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The Evolution Of Music Part - XI

Nu metal (also known as new metal or nü metal) is a musical genre that emerged in the mid 1990s which fuses influences from grunge and alternative metal with funk music, hip hop and various heavy metal genres, such as thrash metal, industrial metal, and groove metal.

Nu metal music emphasizes mood, rhythm, and texture over melody. Often, nu metal songs use rhythmic, syncopated riffs played on distorted electric guitars with strings detuned to lower pitches to create a dark and thick sound.

 

Nu metal is, like metalcore, widely hated by many metalheads. Both genres are frequently called ‘mallcore’ and ‘poser metal’.

Origins

Like the bands of its antecendant, funk metal, many nu metal bands came from Southern California. Bands

such as Snot, Manhole, Linkin Park, Human Waste Project, P.O.D., and Korn are early nu metal bands all from Southern California and started in the mid nineties.

Producer Ross Robinson was labelled by some as ‘the godfather of nu metal’ due to his producing of several notable nu metal albums, the first of which was Korn’s eponymous first album.

Korn’s signature sound came from an attempt to emulate chords used by Mr. Bungle’s guitar player, which they referred to as ‘the moveable Bungle chord’. They have also cited Mike Patton’s other band Faith No More in Kerrang!’s The Greatest Videos of All Time in 2006, saying that Korn was influenced by them because they did something unusual with a metal band. Nu metal bands also often state more conventional metal acts as an influence, particularly Black Sabbath.

Definition

The term was first used for a review of a 1997 Coal Chamber concert in Spin magazine in the form ‘new metal’. Categorization of specific artists as ‘nu metal’ is difficult, an issue made more prevalent in the online community by traditional metal fans who take offense to the term. Nu metal began as a mix of different genres, so the definition is not solid. Linkin Park’s Meteora, for example, is listed as ‘alternative’ on AOL Music Now, and three different genres (‘rock’, ‘metal’, and ‘alternative’) on Metacritic. Because their style was not clearly defined, nu metal bands were often considered within multiple other genres. For example, Korn cross into alternative metal and industrial metal, Limp Bizkit and P.O.D. cross into rap rock, Disturbed and Godsmack cross into hard rock and alternative metal, and Linkin Park crosses into the genres alternative rock and rap rock. Rap rock, post-grunge and alternative metal are common genres which nu metal bands cross into.

Vocals

Nu metal bands often feature aggressive vocals that range from melodic singing similar to pop and rock, guttural screaming and shouting from various forms of metal and hardcore punk, accessible to rapping. Some distinction is usually maintained between bands who use rap vocals extensively, and those that do not. Bands featuring almost exclusively rap vocalization are sometimes loosely called ‘rap metal,’ while the less common term rapcore is used to describe bands who use a combination of singing, screaming, and/or rapping (for example, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Papa Roach and P.O.D. have songs that combine the styles).

Another method is ‘shouting’. This is basically a mesh of rap with some metal influences, commonly called rapcore. Another common method is simply utilizing the different styles in different parts of the songs, such as a ‘screaming’ chorus breaking up rapped verses. The style and lyrical themes of nu metal’s rapped verses are generally very different from those of mainstream hip hop. Distortion and other post-production effects are often added to vocals in the nu metal genre.

Turntables

Many notable nu metal bands feature a DJ for additional rhythmic instrumentation (especially for music samples, scratches, and electronic backgrounds). Some examples of nu metal DJs are DJ Lethal of Limp Bizkit, Mr. Hahn of Linkin Park, and DJ Sid Wilson (Starscream) of Slipknot.

 

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