The LOL At Nu-Metal thread

[Fall of Epic]

Yeah, that sucks. I was never a huge Static-X fan but they wrote some decent tunes that I still listen to today.

 

[Gary]

Decibel wrote an article about the rise and fall of Nu Metal

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Decibel wrote an article about the rise and fall of Nu Metal

Very cool read

 

[Gary]

It didn't really hit me until reading this that a post Napster internet did play a part in Nu Metal's death. Sure, it mentions file sharing and the New Wave of American Heavy Metal, but there is also the fact that the internet means wider access and the ability to find out about bands from the past decades, more recent bands like Mastodon and Gojira, and more obscure bands. Plus, unlike the 90's it's now cool to listen to bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden again, and (to the chagrin of some metal purists) some websites and magazines that aren't metal exclusive now pay attention to metal bands and praise them. This kind of thing was a rarity in the 90's (and before that), where critics like Robert Cristgau were openly hostile to metal and it was something of a punchline.

 

[Fall of Epic]

I touched on this a bit earlier but I think it needs repeating. What bands were marketed as nu metal despite not having anything in common with the genre at all?

I was just talking to a friend who mentioned that he went to go to see an Incubus/Deftones arena concert with his girlfriend recently. I asked him if he felt like a kid again and he said he couldn't believe nu metal was still this popular. I didn't really want to get into it with him but I never really thought those two groups were nu metal.

Deftones were definitely marketed as such when White Pony was released but that album was so far beyond anything the genre had to offer. I actually sort of feel bad for them in hindsight being lumped together with the rest of these bozos. But hey, I'm sure they made buckets of cash during this time! I never saw Incubus as nu metal either. They started out as a poor man's Faith No More (which sadly, is what Korn tried to be when they first started out) then became a poor man's Soundgarden.

 

[Gary]

System of a Down tend to get lumped as Nu Metal, but I've long thought they had more going for them musically and lyrically. That and they actually weren't afraid to experiment with their sound.

 

[Fall of Epic]

Also, on that note, was the mid 2000s metalcore surge as prominent as nu metal was? I'm not sure if this warrants its own thread but tons of bands came through the woodwork in that time frame and 80% of them dropped off the face of the earth. A lot of better, established bands also got lumped with them.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Hell no. You couldn't turn on a rock radio station between 1997 and 2002 without hearing Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Staind, etc. You could listen to most rock stations all day without ever hearing Unearth or Shadows Fall. The only metalcore act that really broke through with any sort of mainstream impact was Killswitch Engage.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

It's 2015 and Crazy Town just released a new album. I got nothing.

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

COME MY LADY! COME COME MY LADY!

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

It's 2015 and Crazy Town just released a new album. I got nothing.

I'm surprised you haven't noticed that Crazy Town does the theme for Impact Wrestling on Destination America, bro.

 

[BUTT]

I'm surprised that there hasn't yet been a widely-circulated meme among socially progressive Facebook pages depicting Shifty Shellshock in a fedora with the text "Come m'lady, come come m'lady." Or maybe there has been and I missed it!

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Different genre of maligned '90s music but I was amazed (and somewhat relieved) that nobody did a mash up of the Spin Doctors' "Two Princes" and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" a few years back.

 

[Baby Shoes]

Call Me Maybe came on the radio this morning and made my day.

Your mashup suggestion blew my mind and the fact you shit on it after hurts my heart.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I don't hate either of those songs (and like "Call Me Maybe") but the thought of the two of them mashed up is so maddeningly catchy that I'd probably want to scoop out my cerebellum with a grapefruit spoon if anyone ever brought it to reality.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

It's 2015 and Crazy Town just released a new album. I got nothing.

I'm surprised you haven't noticed that Crazy Town does the theme for Impact Wrestling on Destination America, bro.

Oh, I know that. It's still mind boggling that it's out.

 

[Czech]

It's 2015 and Crazy Town just released a new album. I got nothing.

TELL ME MORE

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

It's 2015 and Crazy Town just released a new album. I got nothing.

TELL ME MORE

Got a free copy and listened to it. While it's not good, it's still the best thing they've ever done.

 

[Gary]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8eo6w4dGYc
Did you know Katy Perry sang backup for POD? Now you know!

 

[Fall of Epic]

I actually wrote about that collaboration in one of my CXF articles (cheap plug: http://culturecrossfire.com/music/rare-and-unique-music-collaborations/#.Vh_aXEuBPKg) where I also talk about Rivers Cuomo writing riifs for Crazy town and Cold and Billy Corgan co-writing a Taproot record.

 

[Gary]

I was reading the comments section on Stereogum (not a big fan of that site, but hey) and someone posited the question of "What was Nu Metal's Jump the Shark moment?" Personally, I don't think it's possible for there to be one. There were so many bad things in it (the shitty covers of 80's hits; Limp Bizkit's Woodstock 99 performance; Vanilla Ice putting out a Nu Metal album; the mere existence of bands like Drowning Pool and Saliva-I could go on and on really) that it's impossible for the genre to do any shark jumping-the genre itself was a big shark.

 

[Fall of Epic]

Honestly, for me it was the release of "Chocolate Starfish & The Hot Dog Flavored Water". That kind of had everyone thinking "yeah, this is really kind of lame". I'm sure there are people who disagree and nu metal went on strong for another year or two after that but I think Limp Bizkit gaining more prominence and more and more bands coming up for their 5 minutes before fading to obscurity really killed everything.

Also worth noting that Korn's album "Untouchables" that came out in 2002 right when nu metal was dying wasn't very well received.

The only reason bands like Linkin Park and Papa Roach are still big today are because they tried to leach on every musical trend to come their way. Papa Roach is especially guilty of this.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

The answer is Linkin Park.

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

Hybrid Theory was a fun album, but when they dropped the rap, and stripped a lot of the over-production, their sound really stopped working. Telling Mike Shinoda to "sing" did them no favors either.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Jump the shark moment in my mind was when Limp Bizkit did that cover of "Behind Blue Eyes" and the video had Fred Durst making out with Halle Barry (and this was not long after Durst boasted about banging Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera). Moment had probably peaked before then but this was the moment, at least to 13 year old me, when the nu metal guys went from vaguely relatable meathead douchebags to just stereotypical rock star douchebags.

 

[Czech]

Rivers Cuomo writing riifs for Crazy town

oh god I don't know how to handle this

 

[Ed Wood Caulfield]

By 2003, you couldn't really find traces of nu metal anywhere in the mainstream. So, somewhere between 2002 and 2003 is when nu metal jumped the shark.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

It's 2015 and Crazy Town just released a new album. I got nothing.

TELL ME MORE

Just saw this and nearly died laughing. I'm gonna have to check this album out.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Rivers Cuomo writing riifs for Crazy town

oh god I don't know how to handle this

By chuckling that Rivers Cuomo was tapped to write riffs for anybody?

 

[Fall of Epic]

Jump the shark moment in my mind was when Limp Bizkit did that cover of "Behind Blue Eyes" and the video had Fred Durst making out with Halle Barry (and this was not long after Durst boasted about banging Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera). Moment had probably peaked before then but this was the moment, at least to 13 year old me, when the nu metal guys went from vaguely relatable meathead douchebags to just stereotypical rock star douchebags.

Nu metal was pretty much done by 2003 which is when that god awful cover came out (it was on the soundtrack to that craptastic movie, Gothika hence why Berry was in the video). By that time, Limp Bizkit were mocked for being behind the times and were the biggest laughing stock (even more than when they were in their prime) to anyone who wasn't a WWE fan