What's wrong with Nu-Metal?

That's what the problem with nu-metal is, it's the worst kind of herd mentallity. Their fans say that they aren't sheep, but they sure produce a lot of wool...

If I was 15 I would love it.

(ditto GWAR) (=rubbah meatl?)

slipknot r00l, btw.

Tom- You're very right. My younger brother loves Nu-metal and garage and REM and travis.

I can listen to this stuff on the radio and say this is no different to Journey or bon-Jovi etc. Just good catchy singles that I just wouldn't buy to listen to at home.

At the end of the day i hit back with fushitsusha and borbetomagus and listen to my brother say that 'this is not music etc'. Its very entertaining!

What happened to that fear going around the music press a few years ago that kids would no longer be interested in forming bands because all they knew was dance music and computer games?

Alex hits in on the head. Said it before, will say it again ... only two nu-metal acts I like are the Deftones and Tool (and it's questionable whether Tool is actually nu-metal).

Then again, listen to too much death/black metal and yer sensibilities get forever jaded.

I think the only nu-metal band I really hate is Korn.

You're right, of course. I should've said that death metal and black metal show up nu-metal for the weak-ass, pathetic, whiny shit that it is. (Not that death metal and black metal aren't ridiculous in their own ways, but that's another argument altogether).

The best metal, then and now, is made by the smarter-than-you-think stoners and burnouts, not the jockstrapped assholes that listen to and make nu-metal. Always was, it is, and always shall be.

I think what Sundar said is right, 1000x better nu-metal and bubblegum punk than alternative radio being completely dominated by constipated pearl jam soundalikes.

What if you hate all of the foregoing genres? Bad music and unhappy families are very similar: both suck in their own suck-ass way.

I wanted to write something really slating nu metal but I amn't bothered enough I guess. It's like the poorly acted soap opera of the music world, it reminds me of those parts in Hollyoaks where someone gets really angry and screams some terribly written thing like "YOU WON'T LET ME PURSUE MY AMBITIONS DAD".

But neither these bands nor pop-punk bands are really comparable to Aerosmith, are they? It's not like any of them had a brilliant career in the previous decade and then came back from rehab and continued to make hugely popular records.

BTW, I can assure you that hair metal certainly wasn't safe and uncontroversial in my household. Even getting beyond that, I remember reading an article in my Mom's Homemaker's when I was 7 or 8 (I learned to read young) about how evil and threatening hair metal bands were and how they were inspiring kids to torture animals, do drugs, commit suicide, etc. For one of my Grade 6 class parties we were told we could bring in any kind of music except "heavy metal". I don't think hair metal was uncontroversial at all. It pissed off a lot of rock critics too.

Out of curiosity has anyone here ever actually listened to a piece of music just to piss off family members or anyone else?

Mark: White Lion was just hungry for your love.

Yeah. I prefer the radio edit of Pharoe Monch's "Simon Says", but the album version does tend to raise mother's heckles somewhat.

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96 quite bitter beings
disengage the stimulator

if this is nu-metal guilt, then let it be my scarlet fux0ring letter.

I managed to not let myself hear System of a Down for nearly 2 years because they were always called "nu-metal"...I finally heard their music and it blew my mind.

I hate "genre".

Makes crusty old metal dudes who think that anything post-80s thrash is false metal seem (almost) RIGHT.

Yeah, I know, not too original... but where is the evil? Where is the power???

The problem is the singers, and the guitar players. The singers all do their little shaven-head thing or tattoos or whatever, and they all do the "Even though I'm 32 now, I'll still sing about how much it sucked in 9th grade when my mom sold her Camaro and bought a station wagon right as I was about to get my liscence just to spite me, and people made fun of me because I chose to look like a numbnuts goofball, which I thought would get me laid, but didn't" thing.
And the guitar players all buy these Schecters or whatever and tune'em down to like C, and really. Eat shit, right?

There are some exceptions, like System of a Down who are alright because the singer is all like, "Looooook AaAaAat My BeEeEeArd, I'm AaAaAaArrrrrmenian!" Which I really like, and their drummer is pretty dope on the hats.

And Slipknot, even though they have both the characteristics I don't like, they are extremely goofy, which is ok by me. Which makes me a Ween fan.

for every half-decent nu-metal group there's like 163 that suck so bad it makes me want to listen to enigma for the rest of my life. the majority do nothing inovative or creative and rely on tired formulas that bands like the deftones and korn moved on from along time ago (kinda).

if this is nu-metal guilt, then let it be my scarlet fux0ring letter.

let me add one more cky song into this love fest:

"flesh into gear"

Dealing in generalisations, first of all, the sentiment of this slush reeks. All this rhetoric about truth and integrity and the strength to stand as an individual, oh, but you gotta wear a black skate shirt, maybe with a baseball cap, a spiky wrist chain and baggy jeans. Either that, or it’s about sniffing your mate’s armpit and laughing about going for a shit. The sociological implications of the sky-rocket success of this crap should set alarm bells off. Are today’s teen generation so woefully weak-minded and emotionally immature they fall for this double talk piss, which underneath the posturing, actually attaches no merit to individual thought or enlightenment? It’s the same old gang, wank off aesthetic of yer typical mid-table rock band and it stinks. But it’s just about music man, cutting loose, you know, rocking out; well in that case what’s with all the stoopid costumes, ridiculous overloaded lyrics, and pseudo-sincerity – I don’t buy it man, these bands prey on a teeny need for idolatry and they feed shit in return for dollars, like a more subversive Young and Gates.

Working with examples; I heard Linkin Park were manufactured by a record company as a cash-in on the trend, while they shamelessly trade off this sincerity thing, that is such a cherished currency for teenies, esp the boyz. Slipknot are schoolboy pranksters, trading in clichés and cod-nihilism-by-numbers. Papa Roach are just a bog-standard rock outfit with nothing to say really and even less verve when they say it. Do Limp Bizkit count? Fuck me, look at that album title to get the picture – utter utter utter facile excrement. In fact the only guy associated with this swirling pool of dross who seems to have anything remotely interesting to say or anything like a vital sound is Manson and he’s pitched himself as a fucking cartoon.

Ooh, and they’re all so isolated and misunderstood and bored (how old are they, by the way?, and check the problems they got - bulging bank balances and blonde trophy birds on both arms), fuck me, instead of going on and on about it take a leaf out of Eminem’s book and analyse it, think about it, laugh about it, and shock-horror, maybe try and deal with it – I’m not up for Mr Homophobe, man, but compared to him, these guys are just spoons. Nu-metal seems so indulgent, like it wallows in this self-glorifying position without making any effort to wash the stains out – it celebrates the trite and inconsequential and positively basks in shallow self-absorption, permitting the misunderstood yoof to sit in bedrooms brooding on the unfairness of it all to a click-clack soundtrack. Man, nu-metal plays right up to such stereotyping as this and consciously proliferates it, thrives off it.

And Christ, it’s all so fucking banal. There’s absolutely nothing to it, if you strip away the levels, it’s airy-fairy bullshit. Nursery rhymes set to the spectre of metal. That nu-metal sound, a nasty clipped hi-eq tinny polished production with everything in the mix compressed to fuck (witness QOTSA succumbing to this tendency) – flatlining all that huff-puff and frowning. No power, no passion, no danger, no edge, no intensity, little humour, no self-parody – nothing worthy of the metal moniker.

I dunno, maybe this is the last hurrah for the guitar, and yada yada, you gotta mope about and feel all misunderstood at some point, better when you are 15 than 35 I s’pose, but I can’t help but feel that nu-metal is horribly cynical and contrived to maximise profits. It’s a cash in, not a challenge, or a drop-out, and I can’t find anything to cheer in that.

ha ha ha ha...that's the best typed imitation of his voice I've ever seen...I can hear him in my head as I read all those extra vowels!

Been tired of them for a long while now. The novelty wore off. But nu metal in general, I treat it the same way I treated Warrant/Poison/etc. before they were being nostalgized: it's not something I'd buy (except Primer 55, which I do like a lot), but I won't change the station if it comes on and it's not a song I've been overexposed to, and I download a couple tracks to put in my playlist for the sake of variety.

i <3 all nu-metal ever for the usual kneejerk hypocritical selective contrarian reasons obv

also it rox

I'd argue that Slipknot are melodic Death Metal, but then I like their music a lot so maybe I'm an apologist.

I think it's funny that there's a reversal of the 'younger generation laughs at older generation's outdated music' trend. Every time I see a clone in a hoody I think yes, but that kind of music is 10 years old and if it were 1992 now you'd be into Suede, Bryan Adams or some other chart rubbish, along with all the other clones.

I went to see Slipknot and their fans are 90% idiots. Their lead singer ordered, not asked but _ordered_, the audience to sit down. Almost everyone did. I just stood there in shocked disbelief and screamed sheep at the top of my voice at a sea of prone youth.
I was _really_ fucking angry. These people are going to grow up and they are going to do what they are told. DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD. They could be the foot soldiers of a fourth Reich. They almost made me be ashamed to be human. Sheep.

I', getting angry just thinking about it again.

c'mon man. lets meet up and 'break stuff' together. get you away from those bad dylan recs.

i don't even know if it is nu-metal but i like it...

do yourself a favor computer boy: go crazy and dl it!

http://www.avclub.com/articles/part-9-1998-youre-either-with-korn-and-limp-bizkit,51471/

Nu-metal is the Kiss and Twisted Sister for this generation, yes, obviously manufactured/fake/cynical/worthless but in a decade ILM will be flooded with people with fond memories of stumbling over their baggy pants while jumping up and down to Korn.

― Siegbran (eofor), Tuesday, November 19, 2002 4:20 PM

pretty amusing seeing old ilmers of the poppist variety trying to defend nu-metal.
Good to see siegbran being siegbran!

i like this bit

I wasn’t 13 anymore, and the world had changed a lot since 1990. I was no longer stuck with just one record store, MTV, and the radio when it came to seeking out new music. Finding stuff that I liked was easier, but also lonelier. Good music never stopped being made, but the belief that music could connect you to millions of strangers in a very tangible, even transformative way was gone and probably wasn’t coming back.

substitute 13 for 18 though

Nü-metal band Korn offers its listeners an earful of pain

GREEN BAY—A concert broke out Friday night during a brawl hosted by Korn at the Brown County Arena.

The nü-metal band “treated” about 4,000 fans to 90 minutes of anti-anthems like “Freak on a Leash,” “Got the Life,” “Faget,” and “Dead Bodies Everywhere,” but the music was beside the point. Korn’s bludgeoning brand of rock is an all-out assault on an audience assaulting itself. It’s entertainment as pain, where you pay someone to make you feel crummy so you can take it out on your fellow audience members.

How do you describe a Korn concert experience? Imagine a fleet of 747s doing a fly-by a dozen feet over your head while a chainsaw buzzes slowly through your skull, and you have a decent approximation.

If success here is judged by the severity of your headache as you finally, mercifully, walk out alive, then this show is one for the ages. In fact, Korn could go down as one of the worst sounding shows in the history of the soon-to-be-semi-retired Brown County Arena. Congratulations, boys! And please, pass the Extra Strength Tylenol!

Korn has undeniably connected with a segment of today’s youth culture. Front man Jonathan Davis and his dreadlocked band mates held the audience in the palms of their hands as soon as they walked on stage.

If only the band could use that power for something other than encouraging a violent mob mentality (which contradicts the nonconformist rhetoric of Davis’ lyrics). Watching hordes of beefy young men insanely pound the testosterone out of each other on the arena floor (some to the point of physical collapse) was a disturbing sight, like a battle scene out of Braveheart re-imagined by Roger Waters.

Also disconcerting was the overwhelming level of stupid maleness that rippled through the crowd between Korn and opener Puddle of Mudd, when hundreds of overheated mooks aggressively implored their female counterparts to expose themselves. It’s hard to say what was more pathetic: That no guys stepped in to stop it, or that so many gals obliged.

There was a silver lining to Friday’s show: The turnout was about half of what Korn drew at the arena in 2000. Nü-metal is played out. People are starting to look elsewhere. When its day is done, and that day is hopefully coming soon, Korn will really have something to be angry about.

A couple of words about my review: Yeah, I know it sounds stilted. And maybe a little stodgy. (Okay, really stodgy. I’m not sure anybody under the age 75 should ever refer to women as “gals,” unless you’re trying to fit in at the VFW.) But, hey, how about that line about the 747s? I was pretty proud of that one. Hopefully, you were laughing so hard that you skipped the part about the Extra Strength Tylenol.

Questionable writing aside, the review did its job in spectacular fashion: Korn fans were pissed. The next day, expletive-filled screeds filled my e-mail inbox at the rate of one every 10 minutes. A local radio station made me a topic of very heated discussion on its message board. I stopped answering my phone, because I knew clenched fists and F-bombs were waiting to pummel me. My editor considered calling the police after one reader said he was going to “slit ur fucking goddam face to peaces!!!!!!!” but I talked him out of it, since the guy said he was from California.

How bad was the response? Here’s just a small taste:

OI U fucker!!!!u think koRn are so bad and crap rite. they caouse us so called troubled kids to hurt and kill well u know u r just another victim of society if u ever acctually listend to the lrycs u will understand. us koRn fans have trouble dealing with bullies and family shit and koRn are like an anti deprecent just when u think no one is listening to u u put on some koRn and u realise ur not alone. we dont kick the shit outa each other at gigs if u were acctually a person who listend there are un written ruls to a mosh so fuck ur judgement u r just as bad as the bullies that break my nose an shit u fucking preppy posh asshole fuck you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You must be gay. You’re threatened by women taking there tops off. I bet if they were guys, you would’ve applauded and drooled. Fuckin idiot

You are nothing. And I don’t usually say this to people, but you should go in a dark hole and rot and die. You don’t belong where humans are because you are just going to rip the shit out of some other band so that you can get more hate mail and get this shit all over again.

personally i consider hip hop to be one of the biggest menaces for the society. it represents decadence. nü-metal will never die as long as there are people like you in this goddam world !!! stupid, horny little bastards like you make this youth angry, can’t you understand that?

i really hope that letters made up

hip hop is quite a large part of nu metal though no?

stupid, horny little bastards like you make this youth angry, can’t you understand that?

that has got to be one of the lamest most lunk-headed think pieces i have read in a long long time jesus christ

hahaha way to revive this thread, i made a 3-hour spotify playlist of nu-metal last week

http://open.spotify.com/user/unbornwhiskey/playlist/7DM4wgAaZRcHn0VbhEiAFC

ultimate ymmv

Oh, hello 1998!

Korn and Limp Bizkit are heading on a co-headline tour together.

The two nu-metal acts will join forces for a series of UK dates this December, including gigs in Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, London, Cardiff and Nottingham. The London date will take place at The SSE Arena, Wembley on December 16.

Tickets go on pre-sale today (September 14) and general sale at 9am this Friday (September 16).

http://www.nme.com/news/korn/96417

they actually toured the uk together in 1997 - along with helmet. i attended the gig at the Glasgow Barrowlands