Before I begin, I should make it clear that I really do love British culture. It's a shame in a way that as I hit my teens there wasn't really anything going on of any note to latch on to in this country, whereas the U.S. did.
I always have and always will be into rock music. I remember being young and travelling in the passenger seat to football matches with my Dad listening to a Beatles best of tape. I remember my sister letting me listen to "Whatever" by Oasis and being blown away by it. There's probably not a lot of people my age who can say that they were at Knebworth for what was possibly the defining moment for British music post-1960's. Whilst other boys my age might have wanted a new bike I wanted to own Blur's Great Escape.
I've dabbled in other genre's throughout the years. I can't think of many people my age who were into music in their pre-teens who didn't know the majority of "2001" by Dr. Dre, and as I got older and started going out drinking at the weekends, there were plenty of upbeat dancey songs which became the wallpaper in becoming an adult. I've been to Ibiza plenty of times, I've been to EDC, I've been to Warehouse Project, I've been to Global Gathering. I still follow Deadmau5 on Twitter. But it's rock music which has always been the constant.
I can imagine when journalists from the British music press document the trends in music for young people in this country it tends to go: Stone Roses, Nirvana, Oasis, The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys. Every few years, a band's breakthrough effort would go from being nothing to all of a sudden being the biggest thing in the rock planet. Definitely Maybe signified the start of the Britpop era, as morbid as it sounds, timed to perfection after the suicide of Kurt Cobain, thus ended Grunge's time on top for the young people of Britain (despite Grunge's finest hour, Superunknown by Soundgarden being released a month before Cobain's death). Another Oasis album and death represents the end of Britpop; Be Here Now and Princess Diana. But I'm not going to bang on about this, but if you're interested and haven't seen it, I'd encourage watching this:
There's five years between Be Here Now and Up The Bracket. But no one ever seems to speak about the music which filled the void for the youth. It certainly wasn't Toploader, Savage Garden or similar radio friendly shite. We're now heading into the very late 90's and the new millennium. Around this time, more and more families were switching to Sky Digital. Only five years earlier, most families in the UK only had four channels. All of a sudden we had hundreds. There was now more options and music channels which catered for certain genres of music. Also there was more sport channels. Around this time, what was the WWF (now WWE) was experiencing a golden era. For someone like myself in my pre-teens in those days the macho, charismatic, aggressive action on display for two hours at a time was the highlight of your week. I have always enjoyed sportsmen with a bit about them, I think a lot of people do. I'd idolised footballers up until this moment. Now I had people like Steve Austin and The Rock using bad language, insulting people and providing televisual highs; highs I certainly weren't getting from watching City! Accompanying this weekly masculine soap opera was distorted guitars, heavy riffs and aggressive vocals. This, for a lot of young people in Britain was a first chance for our ears to hear metal.
The only way I had really heard of metal as a kid was Iron Maiden and thinking of old hairy men dressed up like bikers. Nu-Metal was different to real metal. There was not the emphasis on guitar solo's. You didn't have to have a ballad. It was OK not to wear leather and have long hair. You could have more than just the simple drums, bass and guitars in a song. It was fine to have a crossover of music styles and genre's. Considering the popularity of the collaborations of Run DMC/Aerosmith on, "Walk this way" and Beastie Boys/Kerry King on, "No sleep til Brooklyn" it's amazing that this hadn't happened a lot earlier. The artists knew that there was benefits to cross over. I'm sure those that liked Limp Bizkit probably gave DMX and Method Man a listen. I'm sure people who were a fan of Ice Cube wanted to hear how Korn and Chino Moreno would cover, "Wicked".
Of course Nu-Metal had already been around for a few years before it registered to us. At the same time as Definitely Maybe filled the Nirvana shape hole in the UK, Korn had been there for the kids in America releasing their self titled debut album. At my age we didn't have exposure to this style of music until MTV2 existed. The American bands of a heavier persuasion would have been covered by magazines like Kerrang! or Metal Hammer, but I, and I'm guessing a lot of others of my age had no idea of these mags. To be honest, I don't think I would have been ready for their heaviness yet. Korn were and are very successful. Their first album more than anything else they've ever done showed a Grunge influence (especially on tracks like "Predictable" and "Lies") but their bassist, Fieldy, gave them an almost funk sound amongst the heavy, downtuned guitars. It was unique, and lyrically Korn was more personal than anything Cobain had done. Jonathan Davis didn't really tip toe around subjects, as you can hear on "Daddy" or on the follow up album Life is Peachy with the song "Kill You". Nu-Metal was darker and heavier than Grunge, and clearly appealed to young people.
I see the time when Nu-Metal made itself known over in the UK as around the time between Limp Bizkit's albums Significant Other and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water. There really was a buzz about this band, and I felt like I had already heard of them before I heard them. During the summer of 2000 the biggest blockbuster film from Hollywood was Mission Impossible 2. The two lead songs accompanying this film were Metallica's, "I Disappear" and Limp Bizkit's, "Take a look around". Hearing music like this as a 12 year old was something else. I'd heard of Metallica before, but it was more in a negative way. They were seen as an 80's band who were a spent force (which was true) and Lars Ulrich was painted as a bit of a dick for standing up to Napster. Limp Bizkit on the other hand were something that I'd never heard. It's quite hard to describe them without quoting Ben Stiller on the outro to Chocolate Starfish.
But they did take elements of metal and hip-hop which made them irresistible to people like myself and hated by everyone else. Well not everyone else. The third single released on Chocolate Starfish is probably the worst song the band ever wrote (although I've never listened to anything post-Results May Vary and I'm possibly being too kind to "Head for the barricade") but "Rollin'" made it to number 1 in the UK chart. That's right, the biggest selling song in the UK was "Rollin'" by Limp Bizkit. Within a few months, the Nu-Metal bandwagon had gone from being on the outskirts of the British musical landscape to being the top seller. I know there's been a lot of shit that's topped the chart over the years, but no songs off the aforementioned albums by Stone Roses, Nirvana, Oasis, or The Libertines (Arctics did though). Add to this, Limp Bizkit put a gig on at The Bowl in Milton Keynes. Now, it's perhaps not Knebworth, but you've got to be achieving something pretty fucking special at the time to have the balls to put on a gig at The Bowl. I can think of only the Swedish House Mafia who have released such little material that could pull this off. Whereas the Swedes played MK and was a seminal moment for the house fans of the UK, Limp Bizkit had to pull out due to Fred Durst suffering a back injury. I was gutted at the time as it was only a week or so before the gig that they cancelled.
Another band, or should I say name, which was getting a bit of exposure in the UK was Marilyn Manson. He released the album Holywood in October 2000 and although I don't think you call his music Nu-Metal, his aggressive and dark style struck a chord with me. He was painted as the anti-Christ (superstar) due to his image and because there were a lot of fingers pointed at him in the aftermath of the Columbine High School shooting, as the two murderers that day were known to listen to Manson. His music wasn't like Limp Bizkit or Korn, but his own style would have no doubt influenced some of the Nu-Metal bands who maybe didn't hit the same heights as some but produced some quality albums and songs. He made songs that were rebellious and lyrics that you just wouldn't hear at a time where Britney Spears still polluted the charts; "I'm not a slave to a God that doesn't exist." His popularity increased further when he covered "Tainted Love", to the point of where even the trackie bottom tucked into white sock crowd even knew about it.
Following the success of Limp Bizkit and the exposure this style of music was getting, other bands such as Linkin Park and Papa Roach became very big, very quick. I loved Papa Roach. Infest was a bit more riff orientated than some of the other stuff around at the time. I can even remember a time when you might hear the song "Last Resort" on a night out, when they were playing the more rockier tunes (presumably between "All the small things" and "Basket Case"). I was never really into Linkin Park when they first came out as they seemed a little soft for me, but the album Hybrid Theory is possibly the defining album of it's era. With it's radio friendly sound and massive chorus' at a time when Nu-Metal was white hot, it's not really too surprising that this album has sold 27 million. Yes, that's 5 million more than (What's The Story) Morning Glory. Linkin Park are without doubt the most successful band from this era, but their debut album was probably the only true Nu-Metal album.
These three bands had a lot of kids at my school talking. And eventually as more and more people got into this style of music, people started to dress in a certain way. Every area of the country seems to have it's own term for people who were into this type of music and who dressed in a certain way. Round mine we were known as "grebo's". I have no idea where the phrase comes from, but it basically meant that you wore baggy jeans, had a (fake) silver chain going from your back pocket to your side pocket and usually wore a black tshirt and the most important piece of clothing; a band's hoodie. Glory days.
I can remember quite clearly Ozzfest in 2001 being set in my town of Milton Keynes. Me and two of my friends walked there. We didn't get in (despite the absolute lie we told people for years - sorry) but we stood near the entrance at The Bowl and listened to the band who blew my mind. Slipknot. I can still remember the first time I listened to their first album. I had heard "Wait & Bleed" on the TV quite a lot and really liked it. At that point I thought that this was really heavy. Then I listened to the album and what I considered to be heavy was changed. It had been released in 1999, but I had only heard it in 2001, months before they released Iowa, which for me is probably in my top 10 metal albums written. They had a certain mystique about them which evaporated the second you saw any of them without their masks on. There was something very intoxicating about their lyrics and aggression to a 13 year old. They're a band I still love to listen to now, and I have a lot of time for Corey Taylor. But for me Joey Jordison was a vital part of the group and I can't really imagine seeing them live without his drumming.
Another band who I have a lot of time for that played that day at Ozzfest were Mudvayne. They eventually evolved into quite an established metal band playing more radio-friendly songs, like "Happy". But for me, their album L.D. 50 is one of the great Nu-Metal albums. Similar to hearing Slipknot for the first time, hearing the song, "Dig" was up there. I still love this song, and I even associate it with a night out I had in 2010. They had the mystique of Slipknot too, with their face paint and fake names, and they had more depth to their sound. "Nothing to Gein" for example combines a lot more styles and sounds than the other bands at the more extreme side of Nu-Metal.
After Iowa was released, another band released one of the true great Nu-Metal albums. System of a Down's Toxicity. They were very Nu-Metal, although they sounded very unique. They almost had a bit of comical side to their songs too, which can be heard on the song "Bounce". Their previous self titled album was released two years earlier, and I think I'd maybe heard "Spiders" once or twice on MTV2, and although that song is great, it's not really a demonstration of the band. Toxicity produced three really popular singles; "Chop Suey", "Aerials" and "Toxicity". "Chop Suey" will forever be getting a great response on metal dancefloors with it's heavy verse and melodic sing-a-long chorus. Toxicity was the first album I can really recall listening to which had quite a political content. The opening track, "Prison Song" commented on issues I'd never even considered. I sorta went off S.O.A.D. because of the music being overly directed at George Bush in the coming years, which is something Green Day definitely cashed in on. I'll talk about politics now with anyone as an adult, but at 15 I weren't interested, and I'm not surprised that a load of politicians are nonces, as the lads who I went to school with who studied it were definitely the types. Either way, Toxicity was a great album.
I associate this album a lot with joining a new school and unfortunately it was released around the time of the September 11th attacks. Funnily enough, there's another song which reminds me of this time, "Shinobi vs Dragon Ninja" by Lost Prophets. I probably could write a bit about them, but Watkins being a sick bastard slightly puts me off giving them any credit. This brings me on to British bands which were successful in this era. They weren't. For some reason, we couldn't pull it off. Bands like Feeder, A, Hell is for Heroes and Hundred Reasons were packaged in HMV to be Nu-Metal, but they didn't have the edge or attitude compared to the Americans.
As always, due to the popularity of the genre the market gets over-flooded with a lot of average/dross bands that take the shine off a genre. Probably the last great Nu-Metal album released in it's era was The War of Art by American Head Charge. They had the weird sounds, possibly influenced by Manson, but overall had a very heavy sound combined with some magical melodic choruses. I saw them at Ozzfest 2002 and they were brilliant, one of the best sets I've seen. I can still see myself at school listening to "Song for the Suspect" and being blown away by it.
The Nu-Metal genre has a similarity to Britpop; as previously mentioned the band that started it with a great album ended the genre with somewhat of a let down (I say that although I fucking love Be Here Now and refute the claim that all the songs are too long). Korn released Untouchables and although "Here to Stay" was a great song, the album generally was pretty weak. Actually, some of the songs on it are absolute garbage. I'd quite happily never listen to "Hollow Life", "Alone I Break", "Beat it Upright" and "Wake Up Hate" ever again. The album was ridiculously hyped and they spent a lot of money on the production of it, so I guess we were expecting something really good and it didn't deliver.
The bands that had done alright out of Nu-Metal continued to do so albeit with an altered sound/image, whereas the industry were bored of the sound and what became popular was either a softer sound or a harder sound. Bands like Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, Funeral For A Friend, HIM got bigger after Nu-Metal ended, whereas people like myself who craved something heavier went for bands like Killswitch Engage, Chimaira, Lamb of God and Shadows Fall.
There is one band I've omitted from mentioning yet, and it's a case of saving the best til last. The one band who have time and after time released quality albums from the Nu-Metal era to the current day with constantly evolving whilst keeping a sound which is absolutely them is Deftones. Arguably the greatest Nu-Metal album is Around The Fur, released in 1997. This album is everything about that time and is a perfect representation of what Nu-Metal is all about. Similarly the follow up album White Pony is also one of the great Nu-Metal albums, "Passenger" in particular, featuring Tool's Maynard James Keenan, and "Change (In the House of Flies)" are both classic songs of the era.
They changed their sound as time went on, but occasionally released something which harked back to Nu-Metal, like "Mein" off Saturday Night Wrist. The album Diamond Eyes was so refreshing when it was released as it showed that there was still some great music being released by bands that I grew up listening to after Korn and Slipknot had released albums which could be called their weakest (Untouchables aside).
I saw Deftones play in Birmingham last February and they were excellent. Their last album Koi No Yokan is the last metal album I bought, and could probably find itself in my top albums I own. They're probably the only band of the era that I loved so much that I will rush out to purchase their latest offer. I usually buy Slipknot's album as soon as it comes out, but over a month later and I've still not got round to buying The Grey Chapter, although what I have heard of it sounds good.
The speed in which the Slipknot/Korn tour in early 2015 sold out is an indication that the era has a legacy, but one which rarely gets spoken of outside the world of metal, but it is still an important genre in the history of youth culture.
A few other Nu-Metal classics:
