The LOL At Nu-Metal thread

[King Kamala]

I was 14 in '03 so don't blame me for being behind the times with what was cool. I was an uncool 14 year old in '03. Actually, honestly, the moment when I realized nu-metal started becoming passe is when all of the "The" bands started hitting it big in '01 (Strokes, White Stripes, Hives, Vines). I think before that a lot of people were accepting nu metal as "OK. This is what's popular on rock radio right now" but once those bands came out, I think everybody realized how dumb and contrived nu metal was. Now The Strokes, Vines, and The White Stripes have their dumb side but much less so.

Also, on paper, it sounds kind of silly but I think 9/11 was a huge blow to nu metal. I think everybody realized how silly and unnecessary the genre's dumb, aggro bullshit was. Also does anyone remember the nu-metal bands being very pro War on Terror then releasing anti Bush albums/videos by the time the '04 election rolled around? I guess they were just like half of the country. At least, Aaron Lewis stuck by the NeoCons side.

I actually kind of like Cold's "Stupid Girl". It's basically a dumb, watered down, meathead version of a Weezer song. I definitely can see the Rivers Cuomo influence.

"Hurt You So Bad" just sounds like another Crazy Town song which makes me why they even bothered to bring Rivers Cuomo in.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

I can definitely see the 9/11 thing. Right around that time Disturbed was releasing a video for one of their songs (can't remember which one) where David was walking down the street and buildings were falling and in flames. It was kicked off of TV for being too close to 9/11 and killed their momentum with their new album.

 

[Gary]

I was 14 in '03 so don't blame me for being behind the times with what was cool. I was an uncool 14 year old in '03. Actually, honestly, the moment when I realized nu-metal started becoming passe is when all of the "The" bands started hitting it big in '01 (Strokes, White Stripes, Hives, Vines). I think before that a lot of people were accepting nu metal as "OK. This is what's popular on rock radio right now" but once those bands came out, I think everybody realized how dumb and contrived nu metal was. Now The Strokes, Vines, and The White Stripes have their dumb side but much less so.

Also, on paper, it sounds kind of silly but I think 9/11 was a huge blow to nu metal. I think everybody realized how silly and unnecessary the genre's dumb, aggro bullshit was. Also does anyone remember the nu-metal bands being very pro War on Terror then releasing anti Bush albums/videos by the time the '04 election rolled around? I guess they were just like half of the country. At least, Aaron Lewis stuck by the NeoCons side.

These are actually two great points. By the time The Strokes and The White Stripes came around, critics went nuts for them (except for the Vines, who I remember got a lukewarm reception) and the mere idea of Nu Metal seemed like a joke. Also,pretty much everything you said about 9/11 putting a big nail in it's coffin. Granted, modern Rock radio hasn't changed that much. There might not be as much Nu Metal on the airwaves today, but instead it's Nickleback and other Post-Grunge and butt rock bands. Interestingly enough, even that radio format is slowly dying. Pop music is now taken more seriously than it was ten to fifteen years ago, and Hip-Hop remains the most popular form of music. When you look at it like that, a bunch of shitty bands with frontmen that have really annoying, yarl-ey vocals is something that not a lot of people want to associate with.

Another thing to factor in is the rise of mainstream Emo and Mallcore. Sometime in the early to middle (and in some cases late) 2000's, bands like Dasboard Confessional, My Chemical Romance and Hawthorne Heights became popular. For kids who had tired of Nu Metal outside of maybe Linkin Park, these kinds of bands were the soundtrack for the era of Livejournal (remember that?) and Myspace. To them, it was probably "You meatheads and bros can have shit like Drowning Pool and Limp Bizkit, we'll stick with this." I'm not saying it was good music (I'd rather not go back to an era in which Good Charlotte is a thing) but it probably helped play a part in Nu Metal's decline in popularity.

 

[Laz]

You can trace a good portion of nu metal's demise to the internet. Oh, you like Disturbed because they have some melody and groove to their riffs? Here's Unearth, who can actually play their instruments. "Wow," the pubescent boy says, "those bands MTV play are shitty!"

 

[Gary]

You can trace a good portion of nu metal's demise to the internet. Oh, you like Disturbed because they have some melody and groove to their riffs? Here's Unearth, who can actually play their instruments. "Wow," the pubescent boy says, "those bands MTV play are shitty!"

I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but the internet post Napster really changed things. Newer and more file sharing sites means potential exposure to other bands. Even outside of that, the internet means democratization, which means that people can find out about bands without having to go to the radio, MTV or your local Target or Best Buy. In a way, this lead to metal-both the then modern New Wave of American Heavy Metal and Metalcore*, as well as older bands not only getting attention, but Metal can now be something that people can be okay with liking again. That more and more people realized that Metal isn't just for dumb Meatheads or Misanthropic shut-ins. Times and attitudes change, and that can be a good thing in spite of what remaining fans of Nu Metal or even certain Metal purists say.

*I do find it interesting that Metalcore lead to bands like Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage. I say that because when you look at some of the earlier bands in that genre-the likes of Acme, Botch, Coalesce and Deadguy for example-couldn't be more different then what happened later.

 

[Laz]

Agreed on the asterisked. It's a much easier timeline to digest when you take into account that the Boston bands were initially called melodic metalcore to separate their sound from the Karen Crisis projects and whatnot, but I can see how that sound (Gothenburg riffs with breakdowns and "rise above" themed lyrics) became so dominant.

 

[King Kamala]

Only one of these bands is nu metal but felt obligated to post this....
http://consequenceofsound.net/video/a-conversation-with-the-darkness/
The Darkness called out Disturbed in an interview and Justin Hawkins called them the "Taco Bell of Rock".

The Darkness publicly trashing Disturbed is something that would have made me really happy in 2004 but in 2015, I just scratched my head.

 

[Epic Springs]

I'm not defending Disturbed but The Darkness were a pretty big joke when they broke out in the early 2000. Sure "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" is a catchy tune but they were always seen as a 3rd or 4th rate Queen. Still are I'm pretty sure. The fact that they felt the need to throw shade at anybody is hilarious.

 

[Gary]

Disturbed-The song "Down With the Sickness", along with several other things, really made me realize how awful Nu Metal was. Everything about that song is terrible, and the spoken word portion of the song is one of the funniest things ever. Also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MGLFGUBo-A

 

[Laz]

Disturbed is far from the worst of those bands. Flaw is right there guys. Right fucking there.

https://youtu.be/qQijtjXYqDI

 

[Epic Springs]

The winner:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsl-TodL5sI

 

[Laz]

...yep. "Winner" alright.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Disturbed is far from the worst of those bands. Flaw is right there guys. Right fucking there.

https://youtu.be/qQijtjXYqDI

I listened to Flaw back in the day, early 2000s. For some reason, a couple weeks back I was thinking about them. I was surprised to see that they were still making music. Downloaded their stuff. Immediately delete it after listening for a few minutes. Just bad all around.

 

[King Kamala]

I'm not defending Disturbed but The Darkness were a pretty big joke when they broke out in the early 2000. Sure "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" is a catchy tune but they were always seen as a 3rd of 4th rate Queen. Still are I'm pretty sure. The fact that they felt the need to throw shade at anybody is hilarious.

Fair point. The only people who really respected The Darkness were fellow classic rock nerds like myself and even amongst them, they were pretty divisive as a lot of people (like my cousin and possibly BUTT) just assumed they were making fun of bombastic '70s arena rock. A ton of my Facebook friends are going to their show in Boston on Sunday.

Permission to Land is a real motherfucker of an album though. Way better than any of the bands mentioned ITT.

 

[Laz]

Bullshit. We've mentioned System of a Down at least once before talking the Darkness, and SOAD blow most bands who gained their fame between '99 and now out of the fucking water.

 

[King Kamala]

Point taken but SOAD was really mentioned as a band that didn't belong ITT so I didn't really think of them when I made that statement.

 

[Gary]

Barack Obama is not the lead singer from Korn.

 

[Baby Shoes]

Just heard someone talking about "that Rob Zombie song 'Let the Bodies Hit the Floor'" - don't know if I should feel like they should know that or bless their happy life for not knowing any of that.

 

[King Kamala]

KoRn's new bass player is Robert Trujillo's 12 year old kid and Fred Durst, inspired by La La Land, is hosting invite only jazz nights in L.A.

NU METAL IS ALIVE AND WELL, BROTHERS!

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

I think Trujillo's kid is only covering for Fieldy temporarily. That's the plan at least.

 

[Baby Shoes]

I read it was because Fieldy has a "personal matter" to attend to, so it just for this little run in South America but something still creeps me out about them bringing a 12-year old on tour with them.

 

[Laz]

Robert Trujillo's bloodline is of greater power than all of Korn's. Were the tour to crash in a combat zone, he will crab walk them to safety.

 

[King Kamala]

I read it was because Fieldy has a "personal matter" to attend to, so it just for this little run in South America but something still creeps me out about them bringing a 12-year old on tour with them.

Taking a 12 year old on tour in SOUTH AMERICA no less.

 

[NoCalMike]

The "height" of nu-metal coincides to about the time I was growing tired of what Top 40 hard rock radio was offering. The nu-metal bands were always filler to me until a Tool, Pantera, or SOAD song or something older came on the radio and because those were few and far between during this time. It was when I started getting into Slayer and more thrash & extreme metal and by late high school (1998) and the year or so afterwards I was pretty much done with hard rock radio all together. This was also still relatively early in P2P file sharing so while discovering new music wasn't the absolute simple process it is in 2016, it was still pretty eye opening and mind-melting the way the doors to all this heavy stuff I had no prior knowledge of was now at my finger tips.

 

[Epic Springs]

Remember when that guy from Snot died and all his nu-metal buddies got together for a song about him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-4iXHYMJ6U

I was shocked at how much of the lyrcs I remembered :-[

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

Angel's Son was fantastic, and that was a fun album.

 

[BUTT]

https://twitter.com/Korn/status/1045751528038887424

 

[King Kamala]

I nearly flew halfway across the country earlier this week to get into a physical altercation with a friend after he asserted that Tool was a nu metal band during a group chat. Just when we seemed to come to a truce. He blew his lid when I said Rage Against The Machine were an influence on nu metal.

One more combative nu-metal argument and I might pull an EHME and buy a plane ticket to break a fuckin' face.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nu_metal#1980s–1993:_Predecessors_and_influences
Also I learned that the Wikipedia entry for nu metal mentions both of them, Nine Inch Nails, The Boo-Yaa T.R.IB.E. and FISHBONE as influences for nu metal.

I'm a fan of hot takes but I have no idea where to draw the line from Fishbone to nu-metal.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

I'm a fan of hot takes but I have no idea where to draw the line from Fishbone to nu-metal.

bro that's because you don't understand the epic diversity of the greatest genre:

The funk influence of Primus, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fishbone, the hip hop/metal crossover of Rage Against the Machine, the Industrial metal of Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, and Ministry, and the aggressive Experimental Metal of Faith No More.

https://numetal.fandom.com/wiki/Nu_Metal

i know what you're thinking, trust me that link is unbiased

 

[King Kamala]

I feel like Fishbone has more of an influence on Sublime and 311 than nu-metal.


WHERE DOES SUBLIME FIT INTO THIS EQUATION!?