For about three decades, nu-metal has been one of the most controversial and misunderstood music genres. So much so that quite a few bands from the early days, in the 90s, that are not really nu-metal have been assigned the label.
There’s no denying that bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit are absolutely nu-metal. There’s an attention to groove that’s necessary, and neither band is particularly heavy. (That’s not a criticism, I absolutely love Three Dollar Bill Ya’ll and all of Korn’s early material.)
Really, though, the bands that were kinda similar early on got slapped with a nu-metal label, even though, for the most part, they weren’t.
Rage Against The Machine
Korn’s 1994 self-titled debut album is widely considered the first example of a nu-metal album in its entirety. Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled debut album came out two years earlier, in 1992. So it’s always been kind of weird that RATM got lumped in with the nu-metal genre.
If anything, they were always much closer to hardcore than metal. Those metal associations, I believe, stem from the work of guitarist Tom Morello. The way his groundbreaking, experimental style fused with the band’s rhythmic dynamics created this kind of “rap-metal” elixir. But we all know it was so much more than that.
Orgy
I f***ing love Orgy. Hands down, they were one of my favorite bands of the late 90s nu-metal scene. Something was refreshing about their abiguity and goth/freak aesthetic that spoke to me more than everything else at the time.
(Between their band name and the title of that first record, Candyass, I was terrified of my parents finding out I was a fan.)
Orgy also forged a sound that relied heavily on electronic elements. I would argue that you could call them “nu-wave” before “nu-metal” any day.
Slipknot
There are many nu-metal bands that made it to the mainstream with music perfectly suited to radio. System of a Down and Kittie are two that come to mind. Slipknot isn’t one of those bands. I’m still often baffled at how the band was able to circumvent the music industry’s strict unwritten rules around what/who can rise to the top.
Seriously, take a listen through the first Slipknot album (yep, also self-titled) and tell me that s*** is not just straight up metal with some turntables sprinkled in. Cause, frankly, those turntables do not automatically make Slipknot “nu-metal.”
Deftones
I have said many times before that the Deftones are not nu-metal. I have even said that they are closer to shoegaze than nu-metal. (That particular stance got lots of people riled up, based on the messages and comments I got.) And you know what… I’ll say it again and again with my whole chest… the Deftones are not a nu-metal band.
The band’s nu-metal relegation was, in my opinion, never even about their similarities to nu-metal. It was just because no one could think of another classification for them. When the band’s debut album, Adrenaline, came out in 1995, they sounded like nothing else on the mainstream scene at the time. Grunge reigned supreme, but Korn had just started to blow up, so that’s the team Deftones got picked for.
Much like RATM, the Deftones come from more of a hardcore-esque background than a metal one, but they infuse a lot of big, fuzzy sounds into their songs. So, it’s like “nu-gazecore.”
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