The one thing I will say about Linkin Park is that Hybrid Theory is one of the very few CD's I can listen to all the way through without having to skip over "filler." It's an all around great CD. Even the songs with crummy lyrics tend to have great instrumentals to drive very, very fast to.
I didn't feel the same way about Meteora. Yeah, it has a few good songs, most notably "Faint" (well, before they start all that pointless screaming at the end, anyway), but the entire album didn't seem as complete as the first.
As for the latest? Well, I've only been downloading a few of the songs after the 30second test, and have found only one that I kind of like, "Bleed It Out." Kind of repetetive, but not bad. I'm not crazy about the rest at all.
And yeah, they are whiney. But who on this BBS can claim to not have one of those days from time to time?