Why I Miss Nu Metal

[JSKrev]

Eternal Nightmare by Vio-Lence is better than any Machine Head.

 

[trem licking]

Used to love these bands back in the day but man... I cannot go back. It's a hard, cringey listen these days

 

[wankerness]

There's an element of nostalgia here and that these riffs were really important to you at a really formative time...

...but I think the bigger thing here is that the music you're comparing it to came at a time when precision and technical competence was really what was driving that particular scene, and that that was what was different here. Music with a strong sense of groove and catchy riffs was nothing new when nu-metal came out, it's just that that's where your exposure really came from. For me, that could just as easily been Nirvana and my dad's Stones and Hendrix albums.

That's not an indictment against the bands you're comparing them to, either - music evolves and different things will be important at different times.

There's a HUGE element of nostalgia speaking. Even some of the "classic" nu metal albums were loaded with tuneless mush. Like, Significant Other has trash like "9 Teen 90 Nine" or "I'm Broke." Or Deftones - Around the Fur has ultra repetitive three chord shit like "Headup" in between the really great songs like My Own Summer or Be Quiet and Drive. Newer albums don't have worse riffs, you just didn't listen to them when your brain was at the formative stage. I remember almost every song off every crap album I listened to in middle school like Fush Yu Mang!

 

[Necris]

I remember Spineshank having some hooks, I also remember their lyrics being so awful that even 11-year old me couldn't help but notice.

 

[wankerness]

I miss how in high school getting albums was like, a social event. We'd go out to Best Buy or Media Play or Circuit City or Borders or whatever and buy a handful of CDs and go back and listen to them as a group. Anyway, the point of this story is that I remember one day buying AMEN - WE'VE COME FOR YOUR PARENTS (since it was produced by nu metal mastermind ROSS ROBINSON and early press was that it was "the heaviest thing he'd ever produced"). After getting through a few songs that we weren't really getting into, one of the early songs on the album had a lyric like "YOUR MOTHER'S CUNT IS OPEN WIDE!!!" and we all just kind of looked at each other silently and turned it off. Haha.

Anyway I've listened to that album once or twice over the last 25 years and I think it was KIND of cool but it was like, some sort of contrived attempt to merge hardcore and nu metal. But yes very bad lyrics. The first song was all about Calvin Klein.