Sorry, Nu-Metal was Inevitable

by Terence A. Anthony


If you asked a Metalhead, what part of their musical memory they would wipe off the answer more often than not would be nu-metal. The name itself, subject of scorn and ridicule has been the source of annoyance for those who identify as Metalheads.

During their darkest moments, they have been associated with people they rather call mallcore or hot topic Goth by a media that didn’t understand their subculture. Nu-metal was a far cry from what Metalheads from the 90s perceived Metal to be. While other subgenres of metal like thrash, black or death employ a riff based sound and a focus of technicality Nu-Metal’s only common ground with them was the heavy distortion.

What differentiates a lot of nu-metal from the more traditional sound is the source of its heaviness. If somebody were to play a Crowbar riff on an acoustic guitar, you can still feel the heaviness and trace it back blues, the original inspiration for Black Sabbath. Nu-metal instead or at least the more popular figures play the guitar like a percussive instrument. The heaviness did not come from the backbone of heavy metal but from the guitar tuning and the guitar being treated like a drum on distortion instead.

Couple that with horrible rappers, you get a sub-par mix of rap and what people thought was metal. This was even a far cry from what Public Enemy and Anthrax had when they made “Bring Tha Noize”. At least Rage against the Machine knew to not label their band as Metal. It’s because Zach De La Rocha understood the difference between being a Metal band and a band that has a few metal influenced riffs. A lot of what Tom Morello played was equally influenced by the blues, funk rock and even turn tabling. The idea of metal in people’s heads is now relegated to just being dropped tuned guitars and distortion, thanks to horrible music journalism.

However, when one sees the progression of where music was going in the late 80s/90s, nu-metal and rap metal seemed inevitable. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Metal was becoming more popular as the big four of thrash peaked. They were the epitome of what it means to play heavy music and be the most popular bands at that moment. If you want to play aggressive music, the big four were the go-to records. The problem was that when they peaked, the thrash metal sound these bands played became mellower to cater to mainstream audiences. The riffs are then simplified and Metallica basically became a hard rock band with metal influences.

With simplified riffs, most of the blues or whatever progression has been made in between black and thrash is thrown out of the window. There were two directions to this. On one side, they had the slower hard rock sound of Metallica. On the other side, there became an emphasis on the groove. Groove on its own still had its metal characteristics.

This side was emphasized in Sepultura’s Root Bloody Roots. Pantera also shifted their sound to a groovier, but almost thrash metal like sound, but not quite there. Sepultura’s record with its tribal percussion became a world-wide phenomenon. While their blend of thrash-ish influence and percussive sound was unique, it was still backed with the understanding of what makes it metal. When people who don’t understand that basic theory they end up playing the guitars like percussion too. This became the basis of the nu-metal sound. It was heaviness without the actual weight.

During this evolution towards simple down tuned, faux-heaviness, rap music was fast spreading. With gangsta rap like NWA and Ice T started getting recognition and notoriety, it also became the go-to music for those who wish to rebel against the establishment. It was a reflection of the brutal life they witnessed or heard from their neighbourhoods. Unfortunately with fame, there will be people trying to imitate you and passing it off as the real thing.

When Public Enemy and Anthrax realized the similarity between the movements being youth movements and youth culture at that point, they understood what made rap music good and what made metal good. This was because they lived it. They perform those genres before moving into their rap metal fusion. Their copycats probably didn’t understand this.

There are tons of rap songs that are percussive based. So when these young kids heard “Bring Tha Noize,” they could easily imagine them playing guitars in a percussive manner, make a beat out of it, put on some distortion and write some pseudo-tough guy bars, they thought they were doing metal. Nu-metal could only have festered in these conditions. They thought they were onto something revolutionary, but they didn’t go through the testing grounds to perfect their art first. Instead, they got unwarranted popularity as people were looking for the next fad when grunge was dying off.

So from there, music journalist who had no idea what they were listening to, decided to lump anything hard and heavy as metal, regardless of its origin. While there were horrible bands like Limp Bizkit poisoning the music scene, there were bands that had percussive elements and could be derived from hip hop were also lumped into the mix. These bands could possibly need not be labelled as metal, seeing how hardcore was also pretty heavy yet people understood it was metal. The difference was that hardcore already had a culture behind it but these new upcoming heavy bands didn’t.

Bands like Deftones, who were basically a mix of shoegaze, post-hardcore and groove influence from Sepultura were labelled under nu metal. It wasn’t a big deal to them but they believed in that label, as they were trying to look for a niche they can hold on to with the hopes it will turn into its own subculture. Too bad for Deftones, they became the victim of the nu metal era.

System of a Down took the dropped down sound, mixed with a strong hardcore punk influenced, stripped down their Slayer influence to its bare basics and added a layer of Armenian folk music to the mix. Later in the aught years, they managed to combined theatrical music and their more metal side started to show with thrash metal like influences in tracks like BYOB. They also were lumped into the nu metal category.

These two bands survived the nu metal onslaught. Other bands that probably came to their heavy sound from a different angle were trapped in the crossfire and were converted to the cult by studio execs trying to get the next Slipknot.

So regardless of how hard you try to avoid this concoction, nu metal infected other creative bands and they took a toll. Some embraced the title, thinking this was the verge of something revolutionary, only to implode when they went full metal. Others like Deftones and System of a Down understood what was going on and quickly distanced themselves from the crowd.

Nu metal, the worst form of labelling ever to be applied from a pre-existing culture, was unfortunately was inevitable. With it, they nearly destroyed other waves of creative bands, trying to create their own sound.