was released as the first and only official single from Reanimation. The single also features "H! Vltg3", the remix of "High Voltage" by Evidence and DJ Babu featuring additional vocals by Pharoahe Monch (which is found in the album), as well as a remix of "By Myself", entitled "Buy Myself", by American musician Marilyn Manson of the same name as the rock band as b-sides.

"Enth E Nd", "Frgt/10", "Songs from Reanimation" and "My<Dsmbr" were released as radio promotional singles.

Music videos

The official video for "Pts.OF.Athrty" depicts a completely CGI-animated battle between robots, ruled by the heads of Linkin Park members, and an alien race.

MTV 2 made videos for each song of the album for its playback of the album on "MTV:Playback" which aired only a few times. These include "Frgt/10" (a girl doing graffiti the town while evading the police chopper) "Opening" (the girl from the video for "Frgt/10" going to bed), "Pts.OF.Athrty" (the US flag up to 1:05, then a motorcycle chase), "[Chali]" (the girl in bed and shots of her room), "P5hng Me A*wy" (a cannibal at work), "Plc. 4 Mie Hæd" (the girl singing to the song), "X-Ecutioner Style" (a cartoon boy walking around town, singing Chester's "Shut Up" parts), "H! Vltg3" (a night in the life of a man), "[Riff Raff]" (the girl in bed), "Wth>You" (very quick montage of Mugshots of people in sync with the song), "Ppr:Kut" (shots of people's reactions to an unexpected loud noise while listening to music; Joe Hahn made a cameo appearance in this video), "Rnw@y" (a woman with a Mohawk in town, running in each chorus of the song), My<Dsmbr (a man obviously lives on the beach and does some amusements in an amusement park), "By_Myslf" (a woman in a forest), "Kyur4 th Ich" (people breakdancing, Joe Hahn made another appearance as his cameo), "1Stp Klosr" (depicts a failing relationship) and "Krwlng" (animation of a white stick man). The only song that does not receive an animated video was "Enth E ND"; the video shows Mike Shinoda, KutMasta Kurt and Motion Man performing their respective parts and verses in the back of a car. This was the only video to show the actual performers of the song.

Only the MTV 2 videos of "Frgt/10" and "Kyur4 th Ich" were officially released on the DVD-A edition of the album, along with the official "Pts.OF.Athrty" video. The videos of "Pts.OF.Athrty", "Frgt/10", "Kyur4 th Ich" and "Enth E ND" were the only videos considered "official".

Editions

Reanimation's standard edition came in a digipak case with 20 tracks. A Japanese edition had the 21st track, Buy Myself. Also released was a DVD-A version with surround sound and music videos for "Pts.Of.Athrty", "Frgt/10", and "Kyur4 Th Ich". Linkin Park Underground 1.0 members received the DVD-A edition for free as a Christmas gift. A test release of a DualDisc version was sold in Boston and Seattle only. This edition contained the album on one side of the disc and special content on the other. It never progressed beyond the test run and thus the DualDisc edition is difficult to obtain.

Reanimation on live shows

Some of the material on Reanimation found its way into Linkin Park's live shows, as attested by the presence on Live in Texas of "P5hng Me A*wy," which had been played during the band's touring from the summer 2003 through the winter of 2004. The bridge from "1Stp Klosr" and the instrumental portion of "Wth>You" have been played during performances of "One Step Closer" and "With You" from 2003 to 2006. For some shows, Jonathan Davis of Korn went on stage to perform the bridge of "1Stp Klosr" while the band performed the original One Step Closer". "Pts.OF.Athrty" was used as an intro to "Points of Authority" for Linkin Park's summer touring in 2004. Frgt/10 was played once in 2005, during a Music for Relief benefit show with Chali 2na, where Jurassic 5 was also present. In addition, the intro to "Krwlng" has often served as the intro to "Crawling" during live performances in 2004, while a shortened version was used in 2003 and as the intro of the band's Live 8 set. In winter 2008, the "KRWLNG" intro made its return to the show. Starting at Projekt Revolution 2008, Shinoda started incorporating the first verse of "Hands Held High" over the instrumental, which started after the verse was performed a cappella at a show on June 29, 2008 at the National Bowl in England, which can be seen on the band's second live album, Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes. "Hands Held High" would remain over the KRWLNG intro through 2009. Occasionally, the first verse would be performed a capella with the second verse performed over the instrumental. "Enth E ND" was played live but not under Linkin Park, it was played under Fort Minor (Mike Shinoda's side project). Chester Bennington came out and sang his part on the song. This was the first time a song from Linkin Park was debut under another band, but it was played with two of Linkin Park band members (Shinoda and Bennington).

Reception

Reanimation helped the many underground hip hop artists that it featured reach a larger audience, as well as changing the nature of the work so significantly (restructuring songs, adding or substantially changing verses, and adding several guest artists) that it could be considered an entirely new album.Reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine (of Allmusic) considered the album "a welcome step in the right direction," and he praised Reanimation for attempting to break new ground.Linkin Park have also stated that this album could be considered both a remix and studio album. Metacritic gave the album an average score of 60.However, the album reached a peak position of #2 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the list for 33 straight weeks. It sold 270,000 copies in its debut week.