"Audioslave" by Audioslave
My little foray into "alt rock" in middle school was not without its embarrassments (Seether, Nickelback) but it also wasn't a total loss - out of that phase came this album, which may be one of the best records ever to call itself "nu-metal." In part, this is because Chris Cornell was doing vox and Rage Against the Machine were doing instrumentals, so there was more than ten years of studio experience working for everyone there. But there was always still a possibility that Audioslave would sound washed-up and superfluously noisy, so when they didn't, Soundgarden and RATM fans everywhere cheered.
Except for the ones who hated this album. By their second album, Audioslave sounded like Audioslave, but when they made "Audioslave" (wow, that's a lot of "Audioslaves in one sentence), they sounded like the guy from Soundgarden doing vocals for RATM. I'm not a Rage fan, so I shouldn't have been into that sound, but I am! I really like this album. "Audioslave" was a Christmas gift from an uncle who is still going through his "alt rock" phase and I wasn't too familiar with the band at the time. To my (happy) surprise, I found that it was not only terrifically angry, it was a little like having Soundgarden back. With a side-order of Seether.

Interscope // 2002