No, nu-metal isn’t my favourite genre of music by a long shot. My interest in it stems from its position as one of the most maligned genres of all time. There’s not much hipster ironic appreciation, metalheads despise it and even many of the people who bought the CDs would prefer to erase it from their memories. The term has such negative connotations that many music fans like to hand-pick the bands they like from the scene and swear that they weren’t nu-metal (Deftones!)
Isn’t that a little unfair though? Because nu-metal at it’s best is one of the darkest, funnest, grooviest and intense genres of all time. At it’s worst it was a lab designed project to sell trash to aggro teens. I’m aware there is probably a higher percentage of bad too good. But that’s what this is all about. Re-appraising the genre, respecting the good while torturing myself with the bad. The problem I have with nu-metal isn’t the stupidity or the over the top anger. It’s really the fact so many bands didn’t develop their sound in interesting ways and so many suffered from the law of diminishing returns. But we’ll get into that. As of now I’ll be track by track reviewing as many nu-metal albums as I can for the foreseeable future.
Oh yeah, and what’s nu-metal? Anything that has ever been referred as so in mainstream media. Let’s go.
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Thanks for following my blog. If you’ve read over it, you can see that music really speaks to me. I am a Metalhead enjoying such bands as Guns N’ Roses, Metallica and Megadeth though I also enjoy some Nu Metal such as Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. I don’t concern myself with underground vs. mainstream. As long as I like it, I listen to it. And I’m looking forward to reading what you have to say.
I agree. Nu Metal is so unfairly criticized. There’s nothing wrong with it in and of itself. There are good and bad bands, with good and bad albums, with good and bad songs just like every other subgenre.
I also agree that too many Nu Metal bands suffered from diminishing returns. Most just dropped off the map after two albums, and often the second album was poor. Shame. There really was some great talent and huge potential that got wasted.
Even the similarly hated Hair Metal (which shared a lot of the same problem) managed to keep long careers and have successful reunions and nostalgia festivals. Hopefully all those lost Nu Metal acts start coming back in a few years.
Thanks for the comments. Hair metal is a good comparison, as is ‘glam rock.’ There’s something romantic about the short lived nature of these genres though.