The Death of Nu-Metal

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   Here's how I see things. Nu-metal didn't have an "organic" evolution as a genre because as soon as Korn released their debut album the record labels started making pressure on bands to play nu-metal. Unfortunately, not everyone had the talent required for such a style. Nu-metal can be rather lame if you don't have a highly technical drummer or vocal whereas the instruments, 7 string guitars are recommended and so on. That's how groups like Limp Bizkit, Drowning Pool or Mushroomhead emerged and thought that by rapping a little and by adding some unoriginal thick guitar riffs they would make good music. WRONG. Because of the hype, many bands brought profit for the record labels but once emo came along all of them were simply forgotten.

Nu-metal is in my opinion a less avantgarde experimental metal, if I may express myself this way. If we  take a look at the way conventional metal and hardcore were played in 1994 we will see that playing the bass in a jazzy style and the guitar in a very distorted way was very uncommon. Mr Bungle had a great influence on the few good nu-metal bands (Korn and Slipknot) and Red Hot Chili Peppers as well. Nu-metal, in order to sound well and not boring is generally influenced by funk.

Slipknot is probably the only record label product band that had a true artistic value. It's a long story behind the band, the demo album released in 1996 was highly experimental, a Mr Bungle only more hardcore and the self titled album was a remake of the demo with an even more extreme approach. I honestly believe Slipknot were asked to play nu-metal in an extreme manner because Roudrunner had been dumped by Mushroomhead and the record label did nothing but to take Slipknot and transform them into what Mushroomhead had already been. The good part is that Slipknot are far better musicians and as for the part with the masks, well, I don't care if the idea was taken from Mushroomhead or not.

Musically, Slipknot was the new level of nu-metal. Thick but fast, focused more in guitar rather bass more cacophonic than any metal band before them and with a great amount of industrial.

Then came Linkin Park and , ultimately, the end. Linkin Park weren't inspiring enough, except the Dj all the musicians weer (and are) lame and limited and there was nothing to follow. 

It's sad that, besides Korn and Slipknot, good nu-metal albums were released by bands that had been in the music scene before 1994 like Sepultura, Slayer and M E S H U G G A H. But as I said in the beginning, the record label's hunger fro money is the reason why there so few good nu-metal bands.