Cover art for Hybrid Theory;n PC: Wikimedia Commons

As some of you might remember, a few weeks ago former successful artist Fred Durst made some brazenly negative comments regarding the state of the American music scene which he pretty much called fickle and only after the next big thing.

And while some of that might be true, boycotting the US because your band isn’t as successful there as it used to be seems a little petty, don’t you think? Well, maybe Fred should have taken a few tips from fellow rap-rockers Linkin Park who are currently still in the afterglow of their very successful album release with this year’s Living Things which debuted at number one – no US boycott needed!

And if that wasn’t enough to make you think maybe Limp Bizkit was just one of those US trend bands that Durst was explicitly complaining about, Nielsen SoundScan has just revealed that Linkin Park’s debut album Hybrid Theory has just crossed the 10 million sales mark, giving the album the very rare diamond certification.

And in case you’re wondering just how rare a diamond record is, Hybrid Theory is only the 20th album ever to sell more than 10 million records since SoundScan began keeping track of sales in 1991 – even rarer these days when you take into consideration file sharing and illegal torrents.

Although rare, the last album to recieve the honor didn't happen that long ago as Usher's Confessions hit the 10 million mark earlier this year. Still, doesn't happen to just any artist.

Maybe certain fan bases aren’t as fickle as Durst made them seem (sorry Fred but you were the lead-in) when you consider that Hybrid Theory never hit the number one album mark when it was first released back in November of 2000 – it debuted at number 16 on the Billboard 200 in case you’re wondering – meaning that it took a consistent effort by the band over the past twelve years to keep old fans and new fans buying records.

I don’t know, but maybe continuous exposure via touring the US might have had something to do with it.