Elëvën Nü Mëtäl Söngs Thät Didn’t Tötälly Sück

I was clearly not the target demographic for Nü Metal. I was in my thirties by the time it rolled around, had already cycled through all the genres that fed into it, and had also spent a lot of time listening to the progenitors of the form (namely Faith No More and Nine Inch Nails). 

So if I tell you Nü Metal seemed utterly prefabricated — and for the most part, supremely irritating — to me, I hope you’ll understand where that’s coming from. It’s coming from a place of love.

For my money, Nü Metal always seemed like it was created by a central committee trying to engineer the best possible soundtrack for FPS video games and Blade movies. Given the shifty provenance of some of these acts, I’d wager that’s probably pretty close to the truth.

That all said, I do have a few guilty pleasures from the Nü Metal era, as well as some non-guilty pleasures. Got a problem with that? All right then.

Deftones are often lumped in with Nü Metal — and in many ways they set the basic parameters for it — but they’re far too subtle and clever to fall into its minefield of pitfalls. Plus, that particular single hit me in two of my favorite sweet spots, ie., my enduring love of Swervedriver-esque suspended power chords and my timeless love of wispy, My Bloody Valentine-type melodies. 

And you totally knew I was going to post this one, so quit it with the feigned shock.

P.O.D. (Payable on Death) are a Christian Nü Metal band, which makes sense since this late-GenX cohort was pretty heavily churched. They’re also another California Nü Metal band (San Diego, specifically), as are Korn (Bakersfield) Deftones (Sacramento) and Linkin Park (Agoura Hills). 

Haven’t kept up with them but this album (Satellite) is a raging slab of anthemic choruses, passable rapping and of course, suspended power chords.

Yeah, I like Disturbed. Wanna make something of it? Well, I like early Disturbed. By that, I mean mostly Believe. Great album. Got a problem with that? Yeah? Shall we take it outside? 

I didn’t think so.

OK, I will admit that I like Disturbed, but I definitely don’t like Dave Draiman’s face skates.

Are Chevelle Nu Metal? I can’t tell anymore. I do hear a lot of Deftones in the guitars, not to mention the overall vibe. They started off as a Christian metal band, like P.O.D. Either way, I do like this album (Wonder What’s Next). Wanna make something of it?

No? Then watch your mouth, tough guy.

Linkin Park were the standard-bearers of Nü Metal and their first album sold a squillion copies. My son played Hybrid Theory incessantly for about a month and then shelved it forever after. As did a lot of other kids, I'd imagine. Me, I couldn’t handle all the whining and it all seemed very prefab and record company-concocted, but hey: a killer riff is a killer riff. And this tune certainly has one.

LP also get extra credit for asking Elizabeth Fraser to sing on one of their albums. Which is why I forgive the late Chester Bennington for doing such a lousy job replacing Scott Weiland in STP.

Another California county heard from (Glendale, to be precise). These cats didn’t really do it for me, on account of they seemed like the kind of guys who spent a little too much time sniffing their own farts. By that I mean they took themselves way too seriously. Like Tool-level seriously. By which I mean I wasn’t surprised when they dissolved acrimoniously soon after finally scoring some hits. 

This is a nice little track though, even if that particular guitar effect on the choruses was way overused in the Nü Metal heyday.

Either way I’m forever grateful to SOAD for inspiring this classic slice of Ebaum’s World-era hilarity.

Shouldn't we just change to Nü Metal’s name to "Califörnimetäl?" Incubus hail from Calabassas, which means they come from money. Nü money, certainly, but still; no one was going hungry in this band’s salad days. 

For some reason (surely having to do with the fact that my brains work wrong) I lump these guys in with Dave Matthews and Phish. Like one of those bands you need to learn some kind of secret bro handshake before you can listen to them.  Please tell me I'm wrong.

Still, it's got a great chorus and those ever-present suspended power chords. Which may be an oxymoron, but come on: look at the genre we’re talking about here.

Are Three Doors Down Nü Metal or post-Grunge? I don’t know and it really doesn’t matter anymore, not one single whit. I think they may be more Country Rock these days, but half of what they call “Country” nowadays just sounds like 70s Southern Rock to me. That, plus The Eagles.

Still, pretty ballsy move for these cats to play Trump’s inauguration when everyone else chickened out. Ballsy, plus incredibly surreal. What a weird time that was. 

This country is so fucked.

Slipknot are not from California, but the corn fields of Iowa. Shocker, I realize, seeing these cats come across as pure, undiluted Hollywood in every conceivable way. I’m so far out of this band’s target audience I may as well be parked on Mars, but this little bopper ain’t so bad. Best maybe listen without watching the video though. 

Maybe it’s just me, but everything about this band reeks of focus groups and committee calculation, even by Nü Metal standards. Kind of like a bunch of marketing execs got together and asked themselves, “So how can we do a Gwar for the post-Grunge demographic? I can just taste the dollars we can make if we crack that particular egg.”

Pretty much the kinds of questions that the forces behind these guys were asking themselves. Someone on Limp Bizkit’s team even had the brilliant idea of getting around the payola problem by having radio stations air one of their early singles as paid advertisements. 

Hey, scoff all you want but at least they were honest about it. Hell, half of the records in your collection made their airwaves bones on the Three B’s: bucks, blow and blowjobs.

My son liked Godsmack for about five minutes. And they get extra credit for not being from California, but actually hailing from Lawrence, Mass. (Lawrence? The fuck?). In other words, some dyed-in-the-wool Masshole townies. Their lead singer even calls himself “Sully.” (You can't throw a rock in eastern Massachusetts without hitting a dozen Sully's, in case you haven't watched enough Casey Affleck movies).

I have nothing to say about Godsmack other than scoring songs for movies like The Scorpion King seems to be precisely what Nü Metal was created for.

My apologies to Korn fans, but I just can't handle those guys. Something about their music just gives me room-spins. Jonathan Davis’ vocals remind me of the sound a cat makes when it’s fixing to throw up a hairball. I suppose that’s the appeal for some people, just not me.