5 Reasons Why The Nu Metal Era Should Be Celebrated!
Nu metal....you gotta love it! Right?
3. Nu-Metal Bought The Entertainment Factor Back!
Coal Chamber’s irresistably primitive riffs and spooky-core aesthetics, Slipknot’s boiler suits and dead-crow sniffing exploits, Mudvayne’s make up and slap bass shenanigans, Wayne Static’s hair (R.I.P), Fred Durst’s trousers and David Draiman’s Ooh Wah Ahh Ahh Ahh noises….do we dare go on?
While most of these things are frankly laughable they were also damn entertaining, bringing a sense of the absurd back to metal and a level of theatricality originally envisaged by the respected likes of Alice Cooper, Arthur Brown and KISS.
While there is always room in metal for earnest, serious messages (be them political or otherwise) nu-metal reminded us that it was also fine to have fun at a metal gig and it was fine to dress like a fool and feel good doing it!
What’s wrong with that we ask?
I would add, on the US side :
– Korn’s ‘Untouchables’
– Chevelle’s ‘This type of thinking (could do us in)’
– The eponymous albums of Adema, Professional Murder Music and Mudvayne
– Godsmack’s ‘Awake’
– Skrape’s ‘New killer America’
– Union Underground’s ‘An education in rebellion’
There also have been very interesting (if not better sometimes) nu-metal bands in Europe, too :
– Hare, from Switzerland (recommended : ‘Nuclear Karma’ in 1998, some kind of atmospheric nu-metal, their sound was quite original)
– Semitones, from Belgium (recommended : ‘Higher’ in 1999, regularly alterning aggressive verses with nearly hovering melodic choruses)
– Psycore, from Finland (recommended : ‘I’m not one of us’ in 1999, classic nu-metal sound with original riffs and intriguing atmospheres, one of the most personal takes on the genre)
– Watcha, from France (recommended : ‘Veliki circus’ in 1999, probably the best european answer to Limp Bizkit).
mid to late 30s? come on, people currently on that age group despised Nu Metal back then, it was the kids born mid-late 80s that fully embraced the genre, I get that the older kids listened to Korn in the 90s and blah blah blah, but as soon as Nu Metal went mainstream (with Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, inkin Park, SOAD, Disturbed etc…) they rejected it completely and left it to the middle/hight school kids from early 00s, which is, to this day, the generation that stuck with Nu the most…
I’m 38. Take it from me, that not ‘everybody’ in that age group despised nu metal as the 90’s rolled on, that’s an absurd suggestion! Some liked it, others didn’t….that’s the beauty of choice.
not everybody, but it was preetty common to see the guys past high school age trashing Papa Roach, Adema, LP, Drowning Pool and the likes, were bands much more embraced by the younger teenage crowd… tho Deftones was fairly popular over older kids
Of course! Like any sub genre, there were bands of diminishing quality jumping on the bandwagon (Adema, Slaves On Dope etc) that deserved to be trashed but the top tier of nu metal bands (of which Deftones, Korn, Slipknot and, arguably, Tool originated) are revered to this very day.