Back in school, we are the leaders

February 12, 2015 7:58 AM

"Slipknot, Papa Roach, Soulfly, Disturbed, Amen and Mudvayne were all there, supported by the kind of bands that made every teenage stoner bunking off GCSE maths believe they too could one day play a half-hour set to a room full of disinterested teenagers. I charged to the front as if I was a Minotaur and not a young girl with developing boobs and easily breakable bones." How to be Nu-Metal in British Suburbia
posted by mippy (29 comments total)

I was in high school during the nu-metal heyday and the "scene" held no interest to me, but some of the music was really good and has actually aged pretty well.

Official theme song for this thread.
posted by 256 at 8:12 AM on February 12, 2015

This is basically the exact opposite of what I remember Vice being like. They have followed such a strange development path.

Aside from my personal hangups about Vice, I liked the article. It really did sound like a hellish time, but I liked the part about the author's awakening feminism and how even though she was completely into nu-metal, she could not ignore how wrong it was.
posted by wyndham at 8:13 AM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

This, coming off of the thread about metal & the Grammys, has me thinking:

It is entirely possible to enjoy this stuff without being an "angry white teenage boy," as is so often stereotyped. Some people just like high-energy music. I love a lot of songs by these bands, and I am 40 and I have basically nothing in my personal life to be angry about.

But the stereotyping still pisses me off, so I guess there's that.

Can't really argue with her about the misogyny, though. I've somehow missed a bunch of those songs, but I know it's there. I liked Disturbed a lot more before I saw their singer commenting on Ferguson, too. :/
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:17 AM on February 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

If you were ever into this music, look into the Amnesia Rockfest in Canada and prepare to squeee in delight at the 2015 lineup.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:18 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Note that when I say some of the music has aged surprisingly well, I'm mostly just talking about System of a Down.
posted by 256 at 8:20 AM on February 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm mostly just talking about System of a Down.

Eh. Never cared much for them in particular, but this genre at least filled something of a gap for me when the music industry more or less abandoned the hard rock/metal sound I grew up with in the late '80s-early '90s when grunge came up.

I cannot express how glad I am to have found bands like Halestorm, Shinedown and The Pretty Reckless in recent years, along with the general evolution of the Foo Fighters. I want more of that.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:23 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, The Pretty Reckless continue to be a real surprise. That's a good call, scaryblackdeath.
posted by Poppa Bear at 8:38 AM on February 12, 2015

Official theme song for this thread.

This, coming off of the thread about metal & the Grammys

Heh.
posted by gwint at 8:45 AM on February 12, 2015

Ya'll were just looking at the wrong country. Metal sucked for the most part in the US for the 80's and 90's. Sweden, Norway, England, Finland = PWN4GE over ALL American "hard music"
posted by aydeejones at 9:01 AM on February 12, 2015

Because I can't stop listening to it: Crocodile Chop
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:03 AM on February 12, 2015

Note: bad "ya'll" I know there were plenty of metalheads like me. I wanted to like American stuff but couldn't find much good shit outside of Carcass, Bolt Thrower, maybe Napalm Death but not my cup of tea...then started the Gothenberg ride, the Opeth train, the Finland thing, JEAAH
posted by aydeejones at 9:03 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

My friend is into Opeth: I can never hear their name without athuming it'th a mean joke about having a lithp.
posted by alasdair at 9:16 AM on February 12, 2015

Pretty dead-on article, yeah. I feel like a lot of the same "fuck everyone, my problems are all your fault, especially you, bitch!" attitude carried over into emo/screamo, as well.

I still have an enduring fondness for the brutal rhythms of Slipknot's first album though. As someone who usually doesn't pay attention to or even really hear the lyrics of most music, it was mostly about the stern riffs to me.
posted by Drexen at 9:26 AM on February 12, 2015

My friend is into Opeth: I can never hear their name without athuming it'th a mean joke about having a lithp.

I always thought it was Opus Croakus's solo project after Deathtöngue broke up.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:33 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Metal sucked for the most part in the US for the 80's and 90's.

You listened to the wrong metal, mate.

In thrash alone you had Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth, S.O.D./M.O.D., Nuclear Assault even bloody Metallica all at their best in the eighties & early nineties, then you had the whole Florida Death Metal (Death, Morbid Angel) scene that got going in the second half of the eighties, not to mention Hardcore with groups like Biohazard, Sick of it All, Suicidal Tendencies and the Bloom County featured Mucky Pup, surely a forerunner of Nu-Metal.

Point is, it wasn't all hair spray and MTV metal, though I'd still rate Appetite for Destruction as one of the albums any metalhead should own.

If you can't find good metal bands in the States, you're not looking hard enough.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:53 AM on February 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

Also Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death? Not American bands.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:55 AM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've said this before, but Deftones' White Pony is a masterpiece and still great. The aggro-angst "Back to School" song that got heavy MTV airplay wasn't representative of the rest of the album; it was actually written as a joke to send to their label, who were complaining that there were no obvious radio singles. It was never intended to be part of the album and they've expressed regret about it. But just skip that track, and listen to the rest of it: lush, atmospheric, sexy. Not nu-metal at all!

I'll also stan for System of a Down's self-titled from 1998, but that's a bit of a harder sell.
posted by naju at 9:55 AM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm happy to report that someone's put 'Slipknot and the Doorway in Time' online.
posted by Mocata at 10:00 AM on February 12, 2015

This is one of those titles one can tell is going to be a Vice piece before even hovering over the link.
posted by acb at 10:13 AM on February 12, 2015

Vice has tons of good content mixed in with the rubbish. People who hate on Vice cos of some imagined hipster vibe from 10 years ago are off the mark.
posted by jcruelty at 10:18 AM on February 12, 2015

System of a Down will always have a special place in my heart because they were one of the first and biggest bands to take a public stand against the War on Iraq and got Michael Moore to direct their anti-war video.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:24 AM on February 12, 2015

Note: bad "ya'll" I know there were plenty of metalheads like me. I wanted to like American stuff but couldn't find much good shit outside of Carcass, Bolt Thrower, maybe Napalm Death but not my cup of tea...then started the Gothenberg ride, the Opeth train, the Finland thing, JEAAH

MartinWisse is right that not one of those classic death metal bands is American, but I too listened to a whole bunch of Gothenberg metal (which somehow nobody else thought was cool) when I was 14 so I'll give you a pass.
posted by atoxyl at 10:37 AM on February 12, 2015

As far as "nu-metal" bands that hold up, Deftones absolutely. System of a Down I can appreciate that they had their own sound even though I don't like that many of their songs.

Linkin Park were (are?) absolute master craftsmen of catchy radio rock for what that's worth.
posted by atoxyl at 10:53 AM on February 12, 2015

I was just a little bit too old for Nu-Metal, so by the time it got big, I was too, and it all seemed like transparently engineered corporate exploitation of teenage angst, trying too hard to look cool, which, in retrospect, was a totally accurate assessment. But you could throw on some Deftones or some Korn and I'd dig it. (I would never admit to liking Korn in high school, however, as their t-shirts were worn exclusively by people who admitted to also enjoying Limp Bizkit.) I'll be god damned if a seven-string guitar doesn't sound awesome, even if it does look stupid and is pointless when you never use the high E string and baritones exist.

The "you poseurs should listen to real music like Children of Bodom" cred fights are a bit tiresome, and best left in junior high. Nu-Metal is for the most part not remotely related to the metal metalheads call metal, and everyone knows this. It's not really worth comparing them on the grounds of musicality or credibility or, I don't know, girth, or whatever. They're just different. Difference is good.

That "metal" in there is a bit misleading though. Nu-Metal is maybe more accurately described as Nu-Hair-Metal, in that after the brief Grunge interlude (which, it pains me to admit, gets a ditto to all of this:), it largely served that same completely-mainstream-but-your-parents-won't-like-it niche the white suburban teenage male demographic's pent-up hormones buy at the mall, the same way Hair Metal raked in money for the very same corporate record labels in prior years.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:04 AM on February 12, 2015

"you poseurs should listen to real music like Children of Bodom"

In certain "real metalhead" circles this is kind of a brilliant trollwhistle, intentional or not.
posted by atoxyl at 1:23 PM on February 12, 2015

Children of Boredom.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:35 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Nu-Metal is for the most part not remotely related to the metal metalheads call metal, and everyone knows this.

Well...

You're right it did fill sort of the same role as hair metal, but I can see a line from punk to N.W.O.B.H.M. to thrash and hardcore, with a detour through rap to form nu-metal. Especially hardcore as it evolved out of thrash or punk.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:37 PM on February 12, 2015

Sys Rq: "Nu-Metal is for the most part not remotely related to the metal metalheads call metal,"

I don't know, man. A "genre" of music that can contain Katatonia or Alcest at one end and goregrind on the other can probably fit a Static X or a SOAD in there somewhere. I bet there are plenty of kvlt-approved bands that secretly wish they could sound as ballsy as Slipknot.
posted by vanar sena at 7:45 PM on February 12, 2015

I vehemently reject the Deftones [an AWESOME band] getting lumped together with that other Nu-metal horseshit.
posted by Renoroc at 9:11 PM on February 12, 2015