Due to popular demand, good Nu Metal thread.

[astfgyl]

White Zombie were also one of the godfathers of nu metal. Was listening to them a shitload back at that time.

Some other semi popular bands I don't think have been mentioned yet were hed(pe), Adema, Powerman 5000, and Taproot. I don't think any of them are particularly good (particularly Adema who were just a marketing exercise given the singer was Jonathan Davis' brother or cousin or something), but they all have an appeal if you're revisiting in purely nostalgic terms as they were all bandwagon bands, and so just sound as generically nu metal as it can get. Depends whether you want to discover great bands, or nostalgically wallow in the sound of the day.

As an aside, it is a fun exercise to do. The 'Night of the Comet' soundtrack (on Spotify) is a great one if you want to hear the absolute generic sounds of day-to-day 80s soft rock radio, without having to come across any of the usual suspects.

First hed(pe) album is decent I picked up a fresh copy of it not too long ago. Put Broke on YouTube and didn't last 3 songs though and I haven't heard anything after had.

I think the most generic of them all was Coal Chamber but Taproot and Jon Davis' half brother ran it very close

[astfgyl]

Tool influenced a lot of later nu-metal but definitely aren't that themselves.  The hallmarks you'd see are from looking back at it through what they influenced.

Stinkfist is basically a nu metal tune in all but name and my young self didn't see much difference between Aenima and what was being called nu in general other than it was a better album than most or all of it

[open face surgery]

Jeff Buckley - Eternal Life is nu metal so as well.

[leatherface]

'Chop Suey' by SOAD annoys me a lot. Starts off kind of good then goes into this soft singing part abruptly, then something else, then something else, not interested in this band. EJECT.

Nu metal? Deftones win obviously.

I remember when Toxicity came out and it was played to fuckin death and one night I actually got into a scrap with a lad because he wanted to play it twice in a row and I could stand no more so I fucked the CD at him and off we went. Twas actually one of the lads out of iBurn and all, speaking of nu metal. Unfortunately for me the cunt is as strong as a horse and I got me shit pushed in but luckily we shook hands and continued the drinking and yoke taking after he knelt on my face 

I have seen what Nu Metal can do, 'Just say no', on the other hand the riff in Korn's 'Blind' is still pretty, pretty good.

[astfgyl]

Jeff Buckley - Eternal Life is nu metal so as well.

  god tis, now you mention it! All he needed was the baggy jeans and a shot of eyeliner and he'd have been off to a flyer. He even had the obligatory 80s cover song on the album.

In fact I can really hear the Drowning Pool influence in there.

Jokes in poor taste aside, there's a few bands that are definitely not of the genre but who did dabble in the dark arts on occasion. Prong with Rude Awakening is one and luckily for me I worked backwards with them because I can only imagine the disappointment of being into them before that and finding that they released a full on nu metal album. I love it and all but twas some departure from the ripping stuff of old

[The Butcher]

I remember coming across this song back in the day, that singer has some set of pipes on him, esp in the chorus, pretty catchy ->

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiJSz47keT8

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

That sounds like what I might be misremembering Disturbed sounding like. I really can't abide Disturbed 

[Carnage]

Tool are no more nu metal than Judas Priest are NWOBHM or Vemom are black metal. They might have influenced the sound but predated it themselves by a long period. Gibberish.

[astfgyl]

Tool are no more nu metal than Judas Priest are NWOBHM or Vemom are black metal. They might have influenced the sound but predated it themselves by a long period. Gibberish.

What are they so? I don't think Undertow counts and Aenima was 95 or 6 or 46 and 2 so I don't see how they pre-dated anything.

[Carnage]

How would Undertow not count (as what, out of interest?), or Opiate for that matter? Both fully formed, and containing songs years old at time of release. Sober dates back to the late '80s, for instance. Well before nu metal was a glimmer in grunge's arsehole.

[astfgyl]

I don't think that anything off Opiate or Undertow sounds like nu metal is why I'm saying they don't count. Those ones are more like Grunge with a twist to me. I love a lot of the Tool stuff but a good bit of it feels like nu metal to me when I'm listening to it. Mostly Aenima and 10,000 Days but Lateralus and that new yoke as well just to a lesser extent.

First two not at all though

[Eoin McLove]

I see what you mean. I would never have classed Tool as a nu metal band but many of the riffs are super basic. I would have associated their sound as coming more from stoner rock in some ways rather than grunge, although there are similarities there as you can maybe draw a line from both genres directly back to Black Sabbath without much difficulty. I think it's the drumming and vocals that really elevate Tool because, yeah, a lot of the riffs are fairly background-ish. In terms of overall mood I think they were a million miles away from the likes of Korn though. Kind of minimal and dark dark, yet progressive rock?

[Carnage]

Just finishing Opiate now and segueing into Undertow and I'm almost convinced. There's a similar level of simplicity to some of the songs and riffs but even allowing for that, they quickly evolve and seem to elevate beyond those basic elements to have a kind of subtlety that's entirely absent from most nu metal acts/tracks from the late '90s on. I know you were discounting those two releases but I don't hear the similarity in Ænima at all and no way is it there after that.

All that being said, I've been drinking for 8½ hours at this stage so what do I know?

Ball Tongue!*



*Those two words, said at the right time, gained me a girlfriend in '98 - nu metal is alright with me.

[Circlepit]

I've been watching all the Dynamo festival reports on YouTube. I'm up to 1998 boa and the shift in the bands that are covered is huge.
It's moved to the baggy jeans, bouncing sound coupled with symphonic metal stuff.
That label may be incorrect - a lady in a very fancy dress doing her bit while the band are playing rock music with a keyboardist singing as well. Night wish type stuff.

[Paul keohane]

I've been watching all the Dynamo festival reports on YouTube. I'm up to 1998 boa and the shift in the bands that are covered is huge.
It's moved to the baggy jeans, bouncing sound coupled with symphonic metal stuff.
That label may be incorrect - a lady in a very fancy dress doing her bit while the band are playing rock music with a keyboardist singing as well. Night wish type stuff.

yeah it was very noticeable around then,i said it a few pages back,98 was the lowest point in metal!