Musicians are like scientists. As artists, many musicians love to explore sounds, create and mix the elements of many musical styles. Their experiments that based on curiosity and dissatisfactions somehow continuously create a genre, a subgenre or a new style. These events always happened in every music genre that every genre that the musicians have. Development and changes of heavy metal also the same. As heavy metal genre spread through countries, many musicians experimented on new characteristics derived from heavy metal and resulted in many subgenres. Then, nu metal emerged. Nu Metal can be considered as another creative creation of artists who demand changes from the mainstream heavy metal music.
Nu Metal implement the elements of other genres in their music. For the rhythm sections in bass and drums, nu metal artists often borrow the elements from funk and hip- hop music. Hence, it created distinctive yet fascinating characteristics that differentiate itself from heavy metal music. As for the guitar section, many of the artists employed a similar riff with death metal. Accentuated in rhythm, nu metal rhythm has the similarity with groove metal on several occasions. Due to the trait which focuses on rhythms, many of the artists don’t use the general virtuosic guitar solos. In the vocal section, some of the vocalists combine four elements, which is growl, scream, rap and singing in general. Thus, this created another specific trait in nu metal subgenre. In short, nu metal foundation comes from rap metal, with the addition of the aggressivity derived from its ancestors. It employed heavier distorted instruments and beats, with the lyrics full of anger or have nihilist themes.
The subgenres of metal and alternative rock serve as the basis of nu metal appearance. The nu metal genre is pioneered in the Korn’s 1993 demo tape entitled Neidermayer’s mind. Firstly, generated in California, the music of nu metal spread fast to the United States. In 1994, Korn debuted their first nu metal album, entitled Korn. The album then enters the billboard 200, which makes their name rose to public. Nevertheless, the album which rose Korn become the prominent nu metal band was his third entitled Follow the Leader. Then, during the late 90s, many nu metals bands such as Limp Bizkit, Godsmack, Seven Dust and Slipknot, started to attain their popularity. The late 90s to the early 2000s can be considered as the nu metal age due to many bands' appearances and fame. Nu metal popularity started to decline during the mid-2000s when the genre such as emo music started to skyrocket. Nevertheless, their true fans of the nu metal bands still exist, even until now.
The first choice of the nu metal artists is obviously, Korn. As a pioneer, they develop and elevate the nu metal to the next level, and also act as the important contributors. Between all of these nu metal bands, my personal favorites are Slipknot with their fascinating costumes and System of a Down. Listen to the B.Y.O.B, Chop Suey, and Toxicity to witness the beauty of Serj Tankian voices. Other notable bands are Limp Bizkit, Godsmack, Seven Dust, and the early albums of Linkin Park. Happy listening!
