the nu-metal canon

this is sort of inspired by whiney's old poll, The complete, unabridged list of nu-metal that Whiney G. Weingarten fucks with, in case anyone cares

however i'm trying to use a more "objective" standard, whatever that means, to assemble a collection of albums and singles that present the most complete picture of the genre, though each record also needs to be, at the very least, "good," whatever that means in this particular context (cf. adema, whose lyrics are godawful but whose music is the most textural and lovely edition of the genre i've ever heard, tetsuo: the linen man). some of these selections may seem to be taken from non-nu-metal spaces but if you were there at the time, mindless self indulgence totally felt like a part of the scene. here's what i've got so far

korn: s/t
orgy: "stitches"
kittie: spit
deftones: around the fur
system of a down: toxicity
linkin park: hybrid theory
korn: "got the life"/"freak on a leash"
limp bizkit: three dollar bill, yall$
sevendust: "black"/"denial"
mindless self indulgence: frankenstein girls will seem strangely sexy
sepultura: roots
orgy: vapor transmission
adema: "giving in"/"the way you like it"
slipknot: s/t
mudvayne: "dig"
static-x: wisconsin death trap
p.o.d.: satellite
fear factory: digimortal
queen of the damned soundtrack
deadsy: "the key to gramercy park"

sorry ahead of time for having embarked on this cursed project that only i care about lol

Feel like White Zombie's "Thunder Kiss '65" or "More Human Than Human" are early examples, though I guess there are arguments about "good", though I like them.

Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Deluxe

xpost!!

Ha, yeah, I think Rob Zombie is definitely a key to bridging the early nu-metal scene.

does Killing Joke's 2003 album count??

i've never heard it!!!

you're right i should include zombie, and possibly a powerman 5000 single

I once tried to do a chronological list of nu-metal bands (or adjacent bands influenced by it) by breakout single but I got bored and stopped after 2000. Feel free to pick it up

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7BYVIgJtKfbu1qYbOZB1wI?si=1SMzROiCTuK5wyGrcXvU8A

Also, don't forget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FlHCF65sgo

i've never heard it!!!

brad you gotta hear it

i've been meaning to get deeper into killing joke ever since i saw my first alex in nyc post, maybe this is the year

also i had no prior knowledge of darwin's waiting room. solid!!!!

my personal favorite forgotten single-album nu-metal act that didn't have much of a profile: the deadlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VHD2nmeYJ4

ASTEROID!!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShNBGIbo2H8

first two soulfly albums belong; I saw a lot of "SHUTDAFUCKUP" shirts and hoodies back in the day

The 2003 KJ album is not a nu-metal record. It is really, really good though.

The thing with Static-X is that their first two albums are a) their best and b) their least nu-metal. On albums 3 and 4, producers pushed them really hard to sound more like Korn, and they were very bad at it. They didn't recover until album 5, which was a return to form. (I still listen to Static-X fairly often.)

Nothingface's Violence, from 2000, belongs on this list. Didn't sell well, but very underrated.

also Machine Head's embarrassing Burning Red

Joel McIver said that anyone dismissing the album as nu metal has not listened to it, or is not a fan of the "atmospheric, impassioned groove-metal that Machine Head were focusing on at this stage."[4] Rick Anderson of AllMusic called the album "aggro-metal".[11] Responding to critics, McClain stated the band was not trying to emulate popular trends; they simply "wanted to sound different".

mm hmmm.

is evanescence nu-metal?

the KJ album is the best thing Grohl has done outside of nirvana. to the point where I can almost forgive him for Foo Fighters (can't forgive him the AIDS denial).

is evanescence nu-metal?

― tiwa-nty one savage (voodoo chili), Monday, February 22, 2021 9:56 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

almost certainly to some degree but i have a pretty strict cut-off point of 2002, when nu-metal and post-grunge started to congeal as categories

i should also prob include something from disturbed but... i don't even think the one disturbed album i like is great

Disturbed were OK. Their second album is their best but even that's like a B+ at best. They were ridiculously popular for a while, though; I wrote about that a few years ago.

i was now-years old when i discovered that the album version of "down with the sickness" has one of the most fucked up bridges in all of nu-metal

this collab between Prong vs FOETUS still does the trick for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-88o8Mn6rP4

xp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGB1pLcEM1g

typically awful "no budget band in a room FACTOR grant" aesthetic at work here, but I always loved this band, sort of the cancon hum/deftones. they seemed poised for greater things but ended up dissolving shortly after this single came out. their last two albums are def in my personal canon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDjfnZQHMkc

Brad - do you place any of the alt-industrial bands in the nu-metal canon? Thinking stuff like Stabbing Westward or Pitchshifter, both had decent singles - especially the former, imho.

incubus s.c.i.e.nc.e.

far tin cans with strings to you

coal chamber self-titled

taproot gift

this feels a little like "bands that wouldn't exist without the Demon Knight soundtrack"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Knight_(soundtrack)

omg i rewatched demon knight last week and it is totally anticipatory of nu-metal horror

one of the best movies ever

coal chamber self-titled

― Dusty Benelux (jim in vancouver), Monday, February 22, 2021 11:27 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

are coal chamber actually good? i guess it's time i found out

i dont know that they're good but they are very much archetypal nu-metal

Brad - do you place any of the alt-industrial bands in the nu-metal canon? Thinking stuff like Stabbing Westward or Pitchshifter, both had decent singles - especially the former, imho.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, February 22, 2021 11:15 AM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

nope!!! even though they technically fit the criteria of "songs that i got into 1999-2000 just because they were set to dragon ball z amvs"

i haven't heard the record for over 20 years, i liked it at the time!

gravity kills also not allowed in

this thread should also double as a general pandemic/quarantine regression thread

listen

2 bands that have been mentioned but not the albums I have the most attachment to:

Deftones: White Pony
Incubus: Make Yourself

Also, the first Soulfly album (last band i saw before the pandemic) and Follow the Leader might deserve to be included too. And Significant Other if not already brought up (I know brad linked to a track in another thread).

white pony is a perfect record, one of the best ever made, and somehow falls outside of the zone i'm creating here

follow the leader is at least 30 percent hot garbage, i included only the big singles for a reason

a rap battle between jonathan davis and fred durst that is mostly gay panic jokes.... not in my canon

White Pony only counts if we’re talking the re-release with the godawful “Mini Maggit” opener.

Nice to see Vapor Transmissions making the cut.

I saw Coal Chamber headline Roseland in NYC in 1999. It was an all-Roadrunner bill with support from Machine Head, promoting The Burning Red, Slipknot, and Amen (a mercifully forgotten punk-metal band). Slipknot's set was basically the first six songs from their s/t album, plus maybe two other songs. It was completely amazing. Nobody else that night could compete. Machine Head were OK, Coal Chamber were boring, but Slipknot blew the walls down.

I will die on the "mini maggit is good" hill

follow the leader was a big disappointment for me at the time. i did the thing, which i ended up doing with lots of bands whose new music i didn't really like, of trying to convince myself that it was good, but i couldn't keep up the pretense for too long.

i considered putting both significant other and chocolate starfish on here but like... not gonna win any hearts with three full limp bizkit albums in the canon lol

maybe this is the thread where i advocate for this song being the best song ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntw1a9_5TwE

issues is prob my favorite korn album but feels like a really dark alt-metal album more than it does nu-metal, thus its absence. i should've included life is peachy tho

a rap battle between jonathan davis and fred durst that is mostly gay panic jokes.... not in my canon

it's cool that the sonics of this era are being repurposed lately but with none of this sort of shit happening, in kind of the same way nu-emo mostly jettisons the old subject matters

a good friend of mine whose taste i usually trust (tbh one of the few friends whose taste i trust but that's for another time) swears by the KoRn/Skrillex collab(s), which i could sorta see since Skrillex kinda rules

ah all of that is valid. yeah Follow the Leader is mostly bad but was huuge at the time and a pretty major mainstream success. but yeah can't imagine it aged well at all. last time I played it in full, I was likely 14

this might be cheating but the family values tour 98' comp might be worth considering. has a good mix of that time period.

oh yes!!! i owned that

it was the first time i ever heard incubus

i have completely excluded incubus from the canon for downright personal reasons

I never really thought of Incubus in the same vein as these other acts, they were more like Filter to me

as much as nu-metal can be pulled apart from funk metal... they were way more the latter in their early career imo, like they sound like really successful faith no more acolytes in a way none of these other bands did xp

Yea "New Skin" feels like an unreleased FNM tune, right down to the vocalist's intonation

the intro to Got The Life is fucking amazing, the scat breakdown still hurts. Remember thinking Mini Maggit was a lame sellout move at the time, and the band basically did admit it was just done to please radio/managers.

Amen didn't fall in with things sound wise. Incredible live band. Well, incredible as a band with someone called Casey Chaos could be. One of my most vivid memories was the Astoria NME show of Alfie / Starsailor / Amen / JJ72, with Casey cutting himself and bleeding on the crowd 30 minutes before "Why won't it snow?"

yeah I think Deftones, Incubus, System of a Down are a bit separate from nu metal in my mind but they got big at the same time and had lots of overlapping fans (including myself). This happened a lot for me when we did the emo/screamo poll too. im not sure if Unwound, late ATDI, Converge 100% fit but the timing of their success had them lumped in.

feels like if you were on the Family Values tour and had a guitar, then you fit. so Deftones fit.

yeah a lot of things "don't quite fit" but it's a somewhat loose genre definition imo. i mentioned far upthread, they're a weird one in the nu-metal canon and are a bit of a precursor of late 90s/early 2000s screamo, more post-hardcore than a lot of nu-metal, but they were playing with deftones, incubus (who i would definitely include, faith no more is an influence on a lot of nu-metal) and sepultura etc.

oh ill vote for them all if there is ever an official poll for this but even as a middle school kid whose whole musical world revolved around this genre, they seemed to be doing their own thing sonically from the rest (incubus, deftones etc.)

feels like if you were on the Family Values tour and had a guitar, then you fit. so Deftones fit.

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Monday, February 22, 2021 12:59 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

rammstein are i think inarguably not nu metal

a good friend of mine whose taste i usually trust (tbh one of the few friends whose taste i trust but that's for another time) swears by the KoRn/Skrillex collab(s), which i could sorta see since Skrillex kinda rules

I worked for Korn's label when this came out, so discount my opinion if you want, but I was kinda into that record at the time. They did a good job of replicating it live, too.

I never really thought of Incubus in the same vein as these other acts, they were more like Filter to me

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Monday, February 22, 2021 2:39 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

s.c.i.e.n.c.e has a scratching dj and a lot of attempts at funk iirc. later on they became much more of a mainstream alt rock band.

imo the SOAD self titled record is more "nu" than Toxicity

(the latter is better, though, one of the leanest, meanest major label rock records I've heard)

you are correct but toxicity is so perfect while remaining in the aesthetic realm that... i have a hard time picking the s/t over it

you would think i'd have this dilemma over around the fur and white pony but i don't

the korn dubstep album rules

you know what simon, you're right about the soad s/t. "sugar" is kind of a major text of nu-metal for me

Ha, Take A Look in the Mirror was the last Korn album I heard. Checked out one song of that dubstep one and, no, definitely not for me. I thought The Nothing was pretty good though, though obvious far outside the window for this thread.

the serenity of suffering and the nothing are both excellent comeback records

i looked at the soad s/t's tracklisting and thought "i don't remember most of these songs" but they're just often obtusely titled, i know this record like the back of my hand lol

"sugar" is kind of a major text of nu-metal for me

lol yeah this song is so sick (when you're 14 in 2000)

"spiders" should have been a big crossover soundtrack hit or something

I think "p.l.u.c.k." is my fave despite the absurd acronym, that chorus is so groovy

the serenity of suffering and the nothing are both excellent comeback records

Huh, guess I need to check out Serenity then.

"suggestions" is like the best song ever made

re: soad, not the excellent korn comeback album serenity of suffering (very much in the vein of the nothing so you'll prob like it jvc)

the first half of the soad s/t has gotta be among the most unbelievably awesome experiences of music ever lol

shake your spear at shakespeare!

don't you! realize! that evil! lives in the motherfucking skin!!!!

is I Against I nu metal?

feels like if you were on the Family Values tour and had a guitar, then you fit.

^ this is the real motherfuckin deal y'all

for my money, the woodstock 99 extended ver of “bawitdaba” is the most nu metal thing imaginable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMKfIXdxh-U

also when limp bizkit blew up the boat at spring break

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpyBybsNX64

RIP, Lynn Strait of Snot was on it at the time

snot should be included -- great album

what about Faith No More?

they maybe feel to nu metal as Led Zeppelin is to heavy metal, foundational to its creation but not a part of it

Interesting that you posted that Kid Rock video as I've always thought of Kid Rock as being adjacent to Nu Metal, but never really fully part of it. Certainly Rap Rock/Metal, but he was always too steeped in Southern Rock and Classic Rock influences to really feel like Nu Metal to me.

yeah agree, he was more authentically hip hop too, his early stuff

this is reminding me that the only Kid Rock music I own is an appearance on an Insane Clown Posse song

"bawitdaba" is a nu-metal song. maybe "i am the bulldog" too but it's not coming to mind readily. everything else i've heard from kid rock is not nu-metal. also, frankly, he sucks too much to be here

limp blowing the boat up is classic tho

what about Faith No More?

they maybe feel to nu metal as Led Zeppelin is to heavy metal, foundational to its creation but not a part of it

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, February 24, 2021 5:22 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

it would be like including helmet or godflesh, too distant from the actual thing even though literally every band mentioned on this thread is almost certainly obsessed with faith no more

fuck, is uncle kracker the hype man in that kid rock woodstock performance

so many audio crimes tied to kid rock

there was a story that Fred Durst met with a Mike Patton to get FNM to reunite for a tour and Patton took off his shoe and pissed in it

Helmet riffing style is definitely a big part of it, also "groove metal" which seems hard to define to the point of being possibly made up

his own shoe or Fred's shoe

his own is how I remember reading it, but tbh the whole thing sounds a little made up

on the other hand, it is Mike Patton

that is beautiful

https://www.newfaithnomore.com/2009/08/18/mike-patton-eats-a-shoelace-and-regurgitates-it/

the video here is dead but it did find this excellent url

in starting this project i've sort of inevitably ended up listening to every korn album

the path of totality is so good, like so much more than the sum of its parts, largely because jonathan davis is an excellent melody writer. then head rejoins the band and the serenity of suffering and the nothing end up largely being able to stand up next to their early material (head seems to be the missing ingredient from their fallow run, from see you on the other side to korn iii, though i've always liked the untitled album)

fascinating and weird band tho. i feel like they've attempted to return to their roots like five times and yet they've never made any records that actually sound like the s/t or life is peachy since

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zMiISKntcY

fantastic song

Davis was never my favorite vocalist but I will say he's taken good care of his instrument, he hasn't deteriorated/weakened at all

i absolutely love the Korn vs dubstep (its not just Skrillex on production btw) album.
yet to watch the dvd that came with the edition i got.

ctrl+f "papa roach" 0 results

not true, I got 1 result

watched a sundance film from this year that uses "last resort" as both a punchline to one of the film's best jokes and as a poignant way to underscore the despair of a main character.

as a result of this thread, I listened to the Turbo channel@ Sirius. I gotta say it was kinda neat to listen to, like Saliva, Three days Grace and all these acts I strongly disliked 20 years ago (some of whom I reviewed for RS and Blender as I was the low man on the totem pole who took review assignments where I could get 'em) but then never heard again after 2005, next to 90s Metallica and Pantera. But I could only take so much before going back to Hip Hop Nation.

1. Does anyone else have Sirius who thinks anything about it at all? I've thought of starting a Rolling Sirius thread, but it does seem to me that the average ILMnik is too advanced for a service that wants to be considered a peer of streaming but is really a deeper experience of commercial radio (which I happen to think is an interesting function).

2. It would seem that in Nu-metal, the partying/pleasure/celebration aspects that very definitely are the pretezts for much of hip hop and metal/hard rock was strictly forbidden. After hair metal went down and Cobain went up, hedonism or even acknowledging the allure of good times was unheard of in nu metal. But were there any acts that did indeed get down like that? I guess Kid Rock did (which is why I liked him at the time) but is there anyone else?

Hed PE claimed they smoked weed, drank wine, And would take your daughter onto the tourbus and fuck her from behind.

Not sure if that counts

fuck man! that's one of the bands that I reviewed for RS, and I done completely forgot about 'em!

No worries, the world did too

think hed(pe) are still going, or were until recently, and they were big 9/11 and other conspiracy heds (sic)

listened to korn self-titled and deftones around the fur yesterday. the latter stands up so well, the former is decent, the riffs are groovy, but it didn't blow me away.

i think the drums in the first korn album don't quite sit right with me. on the other hand the slapped low C five string bass has a really pleasant percussive quality. i also am maybe not so into jonathan davis' vocal ticks

ty for this thread, Brad. Nu-metal is largely 'after my time' (where 'my time' = 'an age where I was still acritical enough about my musical consumption to just chill and listen to whatever without too many preconceived notions or the need to approach everything from the perspective of a curator' aka 'the early-to-mid-'90s alt boom') but I'd been thinking recently that I wanted to hear stuff from the genre that actually managed to hold up beyond its moment. Prompted by listening to some Korn singles (the earliest of which were actually released during 'my time').

"bawitdaba" is a nu-metal song. maybe "i am the bulldog" too but it's not coming to mind readily. everything else i've heard from kid rock is not nu-metal. also, frankly, he sucks too much to be here

agreed with all of this. something about the woodstock performance feels iconic to me tho. nu metal as a cultural phenomenon. the laziness and bandwagon-jumping makes it extra-nu to me tbh. "now get in the pit and try to love someone!"

I first heard 'Bullgod' when it was released on some (non-nu) metal sampler tape that came out when I was still in high school so I was like five years ahead of the curve in knowing that Kid Rock sucked shit.

linkin park were the best technicians, I think. a lot of these bands flirted with industrial sounds but were pretty amateurish about it. LP really ran with NIN and depeche mode influences and understood how to write catchy pop music.

I used to hear "Bullgod" on the local "metal" station (WSOU in NJ) in the early to mid 90s. And yeah, Kid Rock always sucked.

xpost yeah, most of the commercial nu-metal groups that actually tried to rawk tended to blow their wad on the same groove patterns, riff-wise, and it got old. hooks were really the way to differentiate yourself, and LP had those in droves. I wouldn't say I was a 'fan', no, but I love a lot of their singles and Chester's voice. one of my least favorites was "One Step Closer" because it sounded too close to other nu-metal bands.

even Korn realized they needed to add some hooks, unfortunately on Follow the Leader, they stuck out like a sore thumb or weren't all that catchy. "Freak On a Leash" (which I hate) at least has an ear-wormy chorus and that ride-out scat pattern, but on "It's On", you're lead to think the chorus is him bellowing "It's On!", and then this alternapop second chorus with a stupid melody comes in right after it. Also, I can't STAND Davis's excessively nasal singing voice on the more melodic material, whereas I could at least tolerate his weird scream style.

I still like Korn's s/t and Follow the Leader, but never find myself wanting to return to them. there's not many moments where I feel like yelling KNICK KNACK PADDY WHACK, GIVE A DOG A BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE

I saw Kid Rock live once. he was opening for Metallica. only tolerable part was the southern rock suite where he actually sang.

his rapping was execrable

i saw linkin park support deftones in 2001, one of those occasions were the support act gets massively bigger than the headliner in the interim between the tour being booked and the show taking place, and i thought it was a very anodyne show, was nowhere near seeing korn and limp bizkit on the life is peachy tour or deftones touring around the fur.

I don't know how everybody else felt, but I remember being thoroughly disappointed when nu-metal became a movement. I was (and still am to a degree) all about groove, so Korn didn't feel like "metal" to my young ears, but a variation on it, and I liked how different their riff styling was, and of course the angst spoke much more to me as an awkward teen.

Once I started opening my Guitar magazine and started seeing these bands coming off the assembly line by the time Korn had released Life is Peachy, I started to sour on the sound in general, which in a way hurt my enjoyment of the Korn I had liked. especially because almost every other band was so lazy about it. Coal Chamber practically were a Korn clone (the debut was a hilarious album, "BIG TRUCK! BIG TRUCK! BIG TRUCK!"), I hated Durst and company from the beginning, old Sugar Ray was hookless drudgery....Deftones I didn't mind (and still like).

I went from loving Korn and their brand of nu-metal to actively hating nu-metal by the end of high school. since mp3s and file-sharing was in its infancy and something I hadn't discovered, I kept reading Guitar magazine and Guitar World (the former I had a sub to, the latter I bought on occasion), trying to look for metal bands, as I was new to the genre then. Then when I'd listen to them at Blockbuster Music (yes, it was a thing! look it up!) or Camelot Music at the listening station, I'd disappointedly say "....oh, they're one of THOSE bands, never mind".

it hadn't even come close to its nadir yet, like the early 2000s when every street corner had evicted their doowop groups and replaced them with faceless b-tuned guitar bands with song titles like "RAGE", "PISSED", "STOP", etc

i went off nu-metal pretty quickly, i ended up listening to so-cal mall punk and midwestern emo instead, temporarily disavowed pretty much all the bands i had enjoyed, especially limp bizkit (in a very pure, lame "i liked them before they even had an album out and now i think they're lame now that everyone else likes them" way), with deftones being the only one of those bands i was still into by the end of high school

I just remember picking up Follow the Leader and really hating half of it, and not continuing further (I realize they morphed into different sounds after that album, but that one just felt so half-baked).

yeah it's pretty crappy, it turned me off at the time, as brad mentions upthread its "30% hot garbage" (i might venture it's even more than that).

I saw Kid Rock headline an arena tour in... 2001? 2002? The girl I was dating at the time got free tickets through work and was morbidly curious. All I remember was that at 23 & 25, we were definitely on the young end of the crowd, I would have pegged the average age to be 35 or so. Lots of Harley gear, lots of confederate flags and a huge banner for Joe C. Also remember being fairly impressed by his Twisted Brown Trucker band, especially the drummer. They were surprisingly flexible and good at turning on a dime from hip-hop to southern rock.

the partying/pleasure/celebration aspects that very definitely are the pretezts for much of hip hop and metal/hard rock was strictly forbidden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XusXcfGwvqg

but on "It's On", you're lead to think the chorus is him bellowing "It's On!", and then this alternapop second chorus with a stupid melody comes in right after it

oh man i love the "you see it's my fault / angels stabbing me inside" chorus, i think it's beautiful lol

uh is it possible for me to get all my lapsed korn fans to listen to issues. the absolutely blackened alternametal style they nail on it is way more unsettling and cool than anything on follow the leader imo and the hooks are still enormous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBEE-t-uyI0

I loved a lot of the proto-nu metal bands as a kid, stuff like faith no more, nine inch nails, chaos a.d. era sepultura, the judgement night soundtrack, etc. was really into korn too but it didn't feel like something radically different to me back then. but yeah, it already seemed like the rot had set in by the time follow the leader came out, which I never even bothered with. but honestly, that was prob just a contrarian move since they were legitimately hugely popular by then and teenage me didn't like that. I dismissed everything after that reflexively but I'd prob place some of the later stuff at the top now. kittie, linkin park, first half of the first slipknot record...

linkin park were the best technicians, I think. a lot of these bands flirted with industrial sounds but were pretty amateurish about it. LP really ran with NIN and depeche mode influences and understood how to write catchy pop music.

― (⊙_⊙?) (original bgm), Thursday, February 25, 2021 1:24 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm. in fact i realized earlier today that the reason i love the dubstep korn record is it's the closest they'll ever get to making a linkin park album, and it really works

I think that P.O.D. "Alive" is the only song in said canon where I immediately thought it was fantastic… and I will mention that I listened to Turbo again in the car just now and they played a Trust Company song… is this act known to be a Korn Klone?

I might as well mention that my band opened up for Kid Rock at Irving Plaza for his Rock 'n roll Jesus release party in 2007…we were never introduced to him or anyone in his organization…but that band he has was— or is?— fearsome…

Linkin Park felt like a nu-metal boy band jumping on the bandwagon to teenage me and pals. By that point all the people i knew who liked metal had been into the groove and some numetally stuff like pantera/roots-era sepultura/korn/deftones/fear factory for 3 or 4 years, and Linkin Park sounded really made for radio in comparison. looking it up, limp bizkit had 3 albums out before hybrid theory... it was 6 years after the Korn debut; so they felt like also-rans in some ways. nowadays though I see them talked about as being a prototypical nu-metal band which feels ahistorical... also can definitely remember people talking shit about their first London show for the amount of backing tracks being used and how manufactured they felt. fun times.

I'd say i class them alongside Drowning Pool and Papa Roach as second generation nu-metal? IE by this point the rot had set in and these bands all felt like imitations. not always bad ones, LP wrote some great pop songs, but nothing felt new or innovative.

see also: Disturbed. okay will stop posting now.

also can definitely remember people talking shit about their first London show for the amount of backing tracks being used and how manufactured they felt

yes, they definitely used prerecorded materially while playing live, was a very odd set and not something i've really experienced from a rock band subsequently. my friends and i thought they were industry plants at the time

they were probably the most enduringly successful nu-metal band though? like their spotify numbers are fucking huge, dwarfing korn and limp bizkit

well there's no denying they were the biggest pop crossover group and have definitely had enduring visibility, just saying by the time they did that, nu-metal was old news to rock/metal fans. them being very pretty and polished certainly had a lot to do with that.

i think i could accept the argument that linkin park don't really qualify as nu-metal but.. i don't think classifying them as "second generation alongside drowning pool, papa roach, and disturbed" is strictly correct outside of scene politics, especially when slipknot's s/t came out in 99 and kitte's spit came out in 2000, unless you also think these bands/records are also second generation. imo they're crucial to the development of the sound and one only predates hybrid theory by nine months

also chocolate starfish came out one week before hybrid theory, lol

def the popularity of nu-metal absolutely peaking

it's funny, im realizing i do some sort of separation in my mind with slipknot because they seem a bit more "metal metal" (blast beats and diddly diddly guitar alongside the groove metal riffs) but obv they're key to the understanding of nu-metal

1994-1996 nu-metal begins but is just kind of one sound being practiced by a few bands in california [citation needed]. this is bound by the korn s/t and sepultura roots
1997-1999 starts to take off commercially and a lot of other bands start appearing that are pushing the form in odd directions (limp bizkit, orgy, sevendust) with slipknot appearing in 1999 to take genre into overdrive
2000-2002 chocolate starfish/hybrid theory/meteora, debuts of papa roach, kittie, disturbed, etc. the inexorable rise of staind. peak of visibility and popularity
2003 evanescence fallen which i've suddenly decided is the end of the road to me. glad they were brought up itt

hmm i guess you really can break linkin park down into a second-generation crop of nu-metal bands.... however they are maybe the best songwriters mentioned in this entire thread so it's a moot point except in chronology

Also worth remembering that Linkin Park has sold more records than basically every other nu-metal band combined. Hybrid Theory has sold almost 30 million copies. They were massive.

though i've always liked the untitled album)

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Thursday, February 25, 2021 10:45 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i listened to it again this evening and i actually LOVE the untitled korn album, what a weird and often kind of gorgeous industrial metal record. and jonathan davis plays drums on four tracks? he's pretty good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3MKe-k_ClE

i'm guessing there is a cool alternate universe where korn kept working with atticus ross and produced several excellent industrial rock records in a row

also chocolate starfish came out one week before hybrid theory, lol

def the popularity of nu-metal absolutely peaking

I remember this coming out very close to kid a which produced some amusing arguments at the time

also I was walking around koreatown recently and one of the hot dog places is now selling a "chocolate dog". we truly are living in fred durst's world

almost as amusing as hail to the thief and st. anger coming out the same week xp

i still can't believe Toxicity came out on 9/11

I forgot that for many years and i kept wondering why I slept in late and missed the two towers exploding, and then realized it's because we went to Virgin megastore at midnight to get Toxicity and by teh time I got home it was like 2 am. so I slept in and woke up to madness.

wiki says it came out on the 4th of september - not to be a party pooper i just wanted to verify that it came out on 9/11 as a fun factoid to pepper into conversation lol

more notably it was #1 on the album charts,when 9/11 happened

neanderthal was actually there to pick up the Glitter soundtrack, it's okay, we won't judge

But tbf there are a number of sources that still do list a 9/11 release date for Toxicity, so I can see where there may be confusion.

jay-z's the blueprint came out on 9/11 and was the #1 album the following week.

lol jon

believe Slayer's God Hates Us All and Dylan's Love and Theft also came out on 9/11

Slayer definitely did. I wasn't buying it anyway as I didn't like the leaked songs from it, but then 9/11 happened and I wasn't doing much of anything other than being scared

i was playing counterstrike all day after 9/11. all the nu-metal made me twisted

Dylan and The Blueprint were the two I bought later that week. I remember almost forcing myself to Best Buy just to pull my eyeballs away from the news for an hour or two.

There's a ton of retconning albums to supposedly have been released that day, the one that always bugs me when it pops up is The Coup's Party Music, which didn't actually come out until November. It was due out in September, but was pushed back due to the whole cover art thing.

Anyway, sorry to hijack your thread Brad.

maybe don’t use the word “hijack” here lol

lol dammit

maaaan Party Music was mah jam.

i feel like it was absolutely inevitable that this would become a 9/11 thread

so, powerman 5000 vs rob zombie.
powerman 5000 even did a reversion of robs big track i.e. "more human" vs "how to be human"
any other examples of such nepotism in the world of industrial/nu-metal ?

Mark Chavez of Adema is Jonathan Davis's half-brother.

probably the only reason they got any attention

that's some deep knowledge unperson.
respect.

the only thing I found more execrable than nu-metal by the time I left high school was post-grunge btw.

it was everywhereeeeeeeeeeeeeee

linkin park being called a nu-metal boyband upthread rankled a little because you know who was absolutely stylized as a nu-metal boyband? adema

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYTwIZslZXo

i will say if you completely ignore the lyrics that song i just posted is a jam, love the high guitar harmonics

what's funny is how comparably terrible the musicianship was with nu-metal. obviously you had Limp Bizkit, which had jazz musicians playing the music, and Korn, but some of the clones could barely play their instruments. sure, you could make the claim of like, Nirvana, but Kurt made his amateurish guitar playing interesting, using voicings and riff-stylings that most trained musicians couldn't dream up.

whereas metalcore, which I also don't like (almost as much as nu-metal), almost every band has pretty tight musicianship, some filled with virtuoso musicians

SOAD and Slipknot have chops

wait i need examples of terrible musicianship in nu metal

yes that is true. Slipknot had more death metally beginnings (from what I've been told, I never did hear Mate Feed Kill Repeat).

xpost bands like Skrape are who I'm thinking of

the knockoff bands inspired a lot of people who had been playing guitar for ten minutes to form a band.

never forget the local nu-metal concert I went to where one of the bands (Grumpy) was lip synching, and the vocalist wasn't even within ten feet of the microphone. the headliner (Deroot) had their sole guitar player get angry at his guitar and throw it across the stage, and the sound of guitar continued, meaning hew as faintly playing over a loud backing track.

lmao ok i have literally never heard of skrape

one of the bands (Grumpy)

omfg

they literally looked like Slayer but played like shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2P8bMN1E70

was listening to the korn s/t tonight and wanted to post this track bc it's the core, the heart music of the genre

absolutely mindbending instrumental bridge on that song

t/s :

linkin park vs dubstep/edm (recharged)
korn vs dubstep (path of totality)

recharged is substantially less good than path of totality. that is pretty easily my least favorite era of linkin park though

i suspected that would be the case.
POT really is next level.
however, i do like LP and both of their remix albums have some amazing tracks.

reanimation is def one of the best remix albums of all time

absolutely.
many years back i used to be very anti-LP cos i was an arse, but somehow i ended up winning their catalogue from the playlouder crew (up to their 'live in texas cd/dvd release).
it was reanimation that made me flip and become a fanboy.

btw i have relistened to s.c.i.e.n.c.e. and have decided to admit it into the canon

kind of still want to do a rock remix albums / nifty rock remixes thread

so you wanna be a Rock superstar, and live large

i guess i should post this in a korn thread but here is my final ranking of korn records

Issues
Korn
The Path of Totality
Untouchables
Life is Peachy
Untitled
The Serenity of Suffering
Follow the Leader
The Nothing
See You On the Other Side
The Paradigm Shift
Take a Look in the Mirror
Korn III: Remember Who You Are

surprised to say that i at the very least like all of them

I kinda began to miss the clenched teeth vocal style that Jonathan employed on the first album and started to cede more and more to the nasal singing voice.

makes sense. i got into them through follow the leader so actually had to adjust to the vocal style on the first two lol

I learned of them shortly after the s/t came out, as the kid that sat next to me in Spanish class handed me his walkman and said LISTEN TO THIS MAAAAAAAN.

with that kid sitting next to me, it's no wonder my A dropped to a B that year. so distracting.

damn that's like the ultimate way to get into korn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XgHepSgU0w

ok i gotta reiterate what a fuckin revelation the untitled korn album is

updated canon:

korn: s/t
orgy: "stitches"
kittie: spit
deftones: around the fur
linkin park: hybrid theory
korn: "freak on a leash"/"got the life"
limp bizkit: three dollar bill, yall$
system of a down: s/t
sepultura: roots
rob zombie: hellbilly deluxe
mindless self indulgence: frankenstein girls will seem strangely sexy
orgy: vapor transmission
korn: life is peachy
limp bizkit: "nookie"/"break stuff"
nothingface: violence
fear factory: digimortal
sevendust: "black"/"denial"
slipknot: s/t
static-x: wisconsin death trip
incubus: s.c.i.e.n.c.e
disturbed: "stupify"
adema: "giving in"/"the way you like it"
p.o.d.: satellite
limp bizkit: chocolate starfish and the hot dog flavored water
deadsy: "the key to gramercy park"
queen of the damned soundtrack
evanescence: fallen

s.c.i.e.n.c.e. is one of those records I am perfectly happy to keep in its historical placement in my memory palace, undisturbed by revisiting

idk i had completely forgotten about the song "nebula," a real jam

do Crazy Town fit here? "Butterfly" is definitely nu-metal adjacent at least

oh fuck i meant to listen to the crazy town record before updating the canon

i thought "butterfly" was the worst song of all time for like a full decade, i'm overdue for a heel turn in this direction

this almost redeems it a tiny bit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMPr9XXGymA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc34Er7aeYc

Oh god I hated 'Butterfly' so much at the time but 'Revolving Door' was even worse.

"Butterfly" came during a glut of "rappers whose raps sound like high school poems for their crush", who weren't part of the hip-hop scene, but were either fronting nu-metal bands, creating pop records, or creating nonsense nobody wanted to hear but got played 24/7 anyway

this almost redeems it a tiny bit

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 9:30 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

tripping. the original is way better

idk i had completely forgotten about the song "nebula," a real jam

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 8:16 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

also... maybe the only evidence of overlap between incubus and soad

that nothingface album is fucking astonishing and should be talked about more. a true descendant of angel dust

(maybe more in spirit than in sound)

.... ugh.... this crazy town record is kinda dope.... way weirder than i expected too

also, in things i didn't expect to read in the wikipedia entry for the second crazy town record: "The second and final single, "Hurt You So Bad", features Rivers Cuomo from Weezer on the track's guitar solo.[9]"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cSGGmd7f8g

i thought "butterfly" was the worst song of all time for like a full decade, i'm overdue for a heel turn in this direction

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 8:24 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol yeah i'm cured, shit sounds awesome

"butterfly" is the only nu-metal song to hit #1 on the billboard hot 100

i wouldnt consider butterfly nu-metal

Is there a reason “significant other” isn’t in the canon in the list?

just feel like i can summarize its impact with "nookie" and "break stuff" only but there's no special reason no lol

ugh i do not relish thinking a song called "lollipop porn" is a total jam

also i thought this record was gonna be way more misogynistic than it is, oh wait here comes "revolving door"

actually this is fine for the most part. fuck. goddammit. why do i like the crazy town record so much

ok i give up, pls retitle this thread the quarantine regression canon

oh wait here comes "revolving door"

always loved that riff :/

it's good!!!

crazy town's in the fucking canon

the crazy town album was one of the first cds i bought, i remember being really fascinated by "black cloud" lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgEqGFwcfdM

tight!!!!

i forgot that someone mentioned soulfly upthread so i'm gonna listen to the first two records after revisiting roots, which is just about the most awesome record ever made. ppl who think otherwise... i know everything i need to know about their taste

weird thing is Soulfly is pretty trad metal now

Feel like “Bawitaba” fits the canon for MI-nü metal

Ignore the umlaut I accidentally switched keyboard language settings

"bäwitdäbä"

Papa Roach 'Last Resort' has to be in the canon!

I need to relisten but I’m fairly certain Project 86 had some nu metal cuts.

it's a stretch since these are from outside the scene and kinda late to the game at that. but these ayumi hamasaki songs would be in my personal nu metal canon -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i82ThTaK29s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkepjPRV24U

"Microphone" possibly even more so. I love the whole Rock 'n' Roll Circus album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTvmPLt1ncA

can we (or i, i guess) get brad to listen to methods of mayhem or vanilla ice's "hard to swallow" LP by mentioning them itt?

it could happen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMeHs0SF2Ks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHOc0qBF15A

huge banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD8XT2mMrGU

I would like to submit "numbskull" (1999) by ash as a weird case of nu-metal influence warping a non-nu-metal band's sound to hilarious effect

Is there any good jammy or prog nu metal

I mean I know there is, but I’m thinking more like a band where that was their overall direction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhZp43zq_54

is this the thread to post this in

Is there any good jammy or prog nu metal

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, March 4, 2021 12:56 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean I know there is, but I’m thinking more like a band where that was their overall direction

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, March 4, 2021 12:56 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i feel like in practice this ends up inevitably sounding like tool. i also can't think of a band where this is their whole thing, as opposed bands who had one album where they tried it (mudvayne's the end of all things to come and dir en grey's uroboros are the two possibilities that came to mind)

that nothingface album isn't exactly prog but it's not not proggy. hm

xp with Brad...

Is there any good jammy or prog nu metal

The second Mudvayne album, The End of All Things to Come, is Tool-ish prog-metal disguised as nu-metal. They even got David Bottrill, who worked with Tool and King Crimson, to produce it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0S9ck12Cd0

Their next album kinda stuck to this direction, but headed a little more toward radio rock.

ive listened to so much nu metal this week. just had an urge to listen to freak on a leash and im doing that right now

dare i revisit the korn unplugged album?

lol i did not even listen to it, cannot see the point of it

i listened to it ironically a few years ago while high in a hotel bedroom at a hot springs resort on my 33rd birthday. definitely wasn't good

but i am now owning my love of korn so maybe im ready now

i had completely forgotten about the existence of "wicked" featuring chino moreno

That’s funny because the only thing I ever remembered about that album was that exact track and their cover of “lowrider”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy17DWrjNT0

omg i forgot how much of a jam this is

animosity is def the best sevendust record that i've heard but it's like... very un-nu-metal for the most part. "shine" is an amazing song but i also thing it embodies what i'm talking about

Animosity is good. the songwriting finally utilizes Lajon's voice properly.

"Xmas Day" is great

going by your op, either of the first two Will Haven recs, qualify maybe?

xp

i finally checked out snot... get some feels a little too funk metal, maybe? but strait up is kind of a scene classic, surprisingly really awesome throughout

i also finished this mix of nu-metal remixes over the weekend and i'm sooo happy with it

https://www.mixcloud.com/brad-nelson4/double-exposures-vol-82-everything-that-i-am-rearranging/

1. kittie: safe (kmfdm inc. remix)
2. mudvayne: dig (future evolution remix)
3. static-x: love dump (mephisto odyssey's voodoo mix)
4. godflesh: crush my soul (ultramixedit)
5. korn: here to stay (bt's managed anger mix)
6. orgy: stitches (green velvet mix)
7. limp bizkit: nookie (androids vs. las putas remix)
8. nine inch nails: the hand that feeds (photek straight mix)

this is awesome so far i am very excited for the BT korn remix!

this kittie/KMFDM remix gives me serious buffy vibes