the nu-metal canon

this is sort of inspired by whiney's old poll, The complete, unabridged list of nu-metal that Whiney G. Weingarten fucks with, in case anyone cares

however i'm trying to use a more "objective" standard, whatever that means, to assemble a collection of albums and singles that present the most complete picture of the genre, though each record also needs to be, at the very least, "good," whatever that means in this particular context (cf. adema, whose lyrics are godawful but whose music is the most textural and lovely edition of the genre i've ever heard, tetsuo: the linen man). some of these selections may seem to be taken from non-nu-metal spaces but if you were there at the time, mindless self indulgence totally felt like a part of the scene. here's what i've got so far

korn: s/t
orgy: "stitches"
kittie: spit
deftones: around the fur
system of a down: toxicity
linkin park: hybrid theory
korn: "got the life"/"freak on a leash"
limp bizkit: three dollar bill, yall$
sevendust: "black"/"denial"
mindless self indulgence: frankenstein girls will seem strangely sexy
sepultura: roots
orgy: vapor transmission
adema: "giving in"/"the way you like it"
slipknot: s/t
mudvayne: "dig"
static-x: wisconsin death trap
p.o.d.: satellite
fear factory: digimortal
queen of the damned soundtrack
deadsy: "the key to gramercy park"

sorry ahead of time for having embarked on this cursed project that only i care about lol

Feel like White Zombie's "Thunder Kiss '65" or "More Human Than Human" are early examples, though I guess there are arguments about "good", though I like them.

Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Deluxe

xpost!!

Ha, yeah, I think Rob Zombie is definitely a key to bridging the early nu-metal scene.

does Killing Joke's 2003 album count??

i've never heard it!!!

you're right i should include zombie, and possibly a powerman 5000 single

I once tried to do a chronological list of nu-metal bands (or adjacent bands influenced by it) by breakout single but I got bored and stopped after 2000. Feel free to pick it up

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7BYVIgJtKfbu1qYbOZB1wI?si=1SMzROiCTuK5wyGrcXvU8A

Also, don't forget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FlHCF65sgo

i've never heard it!!!

brad you gotta hear it

i've been meaning to get deeper into killing joke ever since i saw my first alex in nyc post, maybe this is the year

also i had no prior knowledge of darwin's waiting room. solid!!!!

my personal favorite forgotten single-album nu-metal act that didn't have much of a profile: the deadlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VHD2nmeYJ4

ASTEROID!!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShNBGIbo2H8

first two soulfly albums belong; I saw a lot of "SHUTDAFUCKUP" shirts and hoodies back in the day

The 2003 KJ album is not a nu-metal record. It is really, really good though.

The thing with Static-X is that their first two albums are a) their best and b) their least nu-metal. On albums 3 and 4, producers pushed them really hard to sound more like Korn, and they were very bad at it. They didn't recover until album 5, which was a return to form. (I still listen to Static-X fairly often.)

Nothingface's Violence, from 2000, belongs on this list. Didn't sell well, but very underrated.

also Machine Head's embarrassing Burning Red

Joel McIver said that anyone dismissing the album as nu metal has not listened to it, or is not a fan of the "atmospheric, impassioned groove-metal that Machine Head were focusing on at this stage."[4] Rick Anderson of AllMusic called the album "aggro-metal".[11] Responding to critics, McClain stated the band was not trying to emulate popular trends; they simply "wanted to sound different".

mm hmmm.

is evanescence nu-metal?

the KJ album is the best thing Grohl has done outside of nirvana. to the point where I can almost forgive him for Foo Fighters (can't forgive him the AIDS denial).

is evanescence nu-metal?

― tiwa-nty one savage (voodoo chili), Monday, February 22, 2021 9:56 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

almost certainly to some degree but i have a pretty strict cut-off point of 2002, when nu-metal and post-grunge started to congeal as categories

i should also prob include something from disturbed but... i don't even think the one disturbed album i like is great

Disturbed were OK. Their second album is their best but even that's like a B+ at best. They were ridiculously popular for a while, though; I wrote about that a few years ago.

i was now-years old when i discovered that the album version of "down with the sickness" has one of the most fucked up bridges in all of nu-metal

this collab between Prong vs FOETUS still does the trick for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-88o8Mn6rP4

xp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGB1pLcEM1g

typically awful "no budget band in a room FACTOR grant" aesthetic at work here, but I always loved this band, sort of the cancon hum/deftones. they seemed poised for greater things but ended up dissolving shortly after this single came out. their last two albums are def in my personal canon

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

Brad - do you place any of the alt-industrial bands in the nu-metal canon? Thinking stuff like Stabbing Westward or Pitchshifter, both had decent singles - especially the former, imho.

incubus s.c.i.e.nc.e.

far tin cans with strings to you

coal chamber self-titled

taproot gift

this feels a little like "bands that wouldn't exist without the Demon Knight soundtrack"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Knight_(soundtrack)

omg i rewatched demon knight last week and it is totally anticipatory of nu-metal horror

one of the best movies ever

coal chamber self-titled

― Dusty Benelux (jim in vancouver), Monday, February 22, 2021 11:27 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

are coal chamber actually good? i guess it's time i found out

i dont know that they're good but they are very much archetypal nu-metal

Brad - do you place any of the alt-industrial bands in the nu-metal canon? Thinking stuff like Stabbing Westward or Pitchshifter, both had decent singles - especially the former, imho.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, February 22, 2021 11:15 AM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

nope!!! even though they technically fit the criteria of "songs that i got into 1999-2000 just because they were set to dragon ball z amvs"

i haven't heard the record for over 20 years, i liked it at the time!

gravity kills also not allowed in

this thread should also double as a general pandemic/quarantine regression thread

listen

2 bands that have been mentioned but not the albums I have the most attachment to:

Deftones: White Pony
Incubus: Make Yourself

Also, the first Soulfly album (last band i saw before the pandemic) and Follow the Leader might deserve to be included too. And Significant Other if not already brought up (I know brad linked to a track in another thread).

white pony is a perfect record, one of the best ever made, and somehow falls outside of the zone i'm creating here

follow the leader is at least 30 percent hot garbage, i included only the big singles for a reason

a rap battle between jonathan davis and fred durst that is mostly gay panic jokes.... not in my canon

White Pony only counts if we’re talking the re-release with the godawful “Mini Maggit” opener.

Nice to see Vapor Transmissions making the cut.

I saw Coal Chamber headline Roseland in NYC in 1999. It was an all-Roadrunner bill with support from Machine Head, promoting The Burning Red, Slipknot, and Amen (a mercifully forgotten punk-metal band). Slipknot's set was basically the first six songs from their s/t album, plus maybe two other songs. It was completely amazing. Nobody else that night could compete. Machine Head were OK, Coal Chamber were boring, but Slipknot blew the walls down.

I will die on the "mini maggit is good" hill

follow the leader was a big disappointment for me at the time. i did the thing, which i ended up doing with lots of bands whose new music i didn't really like, of trying to convince myself that it was good, but i couldn't keep up the pretense for too long.

i considered putting both significant other and chocolate starfish on here but like... not gonna win any hearts with three full limp bizkit albums in the canon lol

maybe this is the thread where i advocate for this song being the best song ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntw1a9_5TwE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc34Er7aeYc

Oh god I hated 'Butterfly' so much at the time but 'Revolving Door' was even worse.

"Butterfly" came during a glut of "rappers whose raps sound like high school poems for their crush", who weren't part of the hip-hop scene, but were either fronting nu-metal bands, creating pop records, or creating nonsense nobody wanted to hear but got played 24/7 anyway

this almost redeems it a tiny bit

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 9:30 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

tripping. the original is way better

idk i had completely forgotten about the song "nebula," a real jam

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 8:16 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

also... maybe the only evidence of overlap between incubus and soad

that nothingface album is fucking astonishing and should be talked about more. a true descendant of angel dust

(maybe more in spirit than in sound)

.... ugh.... this crazy town record is kinda dope.... way weirder than i expected too

also, in things i didn't expect to read in the wikipedia entry for the second crazy town record: "The second and final single, "Hurt You So Bad", features Rivers Cuomo from Weezer on the track's guitar solo.[9]"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cSGGmd7f8g

i thought "butterfly" was the worst song of all time for like a full decade, i'm overdue for a heel turn in this direction

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 8:24 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol yeah i'm cured, shit sounds awesome

"butterfly" is the only nu-metal song to hit #1 on the billboard hot 100

i wouldnt consider butterfly nu-metal

Is there a reason “significant other” isn’t in the canon in the list?

just feel like i can summarize its impact with "nookie" and "break stuff" only but there's no special reason no lol

ugh i do not relish thinking a song called "lollipop porn" is a total jam

also i thought this record was gonna be way more misogynistic than it is, oh wait here comes "revolving door"

actually this is fine for the most part. fuck. goddammit. why do i like the crazy town record so much

ok i give up, pls retitle this thread the quarantine regression canon

oh wait here comes "revolving door"

always loved that riff :/

it's good!!!

crazy town's in the fucking canon

the crazy town album was one of the first cds i bought, i remember being really fascinated by "black cloud" lol

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

tight!!!!

i forgot that someone mentioned soulfly upthread so i'm gonna listen to the first two records after revisiting roots, which is just about the most awesome record ever made. ppl who think otherwise... i know everything i need to know about their taste

weird thing is Soulfly is pretty trad metal now

Feel like “Bawitaba” fits the canon for MI-nü metal

Ignore the umlaut I accidentally switched keyboard language settings

"bäwitdäbä"

Papa Roach 'Last Resort' has to be in the canon!

I need to relisten but I’m fairly certain Project 86 had some nu metal cuts.

it's a stretch since these are from outside the scene and kinda late to the game at that. but these ayumi hamasaki songs would be in my personal nu metal canon -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i82ThTaK29s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkepjPRV24U

"Microphone" possibly even more so. I love the whole Rock 'n' Roll Circus album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTvmPLt1ncA

can we (or i, i guess) get brad to listen to methods of mayhem or vanilla ice's "hard to swallow" LP by mentioning them itt?

it could happen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMeHs0SF2Ks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHOc0qBF15A

huge banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD8XT2mMrGU

I would like to submit "numbskull" (1999) by ash as a weird case of nu-metal influence warping a non-nu-metal band's sound to hilarious effect

Is there any good jammy or prog nu metal

I mean I know there is, but I’m thinking more like a band where that was their overall direction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhZp43zq_54

is this the thread to post this in

Is there any good jammy or prog nu metal

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, March 4, 2021 12:56 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean I know there is, but I’m thinking more like a band where that was their overall direction

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, March 4, 2021 12:56 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i feel like in practice this ends up inevitably sounding like tool. i also can't think of a band where this is their whole thing, as opposed bands who had one album where they tried it (mudvayne's the end of all things to come and dir en grey's uroboros are the two possibilities that came to mind)

that nothingface album isn't exactly prog but it's not not proggy. hm

xp with Brad...

Is there any good jammy or prog nu metal

The second Mudvayne album, The End of All Things to Come, is Tool-ish prog-metal disguised as nu-metal. They even got David Bottrill, who worked with Tool and King Crimson, to produce it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0S9ck12Cd0

Their next album kinda stuck to this direction, but headed a little more toward radio rock.

ive listened to so much nu metal this week. just had an urge to listen to freak on a leash and im doing that right now

dare i revisit the korn unplugged album?

lol i did not even listen to it, cannot see the point of it

i listened to it ironically a few years ago while high in a hotel bedroom at a hot springs resort on my 33rd birthday. definitely wasn't good

but i am now owning my love of korn so maybe im ready now

i had completely forgotten about the existence of "wicked" featuring chino moreno

That’s funny because the only thing I ever remembered about that album was that exact track and their cover of “lowrider”