Back in 01 or 02 I think, I was flipping through channels and just happened to catch the music video for "Crawling." My literal first thought was "Wow, that blonde guys hair looks cool." After the music video showed who the song was by I did some research and came across Hybrid Theory. Thus my love for LP was born
I got into them back right as Hybrid Theory was coming out. Buddy told me about them and I Napstered One Step Closer, With You, and Points of Authority, and became immediately hooked. Went and picked up the album.
Back in 2001, I was 12, and I saw the video for One Step Closer on MTV, back when MTV was a music channel. I got hooked by it, and by the time I saw the Crawling video I was totally LP obsessed. I remember having a folder where I kept my drawings of the band and the Reanimation Robots during the first years.
I remember watching music videos on TV the odd time when I was younger of One Step Closer, Faint, Papercut, all that good stuff. But at that time in life I didn't appreciate music at all, although I did like them more than the regular stuff played. One day I was on a trip with my mom and Numb started playing on a mixed CD my sister had made for her. I was very intrigued by the song and asked for the title and the band who played it. She told me the name and I kept it in the back of my head to remember for later. A few weeks later, our grade 7 music class had to present a song we liked to the class. I immediately decided to use Numb. After that I started liking music more and more. One day I stumbled on a Youtube AMV with Papercut playing. I instantly fell in love with the blazing guitar riff and Chester's vocals from the bridge onwards. I listened to that song every single day. Later that year I got my first iPod and took all of my sister's music from hers. He had a bunch of poppy crap but she also had Faint, Numb, and In the End. I obviously also downloaded Papercut. The rest is history.
I heard In The End for the first time. Before that I never liked Rock music at all and I got Hybrid Theory on CD on impulse and just loved everything about it. One of my new uni mates also went to see Linkin Park in London the day before I started my first day of uni and I guess we both grew up on their music and introduced other non rock listeners into rock. The wait between Meteora and M2M was unbelievable thinking about it now and I guess what we got was probably slightly less quality than what had gone before, but I reckon ATS will either be their best album or only second to Hybrid Theory. I guess it was the rock/ rap combo and complex catchy music that got me into them. They are still my top band, but it is because of them that I started listening to more rock music, although nowadays I conciously also listen to RNB/ Hip Hop as well as other genres as it can get depressing otherwise!
In 2007, my Dad had a load of albums he'd bought on this shelf, and I was picking out albums for this long car trip we had a few hours later. I saw the single version of In The End and asked him who are Linkin Park (because I had heard of them before, but never listened) and he said something like "oh, they're sort of rappy-rocky. They're, meh". I actually didn't listen to In the End the whole way through first time, but I guess I decided to revisit them later that year, and found that I loved it. Then, I found out about Somewhere I belong and Faint. I listened to those 3 songs on a loop for ages, but I could only say I liked those three songs. Then, my friend who likes Dragonball Z obviously YouTubed DBZ and found AMVs with Linkin Park songs, and asked me whether I liked them. I told him "the three songs I've heard, I've liked". Then one day in 2009 we gave into his fandom and watched the video for New Divide, and I was instantly hooked. I immediately went out and got all three of their albums. Since then, I've been a huge LP fan.
In year 9 (about 5 years ago) a friend gave me Breaking The Habit and I loved it and listened to it non-stop. Hense, I got more and that was it, I was hooked.
I've been into Linkin Park since I was probably 8 or 9, I listened to In The End, and had a copy of Hybrid Theory. I ended up moving and never really had access to too many CDs for a while but always loved when Crawling or Runaway would play on the radio. I move in with my g-mother and instantly start getting really into LP for one reason or another. I bought Reanimation and listened to it constantly. Bought Collision Course, then eventually got my own copies of Hybrid and Meteora. I was a big enough fan of the band by 2007 that I pre-ordered Minutes to Midnight, and now I have the Deluxe Fan Edition of ATS pre-ordered.