Nu metal
The nu metal (also called nü-metal, new metal or aggro metal) is a fusion musical genre that combines elements of heavy metal with other genres, such as hip hop, grunge, alternative rock and funk. The genre enjoyed great commercial success in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Nu metal music emphasizes atmosphere, rhythm, and texture over melody and instrumentation. Often, nu metal songs use rhythmic, syncopated riffss played with distorted electric guitars tuned in the low ranges (but not always), very aggressive bass, and sometimes times, louder than the sound of the guitar, and some industrial sound, applied by a DJ or a keyboardist (the bands that have one).
The bands that gave rise to the genre were Korn, with their 1994 self-titled album, and Deftones, with their 1995 album, Adrenaline.
Definition
Categorizing specific artists as nu metal is difficult, an issue that becomes more apparent in the traditional metal fan community, which takes offense to the term.. nu metal is close to alternative metal, but there were so many bands that emerged in the mid-90s with a similar style, that a name was sought to encompass them, “new metal”.[citation needed] Linkin Park's album Meteora, for example, is listed as "alternative" on AOL Music Now and in three different genres on Metacritic.
In an interview, Jonathan Davis stated that they "hate the term nu metal", arguing that it "means nothing". In 2010, in an interview with Fieldy he indicated that Korn did not fit on any labels, but that he was comfortable with the term "nu metal" because it seemed to be the closest thing to them.
History
Origins and first generation (1992-1999)
There were many bands that influenced the birth of nu metal. Among them, we can name: Helmet, Anthrax and Rage Against the Machine, for their fusion of metal and rap, becoming some of the pioneers of rap metal; Pantera, for its raw and direct sound; Faith No More and Tool, for their innovation within metal; and Primus, just to name a few influences from early nu metal bands.
Like funk metal bands, many nu metal bands hailed from California. Bands like Snot, P.O.D., Deftones, Linkin Park, Papa Roach, Korn or System of a Down, among others, belong to the first era of nu metal; however, the genre also had an impact in Europe with bands like Thumb and Waving Corn, whose first works appeared in 1995 (the same year Deftones' Adrenaline was released), in which they showed rap metal highly influenced by Korn, but they did not get much attention because they moved in an underground circuit, unlike the Californian scene, in the mid-nineties.
The death of Kurt Cobain, leader of the grunge band Nirvana, on April 5, 1994 would mark the beginning of the decline of alternative rock (and rock >grunge in particular) as the driving force of modern American rock, paving the way for nu metal to gain an audience. That same year, what would be the first nu metal album, Korn, by the band of the same name, whose sound was new for the world music scene, was released. Guitars with a lot of distortion, drums with very diverse melodies and a bass that incorporated jazz and funk techniques. In addition, the singer Jonathan Davis had his own way of singing that distinguished him from others and his lyrics dealt with social and personal problems. Many bands before Korn mixed the crossover of rap and metal, like Clawfinger, H-Block, 311, Urban Dance Squad, etc...; but none of these resembled the sound that Korn imposed, which left a mark within the evolution, both of the genre and within it in the future.
The signature sound of Korn came from an attempt to emulate the chords used by Mr. Bungle's guitarist. They also quoted another Mike Patton band, Faith No More, on Kerrang's The Greatest Videos of All Time in 2006, saying that Korn was influenced by them because they did something unusual for a band of metal. Nu metal bands also typically claim to be influenced by mainstream metal bands, particularly Black Sabbath.
Producer Ross Robinson was dubbed by some as "the godfather of nu metal" because he produced several major nu metal albums, the first of which was Korn's self-titled album. And the next one, Life Is Peachy, which would become one of the defining records of the genre along with the subsequent release Follow the Leader, which was the record that led to the massiveness to nu metal. He also produced Limp Bizkit's Three Dollar Bill, Yall. Ross later denounced the nu metal movement for becoming complacent and newer bands for not expanding the genre.
In 1995 the first album by another of the pioneering bands of the genre was released, Adrenaline by Deftones.
The Madrid band Hamlet, who at that time already had two albums behind them, are considered pioneers of this style in Spain. In 1996 they released their third album, Revolución 12.111, categorized, among others styles, such as nu metal, so it can be said that this LP is the first work of this style in that country.
With a style closer to rapcore, in 1997 another of the fundamental albums of the genre was released: Three Dollar Bill Y'all by Limp Bizkit. The album becomes popular thanks to their version of George Michael's song "Faith".
That same year Coal Chamber's debut album was released. Their sound was heavier than that of the Korn pioneers and included considerable experimentation with unconventional sounds and voices. We can also mention Incubus and Snot, with a sound more framed in funk metal.
In 1997, Sevendust released their first self-titled album with a different voice by Lajon Witherspoon. In 1997, the band Snot presents their first studio album, entitled Get Some. In 1999, Slipknot made their debut, wearing masks, lots of percussion and the unusual number of members (nine).
At that time, other bands also appeared, such as Dracma, Soulfly and Ill Niño, with their inclusion of Brazilian and tribal rhythms. This includes the use of Latin percussion and flamenco guitars that have never been used in this genre before.
Second generation (2000-2005)
The second generation of nu metal bands appeared in the late 90s and early 2000s and is characterized by more experimentation and the inclusion of new sounds brought from other genres. Among the main exponents we can name Linkin Park, Lostprophets, Drowning Pool, Taproot, Orgy, Adema, Mudvayne, Slipknot, Disturbed, System of a Down and Papa Roach.
The fame of nu metal was so successful that artists with little or no relationship with it dedicated themselves to the genre in a short time. Notable examples include South Korean heavy metal pioneer and K-pop creator Seo Taiji who, after experimenting with funk metal on his first album as soloist, he decided to experiment with nu metal on his album Vol. 6: Ultramania; rappers Kid Rock with his album Devil Without a Cause, Cypress Hill with his albums Skull & Bones and Stoned Raiders, Vanilla Ice with their albums Hard to Swallow and Bi-Polar and Ice Cube with their album War & Peace Vol. 1 (The War Disc); also, well-known thrash metal and groove metal bands, approached nu metal, as are the cases of the bands Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Damageplan, Fear Factory, Machine Head and Sepultura; likewise, the iconic funk metal band Primus, joined the gender.
Skindred appeared around 2000, presenting his first album Babylon', which would show an original sound with hints of reggae.
In 1999 Crazy Town's first album came out, The Gift of Game, which rose to fame with its single Butterfly; with an alternative rock and rap rock sound, and was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2001.
Linkin Park, would release their debut album Hybrid Theory in 2000. This album was a success, being within the Top 10 of most of the lists where it appeared. Currently, the album has sold more than 30 million copies, making it the best-selling album of nu metal. Their music is related to rap metal and alternative metal, and also includes electronic elements, such as keyboards, turntables, and samples.
On June 20, 2000, Deftones' third album, White Pony, was released, with the addition of Frank Delgado as DJ (until then, he had been a collaborator and not an official member).
On September 4, 2001, System of a Down releases their second album, Toxicity, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide and making the band known worldwide. world.
KoЯn launches on June 11, 2002 Untouchables. The album includes the Grammy-winning song "Here to Stay" which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 434,000 copies sold in its first week. According to Nielsen SoundScan as of January 4, 2013 the album has sold over 2,400,000 copies in the United States, and around 5 million copies worldwide.
On the other hand, Evanescence, released the album Fallen in 2003, which manages to sell more than 17 million copies worldwide. Also Meteora, which is the second album by the group Linkin Park, released on March 25, 2003. The album has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, 6 million in the US alone. In its first week alone, it sold an estimated 810,000 copies. In that same year, Korn launched Take a Look in the Mirror.
On May 25, 2004, through Roadrunner Records, the band Slipknot released their third studio album, entitled Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses). The album received critical reviews and entered the Top 10 sales in eleven countries, becoming a platinum record in the United States. They received the Grammy Award in the category of Best Metal Performance for the song "Before I Forget".
In 2005, the band KoЯn released See You On The Other Side. It is the band's seventh studio album and has sold more than 2,400,000 copies worldwide. That same year, Limp Bizkit released their fifth studio album, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1).
Decline in popularity (2005-2009)
Between 2005 and 2009, the nu metal that was engendered in the 90s had almost disappeared, since the bands that practiced it either dissolved or moved closer to other styles. Among the bands that disappeared we can name Coal Chamber or Guano Apes. Others decided to experiment in other ways with their albums from that time, such as Korn, approaching industrial metal, Lostprophets and Papa Roach, leaning towards alternative rock and hard rock, and Linkin Park, who introduced themselves to alternative rock. Two good examples of these changes would be Linkin Park's 'What I've Done' and Korn's 'Evolution'. Meanwhile, other bands continued to maintain the nu metal essence, for example, Slipknot. On the other hand, two great exponents of the genre in Spain, such as KannoN and Hamlet, also abandoned the genre around this time; Furthermore, KannoN would disband in 2006.
Renaissance and fusion with other genres (2010-present)
Korn returned to their early sound with their ninth studio album, Korn III: Remember Who You Are, which sold 63,000 copies in the United States in its first week, peaking at number 2. on the Billboard 200. As of December 2011, the album has sold 185,000 units in the United States and has met with positive reception. In 2011, Limp Bizkit released their highly anticipated sixth album, Gold Cobra, which sold 27,000 copies in its first week in the United States and garnered mostly positive responses. That same year, Staind released their self-titled album, in which they returned to the nu metal sound of their early years. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200.
nu metal groups continued to emerge, as existing groups released new albums. In this "resurgence" are artists such as the Guano Apes, who returned in 2009 to release three new albums to date, and Coal Chamber, who returned in 2012 to join Download Festival.
Nu metal influenced metalcore and deathcore bands such as Attila, Emmure, Here Comes the Kraken, Suicide Silence, Of Mice & Men and Issues that gained high and moderate popularity on those dates.
Limp Bizkit said that in 2013 they would release their new album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants, stating that "the new album is only for 'Nu metal fans'". It remained in development hell but would finally come to light in 2021.
Brian Welch toured with Korn after years of being apart as well as officially joining the band and making their album The Paradigm Shift.
Linkin Park released their album The Hunting Party in 2014, which, after releasing two albums oriented towards electronic rock, returned to the sound of their first albums, Hybrid Theory and Meteora. Described by Mike Shinoda as simply "a rock record", it serves as a statement against contemporary mainstream and commercial rock groups to which which Shinoda accused of "trying to be like other bands and avoiding risks". However, Linkin Park would abandon the genre again on their next album, One More Light, which had a more pop sound. Slipknot also released their fifth album, .5: The Gray Chapter, in October 2014. In 2015, Coal Chamber released their new album, Rivals. Many critics pointed out the nu metal sound on the album. That same year, the band Bring Me the Horizon released their fifth album, That's the Spirit, which reached number 2 on the Billboard 200, selling 130,000 copies. The album draws on various genres, including nu metal, and shows the band completely abandoning their metalcore style. The album draws on multiple genres, and would experiment more with nu metal on their EP Post Human: Survival Horror released in 2020. The band's keyboardist has described them as a nu metal band.
In 2016, more bands began to emerge with the nu metal sound, one of the most notable being a band called Cane Hill, who released their debut album, Smile, which has been pointed out by many critics as nu metal influences. Korn also releases their twelfth studio album on October 21, 2016, The Serenity of Suffering. The album debuted at number 4 on the US Billboard 200 and would sell 100,000 copies by December 2016. Three years later The Nothing would come out, the band's last album to date..
Electropop and artsy singer-songwriters incorporated nu metal into their sound in the late 2010s and 2020s, including Poppy, on her albums Am I a Girl? and I Disagree; Grimes, on the album Miss Anthropocene and Rina Sawayama on Sawayama. The singles "We Appreciate Power" and "Play Destroy" They were pioneering examples. Poppy has described this fusion as "nu-Poppy" or "Poppymetal". I Disagree received critical acclaim for this merger, with the single "Bloodmoney", nominated for the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, making her the first female artist to be nominated for the award in its history. Dorian Electra also includes nu metal influences on her album My Agenda, as does Ashnikko on Demidevil, particularly on the single " Cry". The Guardian noted that these mostly female artists have revived a previously male-dominated genre and successfully adapted it to show a female perspective. Rina Sawayama said that "metal itself lends itself to toxic masculine clichés, but also, it almost teases a very masculine expression of emotion."
Instrumentation
Voices
Nu metal bands often have aggressive vocals, which vary between a melodic singing similar to pop and rock, screams derived from various styles of metal and hardcore punk and hip-hop rapping.
Some prominent vocalists are Jonathan Davis, from the band KoЯn, who introduced the main «bases» of nu metal, such as the forms of singing that included guttural voices and strange ways of singing; several artists in nu metal adopted this form of singing. Also, we can highlight the screams and whispers of Chino Moreno, the rapping of Fred Durst, Sonny Sandoval, Mike Shinoda and Jacoby Shaddix, the clean voices of Chester Bennington, David Draiman, Dave Williams and Lajon Witherspoon, and the torn voices of Serj Tankian, Corey Taylor, Dez Fafara, Ian Watkins, Chad Gray and Wayne Static
The bands that use rapping techniques more frequently than the others are related to genres such as rap metal or rapcore (for example Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and P.O.D.). A common technique in nu metal, is the mixing of rapping and shouting in different parts of the songs, for example, a shouted chorus after rapped verses.
Tool is recognized as one of the bands that has inspired the vocalization of nu metal; Chevelle's Pete Loeffler, Taproot's Stephen Richards, Disturbed's David Draiman and Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst have all cited Maynard James Keenan's style as an influence, with even Durst calling Tool his biggest musical influence and his favorite band.
Guitars
In traditional heavy metal, guitars generally have large and complex riffs with a high level of distortion with very intricate and technical solos, while bands nu metal usually doesn't include solos, and is tied together with a lot of heavy metal-like distortion and a very digestible sound, creating the unique sound of nu metal guitars with low pitched guitars and in some cases, using extended range guitars, for example Stephen Carpenter in Deftones. Several nu metal guitarists use Drop tunings; including Daron Malakian of System of a Down.
Low
In traditional heavy metal, bassists tend to use complementary lines of the guitars, while in nu metal the bass plays a certain role, where it is characterized for their own style, which includes various techniques, among them, jazzy ones inspired by funk metal and progressive metal. Bass parts in nu metal are often reminiscent of hip hop sounds with the addition of techniques such as slap.
Usually, most bands of this style use basses with more than four strings, which provide them with a lower register. Fieldy from Korn, Ryan Martinie from Mudvayne, Sam Rivers from Limp Bizkit, John Moyer from Disturbed, Traa Daniels from P.O.D. and Qbo's Maxz use five-string basses, although Deftones' Chi Cheng (ex-bassist) and Linkin Park's David Farrell prefer four-string basses.
Battery
The drums of nü metal bands tend to have funk-like rhythms and rappers. Korn's former drummer, David Silveria, has a "dry" drum technique, that is, almost primitive sounds (something much more noticeable on the band's first album).
Abe Cunningham, Deftones drummer, has a technique which has some hip hop bases that give this band a stamp. Sometimes, he also makes use of blast beats (very fast rhythms).
Other instruments
In nu metal, the incorporation of other instruments is also typical. The most used are the rhythms based on samplers, which are created by computers. This method is very common in bands like Limp Bizkit, Adema, Linkin Park, Ill Niño, Slipknot or Mushroomhead.
Also, the use of percussion is notorious in groups like Ill Niño, Mushroomhead, Soulfly, Slipknot, Nonpoint, Incubus, etc.
The DJ mixer plays a very important role in bands like Slipknot, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Deftones, Hed PE, Qbo, 2X, Weiza and Incubus.
Sometimes, traditional folk instruments are also included, such as the bagpipes by Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis. There are even cases of nu metal combined with dubstep, which is explicitly reflected in Korn's album The Path of Totality, where works with artists of this genre such as Skrillex, Kill The Noise or 12th Planet among others.