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With the arrival of Korn’s self-titled album in 1994, a new form of metal emerged from the underground. It favoured mosh-ready “jumpdafuckup” riffs, relentlessly heavy, yet funky grooves, edgy lyrics, an emphasis on low-end, and influences from hip-hop and industrial. This was Nu-Metal. Indeed, a number of prominent and influential bands in the style enjoyed success throughout the mid-90s, but the style arguably reached its cultural zenith as the new millennium reared its head: 1999, where a number of genre-defining, chart dominating albums from bands both new and old exploded onto the scene.
An important thing to bare in mind with nu-metal though is that, while nostalgic reception has been slightly kinder, this brand of hip-hopping aggro metal became the laughing stock of the wider music scene for years, particularly as people began to realise that the quality level of some of these albums really wasn’t that high… at all.
That said, given it was the first proper form of heavy music I ever got into, and so, naff or not, it’ll always have a special place in my heart. So let’s take a quick look, 25 years on from this landmark year in the style, at some of the most noteworthy albums put out at the time, as we try to sort the cream from the crap, to see what made certain albums work in a big way, where others spectacularly failed.
(Just to say, I won’t be including Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ here, as that’s probably more straight rap-metal than nu-metal necessarily, but for the avoidance of doubt, I do think it’s very good).
Static X – Wisconsin Death Trip (Released 23/3/99)
Static-X were one of the first major bands to step up to the plate in 1999, and I’ll say that for a nu-metal band on the more industrial end, these guys are definitely one of the best, integrating those downtuned riffs with dark, electronic textures quite well honestly. The one-two punch of ‘Push It’ and I’m With Stupid’ effectively displays the band’s “evil disco” sound, with mean yet catchy guitars, futuristic effects, and danceable, head bobbing grooves, along with frontman Wayne Static sounding like a gravellier Serj Tankian, which is a positive in my book. Further strengths are also displayed on tracks like ‘I Am’ or the title track that pair those same great riffs and catchy hooks with a more organic, loose drum feel, working very well, as well as ‘Sweat of the Bud’, taking the bands industrial trappings to their fullest, and indeed funnest extent.
This record isn’t without its problems though. Either the deliberately robotic, slightly tacky sounds of the instrumentals become a bit much on ‘Bled For Days’, ‘The Trance Is the Motion’, or the bulk of ‘Otsegolation’, or the vocals and lyrics miss the mark, with ‘Fix’ being criminally underwritten, the overzealous vocals sabotaging a fantastic instrumental on ‘Stem’, or the lyrics on ‘Love Dump’ just being straight cringe. The closer is also a total miss. For sure they’re not the first to do a long, dramatic, electronic outro track, but it almost never sounds good. On the whole though, for a band I’d not listened to before, I had my critiques, but I was impressed. If you want your industrial metal to have a sense of catchiness and fun about it, this isn’t a bad place to start.
Limp Bizkit – Significant Other (Released 22/6/99)
It’s 1999, bay-beh! Hot off the heels of their debut, ‘Three Dollar Bill Yall$’, Jacksonville’s Limp Bizkit really brought the rap influences to the fore of nu-metal, and seeked to expand all elements of their established sound with their sophomore effort. In some areas, they did this very well, collisions of hip-hop grooves, gnarly riffs, and an enjoyably rebellious demeanour characterise highlights like ‘Just Like This’, ‘9 Teen 90 Nine’, as well as huge singles ‘Nookie’ and the unforgettable ‘Break Stuff.’ Add in some great production from Terry Date, notable guest appearances from Method Man and Korn’s Jonathan Davis among others, and some pretty successful attempts at diversification on tracks like ‘Don’t Go Off Wandering’ or ‘Re-Arranged’, and the bulk of the album is seriously solid.
Be that as it may, it’s certainly not perfect. For one, tracks like ‘I’m Broke’ pale in comparison to others in terms of songwriting and performance, and the numerous skits are totally unnecessary. Additionally, throughout the albums some of lead singer Fred Durst’s frat-isms and machismo become increasingly hard to swallow, and realistically, you could probably end the album after ‘Trust?’ and lose very little, as the songs that follow that, I’ll say it, are really naff. So by all means the hits are some of the genre’s best, but if you’ve no interest in some of the deeper cuts, I can’t say I blame you.
Slipknot – Slipknot (Released 29/6/99)
This really was where it all started for me, and for an introduction to heavy music, and indeed nu-metal, I’d hazard to say this is one of the best. One could argue their follow-up, ‘Iowa’, is better, sure, but this album does a great job at putting all the best characteristics of nu-metal and Slipknot’s sound to their absolute fullest. The breakneck drumming, thunderous percussion, cool industrial touches of samples and scratches, teeth gritting, slamming riffs, throat-shredding vocals and deeply tortured lyrics, it’s all here, and I’m loving it. With nu-metal maestro Ross Robinson sat at the desk, how could you go wrong?
In fact, I’d say aside from maybe the industrial slasher theme of ‘Tattered and Torn’, there isn’t a single bad song on here. From the absolutely relentless and eternally awesome opening quintet of ‘sic’, ‘Eyeless’, ‘Wait and Bleed’, ‘Surfacing’ and Spit It Out, to fantastic deep cuts like ‘Liberate’, or the palpably eerie ‘Prosthetics’ and ‘Scissors’, it’s no wonder this was once voted the best debut album of the last 25 years by Metal Hammer readers. In his nu-metal centric podcast ‘Life Was Peachy’, host Andrew Cahak claimed Slipknot were possibly “nu-metal’s only capital G great band”, and this album is certainly compelling evidence for that, because from start to finish, it absolutely rips your head off.
Powerman 5000 – Tonight the Stars Revolt! (Released 20/7/99)
My first exposure to Powerman 5000 was through an off-hand reference to them in a YouTube video as “one of the bottom-of-the-barrel” nu-metal bands. While I wouldn’t quite go that far (believe me, we’ll get to those), they are very forgettable. For what reason, you ask? Well, the only thing I can really think to say is that they just sound like a budget version of Rammstein for people who don’t like films with subtitles, if you catch my drift.
Right from the off with tracks like ‘Supernova Goes Pop’ or ‘When Worlds Collide’, it becomes blatantly obvious where they get their shtick from. Nearly everything about it, from the slightly cheesy electronic sound effects, to the mechanical beats and thick walls of chunky guitars, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d heard it all before, but better. To their credit (or I suppose to Rammstein’s), by virtue of the sound they’re shooting for being what it is, there are some pretty catchy, head bobbing riffs and grooves on a fair few of the songs, including ‘Automatic’ and particularly ‘They Know Who You Are.’ However, as good as these moments are, it begs the question “why not just listen to Rammstein?”
I say this in light of the fact that, like with every lesser imitator, there are also moments where their bit biting falls noticeably flat on songs like ‘The Son of X-51’ or ‘Operate, Annihilate’, that really make you realise how important good songwriting is. You can tell they don’t have near equivalent song writing chops by the fact that the couple of little experiments they try, like the electric jazz swing on the closer, manifest themselves hilariously badly.
Vocals are also a serious make or break aspect for pretty much any album, and while I wouldn’t say Spider One completely “breaks it”, he certainly makes it hard to stomach. He has this consistently quite irritating and strained vocal tone, making it sound as though he recorded the whole thing with a sore throat. Obviously if your aim is to write catchy tracks, that will really work against you, and boy does it. Just take a listen to ‘…X-51’ or ‘Let The Good Times Roll’, or indeed many tracks here, and the guy just sounds in pain. Thus, it’s no surprise that the attempt at a sing-along anthem on the chorus of “Nobody’s Real” comes across extra corny, almost like a bad, sci-fi tinged, ‘Black Rain’ era Ozzy B-side.
I suppose what I could say is that if you’re looking for the worst of nu-metal, this is not it. It’s bad, it’s very cheesy, and very derivative, yes, but not quite as world-shakingly awful as might be made out.
Coal Chamber – Chamber Music (Released 7/9/99)
With every movement, there will be imitators, bands that bite the styles of a better band in the hopes of making it big. If Coal Chamber’s second album shows anything, they still sound like unashamed Korn rip-offs, maybe slightly more industrial if you squint hard. Everything from the sound of the heavier riffs, to the ghostly leads, to the funk-centric, bass heavy grooves, and a vocalist who switches between angsty growl and fragile croon, it’s almost beat for beat. Nearly half the tracks on the album are pretty blatant examples of this, whether you’re talking about ‘Tragedy’ (also fit with bad vocoders), ‘Not Living’, ‘Shut Up’ being extra naff on top of it, as well as ‘Notion’, the closing track, and ‘Untrue’, whose thievery is so blatant it borders on parody.
That’s not to say the tracks that aren’t pastiches are much better. ‘What’s In Your Mind?’ and ‘Shari Vegas’ just sound boring and bland by general nu-metal standards, ‘Tyler’s Song’ has a few decent riffs unfortunately brought down by annoying vocal performance, and while not offensively bad, ‘My Mercy’ shows Coal Chamber definitely aren’t ballad writers. This is also the first instance where I can talk about the retro cover trend that plagued the genre, this time with Peter Gabriel’s ‘Shock The Monkey’, and as much as I love Ozzy, I’m sorry but this is just bad. What were they thinking with these electronics?
On a brighter note, there are a couple tracks like ‘Entwined’ or ‘Feed My Dreams’ where the riffs and grooves are genuinely pretty rad, but it’s too little too late. So much of this album is just so boring. According to Wikipedia, “With this record, Coal Chamber purposely distanced their sound from that of Korn, who they were often compared to because of the prominent influence on Coal Chamber’s debut album.” Yeah, right, sure you did.
There you have it! 5 nu-metal albums that this year celebrate their 25th anniversary, and lend credence to the fact that nu-metal is definitely unpredictable if nothing else, particularly in terms of quality. If you thought we were done there though, not so! In fact I have 5 more albums to get through in part 2, so stay tuned. Let’s just say if you thought these were bad, wait until you see some of those….
