noam wrote:Brian Oblivion wrote:wormcode wrote:Yeah had a feeling after that collaboration with skrillex
Korn are grasping at straws to stay relevant these days I think.
they basically reinvented metal when they came out
jus wana go back to this
i dont think Korn really had anything to do with it themselves
Ross Robinson on the other hand...
metal basically went from being overtly showy, to a rawer more gritty sound in the late 80's influenced by hardcore and punk - thats Thrash. REAL thrash.
Pantera/Machine Head/FF etc. are later breeds - when Thrash started to die out they simplified the tracks, and Pantera really added this much rawer, bottom end to the sound, slowed things down a little, and what came of it was a sort of hybrid, precursor to nu-metal.
Ross Robinson took the sound that Pantera/Sepultura/FF were making in the early-mid 90's and brought production techniques learned from things like Metallica's Black Album, the wall of sound, shortened the songs to pop song length, cut out guitar solo's and pushed the angst from Grunge mixed with this simplified, newer metal sound. hence, Nu-Metal.
so we got Korn and Deftones supporting Machine Head and Pantera on tours around 94/5, with these quick, heavy, sludgy, bassey metal tracks with incredibly high production value. THAT was what happened to metal - it didn't get 'reinvented'. it changed slowly over time, to do with trends. Look at Pantera's album titles - round the time nu-metal was really kicking off and grunge was dying, Great Southern Trendkill came out (96?)... that album was basically their attempt at a nu-metal sound... but with styles and personalities like Pantera had naturally all that came through, and the album is darker and more menacing than most of the 'nu' shit that came out.
anyway, the point was, no one reinvented metal... metal just changed, the biggest facilitator was Ross Robinson, not Korn though.
I dont know if I entirely agree with all that but I see where your coming from and you have some good points. I dont think Robinson necessarily went in and took all the solos and 9 minute tunes out of what Korn were doing, I think that was their sound, how they made their music. Of course it was part of a longer shift, almost everything is in music is a gradual shift to some extent, but nu metal was a very quick moment in that shift that changed not only the sound but the fan base of metal and what was acceptable in the scene, where it sat culturally in the mix. A lot of the scene reacted to it, Machine Heads third album was their attempt at a nu metal sound for sure, I remember me and my friends looking at eachother and saying fuck, machine head have gone to shit, theyre fucking rapping now? Fuck this. And thats the thing, the fast change threatened to leave them behind and they bent to the new sound. I dont think trendkill was an attempt at a new metal sound though, there I disagree with you because Im pretty sure in interviews at the time they said they just wanted to kill all the trendy shit and make an uncompromising metal album, there was no rapping, deck scratching, little hip hop interludes etc, I dont think they bent to the trend at all, quite the opposite if anything, that album was barbaric for the most.
I take what your saying about Ross Robinson having a part in Korns sound, thats a fair call imo. And it didnt even have to be Korn, Im not saying Korn themselves were doing something that radical that it changed what everyone else was doing, they got a lot of press which helped push them through over probably a lot of other unsigned acts doing something in that ballpark, thats a factor, the timing of it all was a factor. But when Korn and adrenaline came out their impact on the wider fanbase of metal was quick and vast I recon. It went from an occasional metallica video on mtv during the day and stuff like headbangers ball being the main slot for metal, guys walking about town with tight stone washed jeans, long hair and iron maiden shirts.... to Fred Durst on mtv on the hour every hour and hordes of gothic candyraver looking metal fans wandering around in baggy jeans and dreadlocks who for the most didnt seem to be able to relate to or find cool a lot of metal that went before, and a lot of the people still into the older sound felt the same way about the new stuff. It was more pop, more hip hop, the whole culture surrounding metal seemed to change, and it was pretty much the final nail in the coffin for grunge and a lot of strains of metal that still carried elements of the 80s sounds. Obviously heroine had a fair part in grunges doom too, just like Panteras. Metal, in my opinion, was reinvented at that point, it found a new sound that made it a lot more cool and acceptable in the face of hip hop, pop and the growing multiculturalism in the west on a fanbase level. Phil might have shaved off the mullet for the 90s but nu metal went a lot further. See, I agree that the Black Album had an obvious pop shift, but what Pantera, ff etc were doing in the first half of the 90s was a continuing shift away from commercial sounds, maybe not in terms of song structure, I agree with you there, but it was very hard music, Cowboys to Far Beyond Driven is a shift to the extreme, Driven is just savage all the way to planet caravan, but the nu metal movement went back from there towards pop again, rather than go back down the glammed up (and Im using glam in the broad sense there for those that care), 80s, mullets and leggings it was shifting from they took that distance and then went back down a hip hop style root towards a commercial sound, so an opposing direction but not necessarily back the same way it had come. But Im measuring the reinvention in terms of the impact korn had when the first album came out on the metal fanbase, not purely in terms of sound on the record, I take your points there and I agree that Korns sound, like a lot of metal bands sounds, had a lot to do with the production and as the guy who mentioned Faith No More earlier pointed out, there was elements of what they were doing done before. Im as much talking about a shift in culture and attitude as a sonic one, and korn were in the right place at the right time and spearheaded that movement along with the deftones. I dont give Korn themselves that much credit for it as individuals with a 'new vision' as it were.
yes the same video, those guys were pretty off the wall. I agree with your thoughts on Korn too, Im completely unaware of anything theyve done in the last 12 or so years.
