Nu metal

• 1. Introduction

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  Nu metal arrived on the 18th of August 1998, when three albums dropped on the same day: Korn's Follow the Leader, Kid Rock's Devil Without a Cause, and Orgy's Candyass. Billboard would later call that single Tuesday the "Biggest Day in Nu-Metal History". Follow the Leader went straight to number 1. Within two years, a genre that barely had a name would produce the best-selling debut album of the entire 21st century. How did a sound that critics called "one of metal's more unfortunate pushes into the mainstream" become a commercial force that outsold Pearl Jam and put hip hop and heavy metal in the same room? And what does it mean that, decades later, a new generation found it again on TikTok?

• 2. A Genre Without a Blueprint

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  Anthrax planted the first seed in 1987 with their rap metal EP I'm the Man, combining hip hop and metal years before nu metal had a label. The groove metal of Pantera hit even harder. Korn's lead vocalist Jonathan Davis put it plainly, saying of Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell, "if there was no Dimebag Darrell, there would be no Korn". Mike Patton of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle became a touchstone for nu metal vocalists because of his ability to shift between singing, rapping, and screaming within a single song.

  Korn's 1993 demo Neidermayer's Mind is the moment writer Joel McIver pins as the genre's true start. Their self-titled debut, released in 1994, is widely regarded as the first nu metal album proper. It peaked at number 72 on the Billboard 200, modest by commercial standards, but it found an underground following that would compound quickly. Deftones released their debut Adrenaline in 1995; within a few years it was certified gold, and later platinum, by the RIAA.

  The origins of the term "nu metal" are often traced to producer Ross Robinson, who has been called "The Godfather of Nu Metal" for his work with Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot. In a live review published in Spin magazine, Coal Chamber was reportedly the first band to whom the tag was actually applied. Tommy Udo recorded this detail in the book Brave Nu World, a reminder that genre names rarely emerge from any single grand announcement but from a stray line in a concert review.

• 3. The Sound and the Look

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  Kory Grow of Revolver wrote that nu metal, in its drive to tune down and simplify riffs, "effectively drove a stake through the heart of the guitar solo". That was the point. Where other heavy metal subgenres prized technical complexity, nu metal built its identity around rhythm. Drummers were influenced by funk and hip hop. Bassists emphasized groove. Guitar riffs, often played on seven-string instruments tuned even lower than standard, were described by music journalists Kitts and Tolinski as resembling "the sound of a Mack truck being crushed by a collapsing skyscraper".

  DJs appeared in the mix to add sampling, turntable scratching, and electronic texture, elements borrowed directly from hip hop. The vocal range was broad: singing, rapping, screaming, and, in some bands, growling. Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison was a notable exception to nu metal's general avoidance of blast beats and double bass drumming, which are standard in black metal, thrash, and death metal.

  The fashion had its own identity. Baggy pants, JNCO jeans, Adidas tracksuits, cargo pants, wallet chains, and frosted tips built a look that drew from hip hop and suburban skate culture simultaneously. Bands like Slipknot, Mudvayne, and Mushroomhead wore jumpsuits, masks, or corpse paint, turning stage presence into spectacle. Coal Chamber and Kittie went the other direction, with gothic appearances that gave the genre another visual lane.

• 4. Rap and Metal in the Same Room

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  Korn's song "Children of the Korn" brought in rapper Ice Cube, who also appeared on the band's 1998 Family Values Tour. Nas was featured on Korn's "Play Me" from the album Take a Look in the Mirror. Limp Bizkit recorded with Method Man, Lil Wayne, Xzibit, Redman, DMX, and Snoop Dogg. Linkin Park collaborated with Jay-Z on their 2004 extended play Collision Course. Kid Rock recorded with Eminem and Snoop Dogg.

  Trevor Baker of The Guardian observed that bands like Linkin Park, Korn, and Limp Bizkit "did far more to break down the artificial barriers between 'urban music' and rock than any of their more critically acceptable counterparts". That cross-pollination was not always received warmly by either genre's established audience, but the sales numbers made the case. Limp Bizkit's Significant Other topped the Billboard 200 even after violence broke out during the band's set at Woodstock 1999.

  Lyrics varied widely across the genre. Drowning Pool's "Bodies" was about moshing. P.O.D. wrote about promise and hope. The Michigan Daily noted that Limp Bizkit's frontman Fred Durst "used the nu-metal sound as a way to spin testosterone-fueled fantasies into snarky white-boy rap", and that audiences took him more seriously than he intended. Deftones occupied a different register entirely; critic Josh Chesler of the Phoenix New Times wrote that their lyrics "tend to have complex allusions and leave the songs open to many different interpretations".

• 5. Peak and Fracture

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  Late in 2000, Linkin Park released Hybrid Theory, a debut that became the best-selling album of 2001 in the United States. The RIAA eventually certified it diamond. "Crawling" won a Grammy Award. "In the End" reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 2002. Critic John Mulvey called Slipknot's 2001 album Iowa the "absolute triumph of nu metal". System of a Down's Toxicity topped the Billboard 200 and went multi-platinum. Limp Bizkit's Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water sold over a million copies in its first week, breaking a seven-year-old record held by Pearl Jam's Vs.

  By 2003, MTV reported that mainstream interest was eroding. Korn's Untouchables and Papa Roach's Lovehatetragedy both sold less than their predecessors. Jonathan Davis attributed the shortfall partly to piracy, noting the album had leaked online months before release. MTV observed that the genre's talent pool had been diluted by numerous similar-sounding bands, and that radio and television airplay had fallen. Meanwhile, indie and garage rock revival acts like the Strokes and The White Stripes were gaining ground, and emo's popularity surpassed nu metal's by the mid-to-late 2000s.

  Bands began to adapt or retreat. Papa Roach abandoned nu metal entirely with their 2004 album Getting Away with Murder. Linkin Park's 2007 album Minutes to Midnight moved so far from the band's earlier sound that singer Chester Bennington said, "We've really moved away from anything that sounds like nu-metal." Limp Bizkit released an EP in 2005 whose sales fell 67% in its second week. By 2006, the band had gone on hiatus. In 2012, vocalist Fred Durst reflected, "say in 2000, there were 35 million people who connected to this band. Twelve years later, lots of those people have moved on. We were a moment in time and it's over."

• 6. Critics, Defectors, and Defenders

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  Gregory Heaney of AllMusic called nu metal "one of metal's more unfortunate pushes into the mainstream". Lucy Jones of NME called it "the worst genre of all time". Lamb of God's Randy Blythe said it "sucks" and predicted audiences were "ready for angrier music". Megadeth's Dave Mustaine said he would "rather have his eyelids pulled out" than listen to it. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails called many nu metal bands "insincere" and "a parody of itself".

  Some of the genre's own supposed parents refused the parentage. Mike Patton of Faith No More said he felt "no responsibility" for nu metal. Page Hamilton of Helmet objected to being "credited with or discredited with creating" a sound the band "sounded nothing like". Tim Commerford, bassist for Rage Against the Machine, called Limp Bizkit "one of the dumbest bands in the history of music", though he later said, "I do apologize for Limp Bizkit".

  Others pushed back against the dismissals. Coal Chamber's Dez Fafara said nu metal bands "broke new musical ground". Slipknot's Corey Taylor, Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins, and Sevendust's Lajon Witherspoon praised the genre's cross-pollination. Writing for Loudwire, Eduardo Rivadavia credited nu metal with reviving the commercial fortunes of heavy metal in the late 1990s and helping pave the way for metalcore and post-metal. Korn's Jonathan Davis, who long rejected the label, had come around by 2019, calling it "pretty cool to say we helped invent some kind of movement".

• 7. Revival and New Voices

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  By 2017, Code Orange's album Forever was credited by PopMatters writer Ethan Stewart with making nu metalcore "one of the most prominent flavors of contemporary metal". Suicide Silence, Issues, Of Mice & Men, and Bring Me the Horizon all charted in the top 30 of the Billboard 200 during the 2010s using nu metal elements fused with metalcore or deathcore. Bring Me the Horizon's That's the Spirit reached number 2 in 2015, and the band's keyboardist described them as a nu metal band.

  Female and non-binary artists also entered the space. Poppy brought nu metal into her albums Am I a Girl? and I Disagree; her single "Bloodmoney" was nominated for the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, making her the first female solo artist nominated for the award in its history. Grimes incorporated nu metal on Miss Anthropocene. Rina Sawayama did the same on Sawayama. Dorian Electra and Ashnikko followed. Rina Sawayama said that "metal itself lends itself to toxic masculine tropes, but it's also almost taking the piss out of a very masculine expression of emotion".

  In 2023, Google searches for the term "nu metal" reached their highest level in "nearly 20 years". Deftones and Slipknot had been gaining listeners among Generation Z after their music appeared in TikTok videos. Late 2024 brought Linkin Park back after a seven-year hiatus following the death of Chester Bennington in 2017. With new singer Emily Armstrong and new drummer Colin Brittain, the band released From Zero on the 15th of November, with songs like "The Emptiness Machine" drawing back to the sound of Hybrid Theory and Meteora.