CDVS: Jay-Z and Linkin Park VS. Judgment Night: Music from the Motion Picture

Born, grew, died.

It was 1986 when Aerosmith and Run DMC teamed up to create what most would consider to be the first rap-and-rock collaboration, a ground-breaking remake of "Walk This Way." In the nearly 20 years since, rap-rock slowly developed into a full-fledged and semi-respectable genre (see Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers), threatened to take over pop music (see Limp Bizkit, Korn), and then suddenly choked on its own hybrid vomit and died (see unavoidable-in-1999 Crazytown single "Butterfly," which, ironically, sampled the Chili Peppers).

Back then, "Walk This Way" helped legitimize hip-hop and by bringing the music of the urban streets to the suburban masses, but today the tables have turned. It's rap that dominates the charts while rock struggles for its piece of the pie. The influence of one genre on the other is most evident in today's most commercially successful rock act, Linkin Park, which has perfected a formula of cheese-metal guitars, hip-hop beats, screaming and rapping. Go figure. Thus it's hard to find a motive in the band's recent partnership with the supposed-to-be retired Jay-Z. Outside of cash, there's nothing for either party to gain by further commercial bastardization of their respective sounds.

But oh, is the downside severe. There are six songs on the Collision Course EP, each more obnoxious than the one before it. The record is billed as the first commercially released mash-up, and yet it seems both band and emcee work as hard as they can to keep their music from melding. Linkin Park's raging guitars and frantic keyboard bleats expose Jay-Z's weakness--lack of charisma--but his ever-tight rhymes tower over the flowless, sputtering-ass lyrical shit of the band's rapper, Mike Shinoda.

If you want to find a much more sonically interesting exchange between rock band and rapper, look no further than the soundtrack to the 1993 Emilio Estevez junk flick Judgment Night, a disc that can probably be credited with launching hundreds of other crappy hybrid bands. Unlike Collision, this record has plenty of flavors and intriguing tandems. Run DMC teams up with Living Colour. Cypress Hill collaborates with Sonic Youth and Pearl Jam on separate tracks. There's plenty of heavy, like opener "Just Another Victim" featuring House of Pain and Helmet, and "Disorder," which pairs Slayer with Ice-T.

There are plenty of reasons to celebrate the death of rap-rock, but there have been just as many grand experiments during its short lifespan. You just have to know where to look.--Brock Radke