A Subjective History of Nü Metal
There were two cultural monoliths in the early nineties: grunge and hip-hop.
So-called alternative culture was built on these. One was a hybrid of college rock and hardcore punk and the other was a marginal culture bubbling with anger and creativity demanding to emerge into the mainstream. 1990 to 1994 was a tremendous time for artistic integrity and groundbreaking music. People gave a shit. But Kurt Cobain died, corporations swooped in and it all went south in a couple years. Not before this era of unforeseen creativity granted us extreme music’s last commercial breakthrough : nü metal.
Nü metal was the last occurrence in popular culture where metal in every way, shape or form was sold as the coolest thing. It was metal adjusting to alternative culture in its final form and coopting it to create something else, making it inherently less cool and less metal than anything else we’ve discussed so far, but do you know what nü metal is more than anything? Influential. Thirty years after the birth of the genre, metal as a whole is still feeling the ripple effets of nü metal’s legacy.
Let me tell you the story of metal's bastard son. A style that was antithetical to what metal is supposed to be, but that we can't seem to forget.
Manifesting KoRn
Nü metal was born in 1993 with the release of KoRn's legendary demo Niedermayer's Mind, but there were pre-existing factors that allowed it to happen.
Metal has a lot of purists, but it has a lot of iconoclasts too. Groundbreaking artists looking to incorporate counterintuitive elements of music from a different culture, redefining the limits of what metal can be These first two music genres that were a cornerstone to metal's evolution in the nineties came from black culture: funk and hip-hop respectively. There were new, different people interested in metal and its possibilities and they brought their own colour to a genre that was very white, British and marginal.
Among the funk precursors that were important are Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Fishbone, Living Colour and perhaps the most influential on the future of metal Faith No More. The bounciness, high energy and jammy nature of both genres made them ideal partners to form an hybrid. Hip-hop was a more timid dancing partner initially. Anthrax did some collaborations with Public Enemy in the eighties, but it was seen as a gimmick and a cool one off. Both styles were considered terminally different.
It’s not until Rage Against the Machine released their self-titled debut album (that also had a lot of funk elements to it, thanks to Tom Morello), that a legit fusion of hip-hop and metal seemed like it could work. Even if the band’s convictions are being questioned today, that album still fucking rules. It's angry, it's mean and it uses the morbid imaginary of metal in order to create a feeling of urgency around social issues, I mean listen to this and tell me it doesn’t make you want to fuck shit up:
Alternative metal was another keystone to creating the vision that would become nü metal. Lolapalooza was a festival where a lot of different sounding bands toured together and cross pollinated their influences. There were the industrial rockers, the catchier, radio-friendly artists with the intoxicating choruses, the grunge guys, groove metal units that were influenced by blues. It was a great time for experimenting and that hodge podge of styles eventually gelled to create something fierce and thoroughly new.
…and then there was nü metal
KoRn were different.
Formed in 1993 in Bakserfield, California (a place remote enough from LA not to be under its spell), they were influenced by the aforementioned band rather than so-called metal elite of the era: Rage Against the Machine, Faith No More, Mr. Bungle (anything Mike Patton related), Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Primus, Biohazard, Pantera, etc. They also had something to say about their rough upbringing and distanced themselves with classic metal imagery. Jonathan Davis’ lyrics were personal and self-aware.
The music sounded different too. There were no solos, guitars were egregiously downtuned, compositions were structured around bounciness, groove and atmosphere (at least earlier on) in a way that hadn’t been done before. KoRn were also concerned about the non musical details. The first fifty seconds of their first single Blind were iconic in the way they created anticipation. The band was playing little music, but it was part of the song. Twenty-first century metalcore and deathcore breakdowns owe a lot to Blind.
I mean listen to this and try to remain calm:
The second nü metal album to ever come out was Adrenaline, by Deftones in 1995. Chino Moreno and the guys couldn’t be any more different to KoRn, but they were similar in their iconoclasm. Deftones' influences were less American and more melodic: The Smiths, The Cure, Portishead and Depeche Mode to name a few. But Faith No More also had an important part to play in the inception of their sound. Mike Patton is one of these artists who is sort of popular, but insanely influential.
Nü metal was the brainchild of the first kids raised in an hypermediatized society. They were the first generation exposed to a quintillion genres of music all presented more or less equally, so this type of hybridization was bound to occur, purists be damned. What was completely unexpected is how commercially successful it became. Nü metal was the most user friendly subgenre for mass markets since glam metal and it was a lot less contextual. Anyone could risk if all for the nookie.
One For All and All For The Nookie
The golden age of nü metal started in 1997.
The writing was on the wall beforehand. KoRn released their second album Life is Peachy in 1996. Sepultura released Roots Bloody Roots, a more diverse and approachable record than anything they’d ever done before. Slipknot had released its first album to very little acclaim. Marylin Manson released Antichrist Superstar. P.O.D, Mushroomhead and Staind released their first material. But everything changed on the day a band of Jacksonville scumbags chose to cover Faith, by George Michael.
The golden era of nü metal started in 1997 and featured all sort of weird, downtuned, angsty metal that felt somehow new. Limp Bizket went the rap metal route, but they did it in a way that was completely different from Rage Against the Machine. Initially with semi-growled vocals in early singles like Counterfeit. Coal Chamber released their first record in 1997 too, featuring elements of industrial rock and electronic music. Sevendust, Snot and Incubus also began that year.
KoRn released Follow the Leader in 1998, which would turn hem into superstars. Notably because of the song Freak on a Leash where I believe Jonathan Davis scats for the first time. Limp Bizkit released Significant Other in 1999 and turned into the most popular band of the era because of their relatable suburban bad boy creative paradigm and their bouncy and uncomplicated songs. I mean who doesn’t know Break Stuff? Who doesn’t relate to the idea of breaking property without consequences?
The second big bang of nü metal came in 2000 though, when Linkin Park released Hybrid Theory. A wonderfully well-composed and relatable album where co-frontmen Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington sing about being pissed off and whatnot, but also about more vulnerable and complicated feelings. Hybrid Theory and its sequel Meteora also had an unabashed commercial appeal that other nü metal albums. I believe this accessibility was a cornerstone to their success.
Some fans still debate to this day whether Linking Park is metal or just rock.
The other more accessible band was System of a Down. Well, they had some accessible songs featuring a lot of melody and beautiful vocal harmonies and they had bruising, chaotic stuff like the song Jet Pilot. It might seem like an idiotic detail to lifelong metalheads, but SOAD’s ability to craft choruses you could sing along to was crucial to their success. No one would’ve paid attention to wacky Armenians singing either highly symbolic or nonsense lyrics to begin with. They’re still extremely popular today.
Slipknot is the other new metal titan from they golden era (I guess you could argue Disturbed also is) primarily because of the rapping on their 1999 self-titled albums and the catchy, radio-friendly choruses, but they’re quite different from the other new metal bands. They were a notch heavier and went harder than the others maybe would be more at home in the New Wave of American Heavy Metal chapter. NWOAHM is somewhat part of nü metal, but they were the fucked up cousins of the family.
I can hear you weirdoes calling out about Papa Roach or Alien Ant Farm, but I’d argue they were glorified one hit wonders. They had a moment, but no one every cared about anything else they did. Disturbed had themselves a career, but outside of their first record The Sickness, I would call them straight up rock.
The Life and Death and Life of Nü Metal
As it is often the case with commercial trends that were super popular, nü metal died out around 2004 and it immediately became super lame to enjoy it.
As usual, an influx of bad bands pushed by corporate labels pushed the aesthetic to its logical extreme and made it ridiculous. The vulnerable, more personal lyricism became perceived as juvenile and self-centered and it many cases, it was. A lot of nü metal songs are about punching motherfuckers and banging the waitress of a Denny’s restaurant. Woodstock 99 also happened and people realized what happened when you put 500 000 nü metal enthusiasts in the same place, at the same time.
For about fifteen years, backwards baseball caps and JNCOs became the butt of every internet jokes, but just like Creed did, nü metal came back from the dead to live another life, thanks to young metalcore artists. There are a lot of similarities between metalcore and nü metal from a philosophical perspective. They were quite different musically at the start, but they were both catchy and fun to sing along to. So metalcore artists decided to wear their Linkin Park influences on their sleeve.
It was on the tip of everybody’s tongue for a couple years beforehand, but Bring Me The Horizon’s 2013 record Sempiternal gave permission to an entire generation of musicians to incorporate nü metal elements to their music. Now everybody has their own spin on it: Alpha Wolf, Code Orange, Parkway Drive, Architects, Loathe. Such a minor revolution made nü metal somewhat cool again. Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park came out of hiding and are touring again. New artists like Poppy and Ghostmane have nü metal elements to their sound.
Of couse, nü metal’s resurgence has a lot to do with nostalgia also. It’s been thirty years and listening to KoRn’s Blind or Linkin Park’s In the End (which is a fucking awesome song, by the way) connects us with the troubled young heart we’ve once been and it feels good to reopen these feelings from a safe place. It’s a lot more niche than it was then, but maybe nü metal’s rightful place is for metalheads to enjoy. There is such a thing as becoming too mainstream and commercial.
Before I leave, here are five songs to help you better understand nü metal.
Living Colour - Cult of Personality : Bouncy, groovy, accessible and influenced by pop sensibility. Cult of Personality was nü metal before it was cool and a good example of outsider metal that worked a commercially viable dent in a genre dedicated to being extreme.
Limp Bizkit - Nookie : Quintessental nü metal with rapped vocals, bouncy grooves and sexually awkward lyrics. I was never fond of that song (it’s kinda gross), but it’s important in the history of the genre. The video is a great time capsule of how the genre looked like visually or what it aspired to look like.
Linkin Park - In the End : Best nü metal song of all-time. I wrote an entire article about how it didn’t age and how it’s still culturally relevant today. A song about emotional maturity and protecting yourself from a toxic relationship is still an outlier in the genre, but it’s also why it’s the fucking best.
System of a Down - Toxicity : I’m not the biggest SOAD guy, but this is one of their most popular songs that illustrates how fun and easy it is to sing along to their material .It’s melodic and accessible, but it has some grit to spare.
Poppy - New Way Out : Here’s what the new generation sounds like. It kept the bouncy fun, the catchiness and the simplicity of nü metal, without the sliminess and the dated looks. I might not choose to listen to it, but I like that it exists and that it keeps the sound alive.
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