Releasing an entire album of remixes seems like cheating.

Putting out a remixed single, OK. Maybe even an EP. But selling ‘reinterpretations’ of songs that fans have already bought verges on insulting. Plenty of artists are doing it.

Jennifer Lopez recently released the ridiculously titled “J to tha L-O! The Remixes” and her former paramour Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Sean Combs is bilking consumers with “We Invented the Remix.”

Now Linkin Park is barging in on the action with “Reanimation,” which the band’s label calls ‘a hip-hop and industrial rock-inspired reinterpretation’ of “Hybrid Theory,” the group’s Grammy-winning debut.

Grammy aside, the very notion of a Linkin Park remix album seems counterintuitive. After all, how does one make interesting remixes out of rap-metal songs that weren’t all that great to begin with?

Easily, it seems, at least in the case of “Reanimation.” It’s an apt title the remixes on the album breathe life into the dreary songs from “Hybrid Theory,” thanks to help from rappers such as Pharoahe Monch and Aceyalone, and rock artists including Jonathan Davis of Korn and Jay Gordon of Orgy.

Part of the fun for serious Linkin Park fans (and they’re all pretty serious) will be deciphering the intentionally garbled remix titles. “Enth E Nd,” for example, is a rearranged version of “In the End,” the single featuring dark piano and nihilistic, Fred Durst-style rap ruminations on the meaning of it all.

Linkin Park members have said “Reanimation” is different enough that listeners may well find themselves enjoying songs they ordinarily wouldn’t. It’s an astute observation, even though remix albums are unlikely to ever satiate fans’ hunger for new music. In the case of “Reanimation,” however, the reheated leftovers are more appetizing than the original entree.