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There was no good nu metal.

Krev wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:25 am There was no good nu metal.

This was the only movement I got to witness first hand and I hated it at the time (initially too screamy as I worked through alt-rock 101, then too silly when I got into punk and hardcore).

But when I went back to it a decade later to give it a fair shot, I found it hits and misses as much as anything else. Everything has cultural and aesthetic trappings & sonic hallmarks based on the tech of the time. I find that very easy to tune out.

That Slipknot are basically the 20-somethings classic hard rock band, still selling out stadiums, is not a prediction I would have made in 2001. Yet here we are. Ditto (to a lesser extent) Korn, Deftones, Limp, SOAD... Shit has held up and attracted a new audience, which speaks to SOME musical substance rather than mere media hype or marketing trends (though to what extent is of course arguable).

I'd argue all these metal sub-genres are essentially 5 / 6 innovator bands and a scene of imitators and / or gold rush types. That the more commercial stuff (esp glam or nu) is exempt from this and more underground stuff isn't (esp thrash, jhc what a dull genre) is blinkered.

M.H wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 5:20 am

I'd argue all these metal sub-genres are essentially 5 / 6 innovator bands and a scene of imitators and / or gold rush types. That the more commercial stuff (esp glam or nu) is exempt from this and more underground stuff isn't (esp thrash, jhc what a dull genre) is blinkered.

The difference is that back in the day, the commercial stuff was part of the pop-culture consciousness in ways that the more underground stuff wasn't, thus, even the most derivative and unoriginal underground band imaginable still had an *inherent* novelty over the mainstream stuff. And when the mainstream stuff was like nu-metal which literally sounded like it was created by a particularly cynical A&R to tick in all the boxes of what "da kids" listened to (post-grunge angst? Check! Hip-Hop? Check! Helmet and/or Pantera riffs? Check!), while being neither forward thinking nor roots-conscious (the "metal" aspect of nu-metal practically never went further back than 91 and didn't dig deep either), you end up with stuff that IMO sounded painfully "time-period cynical", just as much so as Creed or Candlebox or whatever. Also, the Hip-Hop elements were terrible; none of those guys knew how to rap like at all...

To act like the mainstream and underground stuff was comparable seems like a very contemporary revisionist move based on how music is currently consumed/discovered s and the lack of importance of radio/MTV nowadays...

jakethesnake wrote: To act like the mainstream and underground stuff was comparable seems like a very contemporary revisionist move based on how music is currently consumed/discovered s and the lack of importance of radio/MTV nowadays...

Exactly. 20-somethings and younger were raised on shuffle playlists and video game music, of course they have whack taste. (to be fair, 20 year olds around me at that time were the ones eating shit like Mudvayne up the first time around).

There were a couple bands then I thought were injecting some creativity into the genre (SOAD, earlier Incubus) but even that stuff sounds super dated now.

FM jakethesnake just articulated why nu-metal was so bad...post-grunge angst plus Helmet riffs. And thus Godsmack was born.

I also was around when this stuff started, and am pretty sure that first Korn album (and maybe Tool's Undertow) was ground zero. Obviously, the rap aspect came from RATM. Tom Morello and Jerry Cantrell were the Hendrix & Page of that movement; Paige Hamilton was its Chuck Berry.

Krev wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 9:04 am And thus Godsmack was born.

100% completely off topic, but....last year we hired this guy to redo our front steps. Dude turned out to be literally the worst person in Rhode Island, but that's another story. So I'm chatting with him while he's working, I make the mistake of mentioning I play guitar. "Oh yeah? You play rhythm? You wanna start a band?"

I politely demur. Then he says "yeah I got two full records worth of my own songs, I got it all up here" *points to brain*

Of course you do. Next he goes "yeah my songs are like Neil Young and..." *really thinks hard about it for seriously like 15 seconds* "...Godsmack."

Neilsmack is the type of unholy union that could only coalesce in Pawtucket.

Anyone here ever fuck with Goatwhore?

My friend and I walked into the Army Navy Surplus once and there was a gorgeous, tiny, heavily pierced woman wearing a shirt with an illegible metal font shirt blaring something heavy and guttural. She was magnificent and he's a perpetual bachelor who has an almost indie rock George Costanza type of presence. He was visibly trying to be nonchalant and said, "Whatcha listenin to?".

"Uh, Goatwhore..." She responded in the tone of someone introducing a troglodyte to sliced bread.

Krev wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 9:04 am FM jakethesnake just articulated why nu-metal was so bad...post-grunge angst plus Helmet riffs. And thus Godsmack was born.

I also was around when this stuff started, and am pretty sure that first Korn album (and maybe Tool's Undertow) was ground zero. Obviously, the rap aspect came from RATM. Tom Morello and Jerry Cantrell were the Hendrix & Page of that movement; Paige Hamilton was its Chuck Berry.

Hamilton would hate that Poor guy, at the time Helmet toured with TJL, Melvins and GVSB etc. His entire thing was crossing Branca with AC/DC and in the end got most known for influencing fucking Coal Chamber.

Oh, and Thrash is really the only right answer, with Black a close second

Actually my favourite description of Post-Metal was Graphic Designer Metal