Nu-Metal re-assesed?

It will never be time IMO (deftones/soad excepted) but maybe others will disagree?
Its funny to think really that Nu-Metal is actually the UK's fault as it was kerrang who hyped up that first Korn album as "nu-metal" and the music was much more popular here than in the USA for the 1st few years despite the fact all the bands were 'merican . I still blame Max Cavalera for giving it cred that helped it initially and of course Ozzfest made those bands mainstream worldwide. It was dire times though really, wasn't it?

Anyone care to defend it since Limp Bizkit and Coal Chamber are still playing festivals now?

Grunge would probably have been a more analogous genre to pair with britpop than nu-metal, imo. But I'd love to see who drops in here to stan for nu-metal.

I'm still staggered by how much it sold in the UK. Rawk/Metal never really sold that much here really then this stuff went genuine mainstream with #1 singles and outsold Nirvana,Pearl Jam etc and tons of 8 and 9 year olds were into it in a way grunge hadn't connected. Why????

I still have more than enough time for System Of A Down, the first two albums especially seem to have held up very well and I'd place them both as being up there with the best of the genre. However, on the other hand, you've got dreck like Chocolate Starfish & The Hot Dog Flavoured Water which is just fucking all kinds of terrible.

jf i was thinking of making it post-grunge but that shit didn't really do anything in the UK so I thought id go with nu-metal as it was a world-wide phenomenon but feel free to discuss nickelback, Creed and co in here too.

NOBODY will stan for Nickelback or Creed, right?

Reevaluating Nu-Metal (Or: Top 100 Nu-Metal Songs)

Still sucks.

is miccio still around?

I'm still staggered by how much it sold in the UK. Rawk/Metal never really sold that much here really then this stuff went genuine mainstream with #1 singles and outsold Nirvana,Pearl Jam etc and tons of 8 and 9 year olds were into it in a way grunge hadn't connected. Why????

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Saturday, June 29, 2013 1:23 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You've got me thinking about this now. If I remember, the earlier nu-metal stuff such as Korn's first two albums, the early Deftones stuff and the first System Of A Down album did have a bit of a cult following here. I'm trying to pin-point a specific event which led to people going absolutely nuts for nu-metal here, and the conclusion I've reached is the moment when Slipknot performed 'Wait In Bleed' on TFI Friday, and I suspect it was the image of the band and the mystery of the masks and boiler-suits as well as the myths they created in interviews and suchlike that had kids enthralled as much as the music. I seem to remember Slipknot being the starting point of the BIG popularity.

it was also all over modern rock radio. Slipknot did have a lot to do with it, but I think Limp Bizkit were the band that also stirred up a lot of fans.

once modern radio jumped on board, the copycats were in play and we got treated to such choice acts as Full Devil Jacket, Skrape, Throe, and that Vanilla Ice "Bipolar" side project.

xpost:

And of course through getting into that self-titled Slipknot album, they went back and discovered the other bands: Korn (I was 16 at the time, and I remember loads of people the same age as me wearing Korn hoodies with the Issues album sleeve on, which was their most recent album at that point), System Of A Down, Deftones... shitloads of smaller bands started appearing. Some even went back and discovered grunge stuff they'd missed out on the first time around. I remember Rage Against The Machine and the Red Hot Chili Peppers getting a huge boost in popularity around this time too, even though they had fuck-all to do with nu-metal.

i stand by my 2001 assessment:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-08-21/music/heard-it-on-the-x/

Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park were the ones who took it truly mainstream here but Slipknot hoodies were huge amongst pre-teens after that it was really really bizarre.

I remember being in #metal on DALnet and there were vicious multilingual flame wars going on whenever anybody even mentioned Slipknot. At one point the metalheads running the channel (most of whom were Swedish) got so pissed off at nu-metal they basically coded a script that kick-banned people who even mentioned the names "Slipknot", "Korn" or any other band of the moment. Even if you said "Limp Bizkit sucks", as they weren't that good at programming.

the rapping really disappeared from nu-metal quite quickly didn't it?

idk I mean I think a lot of people referred to staccato barking as "rapping", but I think there were less bands that actually had a real facsimile of rapping in the group other than maybe hed P.E. (who weren't metal or nu-metal), Kottonmouth Kings (ick), the Durstards, and a handful of others.

and then there was Candiria, who had hip-hop influences but weren't nu-metal. anybody remember them?

I seem to remember the whole pop-punk thing increasing in popularity here as well, alongside nu-metal. It would take until American Idiot until Green Day got REALLY big here, but I remember even around the time of Warning they seemed to be more popular here than they ever were circa Dookie or Insomniac. Blink-182 put out Enema Of The State, as well. I hated that band. The next thing that comes to mind is stuff like Sum 41, New Found Glory etc. It just seemed to me that it wasn't JUST nu-metal that was popular in the UK at that time, it was American pop-punk and American rock in general.

remember the female vanilla ice who jumped on the nu-metal bandwagon aka Tairrie B? lol

Offspring got a #1 UK single here too around then (Pretty Fly For A White Guy)

Dookie was massive here but then they faded away a bit til American Idiot.

Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park were the ones who took it truly mainstream here but Slipknot hoodies were huge amongst pre-teens after that it was really really bizarre.

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Saturday, June 29, 2013 1:37 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh yeah, Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory and Limp Bizkit's Chocolate Starfish were both HUGE... but I seem to remember shitloads of people being into Korn and Slipknot WELL before either of those records came out. Maybe Hybrid Theory/Chocolate Starfish were the commercial pinnacles of the genre. Sadly.

xxxpost yep, the pop-punk thing definitely took off around the same time. Shit like Good Charlotte, The Ataris, all got popular. I honestly hated that more than nu-metal because it was all so generic and wooden (not that nu-metal wasn't, but I felt like it at least had more variety).

The funny thing to me is that obviously metalcore is now the subgenre of the moment to tick off "true" metalheads, but while they do have a stick up their ass about this genre, they dont' seem to hate it anywhere near as much as they did nu-metal. Probably because of there being better musicianship and being a closer facsimile of the genre, even if 75% of the bands at Rockstar Mayhem Fest still suck.

Nu-metal, though, inspired seizure-inducing rage.

Oh yeah, Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory and Limp Bizkit's Chocolate Starfish were both HUGE... but I seem to remember shitloads of people being into Korn and Slipknot WELL before either of those records came out. Maybe Hybrid Theory/Chocolate Starfish were the commercial pinnacles of the genre. Sadly.

― I wanna live like C'MOWN! people (Turrican), Friday, June 28, 2013 9:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was into Korn the year their s/t came out. I had a dubbed tape copy of it. However I jumped ship on "Follow the Leader" as I didn't like the poppier direction they were going on and Jon using his nasal singing voice more often. I feel like what I liked about Korn's s/t at the time (and even now, to an extent) isn't what much of the nu-metal that followed brought to the table.

Marilyn Manson were really popular for a while too they kind of linked a whole bunch of bands along with Slipknot

xpost ie Jimmy's Chicken Shack had a little 'swing', but it was like so laaaaaazy and dull.

In 1995 the 2 tshirts i saw most at gigs were Korn and Machine Head (who did a nu-metal album remember!)
and no, i wasnt at nu metal gigs. So these bands along with Coal Chamber really were popular with kerrang reading kids

forgot Coal Chamber. I had their s/t and liked it (at the time). think that was largely because I was a HS kid that had no money and my mother would have flipped if I brought home the uber-satanic albums that I'd bring home a year or two later.

The funny thing to me is that obviously metalcore is now the subgenre of the moment to tick off "true" metalheads, but while they do have a stick up their ass about this genre, they dont' seem to hate it anywhere near as much as they did nu-metal. Probably because of there being better musicianship and being a closer facsimile of the genre, even if 75% of the bands at Rockstar Mayhem Fest still suck.

Metalcore has been around for over a decade and despite having a few big bands it never hit the mainstream like nu metal or hair metal.
Deathcore is a lot newer and inspires a lot of rage too but again its not mainstream.

I'll rage about hair metal, nu-metal and ocean colour scene til im 90 I'm pretty sure!

Tairrie B (born Theresa Beth, January 18, 1965,[citation needed] Anaheim, California) is an American singer. She was originally a rapper, but later became an alternative metal vocalist.

Tairrie B started her music career as part of the female dance group Bardeux. After the release of their debut single, "Three-Time Lover", in 1987, she left the group. Under the tutelage of Eazy-E, she was later signed to his label Ruthless Records (under a new imprint called Comptown Records) and released her first album, The Power Of A Woman, which, unlike usual Ruthless fare, was distributed by MCA Records.[1] Tairrie B claimed she was assaulted by Dr. Dre at the 1990 Grammy Awards for not collaborating with him on her first album:

"Everyone with NWA - like Above The Law and The D.O.C. - whenever they do an album, all of the guys appear on the last track. So they were going to do that with me at one point and Ice Cube was gonna write lyrics to a track called 'I Ain't Your Bitch'."[citation needed]

She refused, and rewrote the track as a diatribe against her labelmates. When Dr. Dre heard the track, he turned up at the awards ceremony party, where he punched Tairrie "twice - once in the mouth and once in the eye. He hit me like Tyson, but I took it - I don't know how."[2]

It turned out to be the only Comptown Records album release. Tairrie B later began working on her second full length album 'Single White Female', but before releasing it decided to change her musical direction away from rap. After being released from her contract by Eazy-E, just a few weeks before his 1995 death, she then formed Manhole (later renamed Tura Satana), My Ruin and LVRS.

In December 2008, Tairrie B married her long-time partner and guitarist of My Ruin Mick Murphy. She stated in the band's Myspace blog that she had changed her last name to Murphy, but would continue to use the name Tairrie B in music.

i still think slipknot are impressive. i've watched latter-day live shows on youtube and i give them credit for their vision. they've been doing it for a long time now and they do genuinely drive their fans insane. i don't know if anyone would have thought that they could still be packing them in at this late date.

Who remembers this from 1995?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjb7UD7jPqM

I do, though at the time I didn't know it was Sugar Ray. horrible tune. lol that McG produced the video.

While we're on the topic of heavy music in Britain in the 1990s, can someone tell me what corner Skunk Anansie crawled out of? And how are they regarded there?

Digging into my memory banks here, I think Slipknot's Iowa and System Of A Down's Toxicity were released roughly around the same time. I recall Toxicity being VERY well-received (and deservedly so) and Iowa being quite coolly received. At this point, I remember System Of A Down suddenly becoming bigger than ever (on the back of Toxicity and 'Chop Suey!'), where Slipknot kinda faded into the background a bit. All those kids that were huge Slipknot fans around the time of the self-titled record just suddenly gave up on them. Also, by the time Slipknot put out Iowa, there were suddenly a huge proliferation of really shit smaller bands. I mean, music TV was just saturated with a lot of it. I'm thinking Papa Roach, and fucking Godhead doing 'Eleanor Rigby', Kittie and that really awful band Sugarcoma with the embarrassing 'What Goes Round'.

All throughout this time, Korn were keeping quiet working on Untouchables, and by the time Untouchables came out it seemed that nu-metal's popularity was just beginning to end. That's the strangest thing: Issues came out before the self-titled Slipknot record, but by the time the follow-up came out, the popularity seemed to be dying off.

Ah yeah, I almost forgot... Tool put out Lateralus, which was quite successful... and I think with Midian, Cradle Of Filth seemed to be the biggest that they'd ever been or would ever get.

I was the target audience for the stuff at the time and I despised most of it then and still despise most of it now.

Skunk Anansie got a lot of positive press from nme/melody maker as much as raw/kerrang but i'd imagine they're thought of as a joke now. People really loved Skin's vox tho. I saw them at t in the park 95 and she was the only good thing about them. I think a lot of indie people had hoped she would have made a "Ruby" type album (Lesley Rankine from Silverfish)

I always viewed Sevendust as the biggest waste, with a dude as talented as Lajon Witherspoon on vocals, backed by awkward background "shout" vocals, limp riffs, and barely there songs. although I did like their album Animosity as I felt like they actually bothered to write tunes on it. and of course "Black" is all time. never ever wrote a song as good as that one again.

Skunk Anansie toured the usa with Slipknot before the 1st Slipknot album came out. It was Skin who was the first i ever heard talking about them (friday rock show) could never have predicted how big they would become.

Oh, I'm familiar with the Ruby album. It was basically a straight rip of Hope Nicholls' Sugarsmack albums (her label people admitted as much).

Both Ruby and Skunk Anansie played the main stage of Phoenix Festival '96, iirc.

I liked the Ruby album (and Silverfish)

xpost:

as did Foo Fighters and Terrorvision, funnily enough.

Foo Fighters just kept getting bigger and bigger as they got shitter and shitter! Still love the 1st 2 but fuck the rest.

btw someone explain Nickelback not being a one-hit wonder?

I like about the same number of songs on each Foo Fighters album (usually between 2 and 4), so I've not noticed any considerable drop off.

Nickelback is shameful and unexplainable.

They think that Chad Kroeger looks like a cute cowardly lion? I dunno, man! It's a mystery I've always wanted to get to the bottom of.

Canada has more than a few decent artists, but the only ones they export in recent years are the worst ones: Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, um...Seth Rogen.

you know who was another curious and 'never really exploded' type band that still had a few singles on modern rock radio in the 90s was The Hunger.

nothing great, but considering the alternatives, listenable.

and then there's Rob Halford's Two....ehm...moving on.

I liked that "I Am a Pig" song.

was that his "industrial" album?
xp

dunno the hunger

i recall stuck mojo tho...

hey turrican remember Apes, Pigs and Spacemen? lolol

Think we went over this a little bit before but I'm surprised Emo (Fallout Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic At The Disco) isn't mentioned often as part of the nu-metal legacy. But I've heard extremely little emo so maybe it really isn't that similar sound-wise but the audience always seemed similar to me, but definitely less macho.

yeah nah. i guess both evolved from hardcore technically (everything evolved from hardcore) but there's no crossover, i don't even think the audiences are that similar bc there are way more women in emo fandom

oh I was into nu metal and atdi and my friends were into tool, and they were covered in the same magazines etc. but if you were to put on korn, limp bizkit, coal chamber, and either atdi or tool you would see that one of those bands is not like the other.

― corbyn's gallus (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, August 18, 2015 5:55 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree, but there was definitely some crossover with the audiences, with Korn fans getting into ATD-I and/or Tool etc.

but I'm surprised Emo (Fallout Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic At The Disco) isn't mentioned often as part of the nu-metal legacy.

would it be true to suggest that "a day to remember" seem to cross this line i.e. emo + some nu-metal tendencies.

I always saw the Fall Out Boy/My Chemical Romance/Panic At The Disco crop as something distinct that came afterwards.

I know they were different types of bands but it seemed to me that Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, Evanesence and a few other bands (and the persisting popularity of Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails) maybe built a wider young female audience that emo benefited from?

would it be true to suggest that "a day to remember" seem to cross this line i.e. emo + some nu-metal tendencies.

again this is a tangential hardcore development. some metalcore bands prob have nu-metal influences but the nu-metal tendencies ppl identify have usually always been a part of metalcore

hmmmmm robert you may have something there, at least since (anecdotally) iirc linkin park and evanescence fandom translated really easily to crossover emo fandom

Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory to me was nu-metal tropes taken to some kind of logical, palatable pop conclusion.

i'm not knocking At-The Drive In at all btw

they are significantly cooler than a majority of the bands mentioned in this thread and maybe a logical extension for ex nu-metal fans who grew up a bit

The Mars Volta on the other hand.

*barf*

xxpost:

I mean, I don't think there's a single instance of profanity on Hybrid Theory... there's a moment in one of the tracks where Chester Bennington is all like "You... tried to take the best of me... GO AWAY!" which in the hands of any other nu-metal band woulda been "You... tried to take the best of me, SO FUCK OFF! COCKSUCKER! RRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAWWWWRRRRRR! FUCK OFF! GET THE FUCK OUT! AAAAAHHHHRRRRRR! AAAAAAAHHHHHRRRRR!"

The Mars Volta were also a logical extension for "ex nu-metal fans who grew up a bit"... it wasn't difficult to see fans of Lateralus going for De-Loused and some did.

Hey there's a reason the Mars Volta opened for A Perfect Circle on their Thirteenth Step tour.

Tbf all of these trends were punk/hardcore offshoots one way or another - grunge through Melvins/Dinosaur Jr, then the Biohazard/RATM/Clawfinger/Dog Eat Dog era, nu-metal, "postmetal" or post-hardcore, emo, screamo, crunk-core, metalcore, crabcore.

crabcore was my ticket into becoming a complete anglophile indie kid

game over

brad mentioned helmet but to me they are aside from FNM probably the biggest influence on all this stuff, maybe throw in Prong, but a certain post-hardcore, mathy, downtuned hyper precise riffing language that i think you see in most nu-metal

Sometimes I wonder if post-punk guitarists were a bit of an influence on some nu-metal bands.

nu metal bands all seemed to love the cure, depeche mode et al

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

also lol ross robinson produced the self-titled cure record from 2004

nu metal bands all seemed to love the cure, depeche mode et al

― Cosmic Slop, Tuesday, August 18, 2015 8:19 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I knew about that... I was thinking more of the dissonant side of it, like the stuff Keith Levene was doing in PiL.

I mean, the way that Korn's guitarists sometimes do that thing where it sounds like the buzzing of a hive full of angry bees sounds quite post-punky to me for some reason.

Quite surprised when I found out Robinson had produced Wild Throne (formerly Dog Shredder) and a bunch of other stuff unlike most of his work.

I mean, the way that Korn's guitarists sometimes do that thing where it sounds like the buzzing of a hive full of angry bees sounds quite post-punky to me for some reason.

great observation imo

Seems more likely that comes from Paige Hamilton rather than PIL

and page comes from glenn branca?

woah now, let's leave Glenn Branca out of this please.

it was more Primus (and wacky AmRep bands) than PiL in regards to this sound

Yes Paige Hamilton the leader of wacky Am Rep band Helmet

Helmet, of course, but the connection to Branca is purely coincidental.

but i guess there's that picture on the internet of Fred Durst wearing a Sonic Youth shirt so what the fuck do i know.

first show i ever went to was korn supported by limp bizkit and helmet lol

fred durst has professed his love for joy division, the smiths, sonic youth etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHXdw8WJFJM

my mate kev was at that gig. He came away a helmet fan and went off limp bizkit and borrowed all my helmet cds just before the gig.
xp

I think I saved him

someone sang "Break Stuff" at karaoke last night.

there are pieces of him floating in the Atlantic ocean now

break stuff and nookie are great karaoke songs

"Korn was keeping alive the flame of no wave."
That claim is a steaming platter of freshly squeezed crap.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, December 19, 2002 5:05 PM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So did we reasses nu-metal? AFAIK its status is still "really shitty."

and it always will be

I dunno, those first two System Of A Down albums seem to have held up quite well.

yeah I still like spinning those. most of their catalog really tho later stuff was closer to legit metal

I dunno, SOAD to me had a distasteful "Think we're nu-metal? Wait until you hear THIS" element to them which I found repugnant.

I mean, ffs, they're called 'System Of A Down' for christ's sake. Down they go with the rest of them.

lol they were a great band sorry

http://www.nme.com/blogs/festivals-blog/limp-bizkit-in-2015-could-be-tragic-instead-its-a-whole-lot-of-fun

it is happening.

I actually watched this live set on catch up, and it was scary as to how young the crowd were, and how much they knew the songs !

I thought the crowd would be a bunch of grey hairs reliving their nu-metal glory days, but no, the band have clearly connected with a new audience.

oh, and fred was genuinely funny, self deprecating and kind of cool, while the band sounded fucking brilliant.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/09/20-years-nu-metal-rap-rock-korn-kerrang

I quickly flipped through Sylvia Massy's book about a year ago and have been meaning to give it more thorough read. There's a part where she describes the proper way to mic a singer who's hanging upside down, referring to something she did with Serj from System Of A Down. There's also this "How To Shoot A Piano" diagram that refers to a gunshot noise used as percussion in Tool's "Disgustipated."

http://i.imgur.com/KKJEXCM.jpg

Never heard of that book before but it sounds fascinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izePLzAbc40

extremely about this

i could probably go for this if it didnt have the screaming