This sub category of heavy metal is known as Nu Metal. This has been known to blend different styles of music elements and styles into their music, such as Grunge, Hip Hop and Punk. Bands commonly used melodic singing, aggressive vocals and forms of hardcore punk.
An article in Spin magazine featured this style of music as the “new metal” of the community. The “newl” term was changed to “nu” after time pressed on and it was featured in the movie”Get Thrashed.” This metal genre was introduced by Korn in 1990 and has grown through the 90’s into the year 2000.
In 1998 Korn released their third album “Follow the Leader” which sold for 9 million copies worldwide, this was the start in bringing nu metal to the community. This opened the doors to other bands and brought the community to the public.
Once the community grew, the bands followed. Staind, Coal Chamber and Limp Bizkit started to have success in the community after the release of Korn’s “Follow the Leader” album. Coal Chamber, Spineshank and Static-X all came from Los Angeles, California. Bands like Godsmack, Soufly, Disturbed, Limp Bizkit, Sevendust and Slipknot starting making an impact on the community. Most of these bands would join popular tours like Family Values Tour, Lollapalooza and Ozzfest. The biggest being the 30th anniversary of Woodstock that featured mostly nu metal bands.
As time went on more and more bands fell into nu metal. Linkin Park, Papa Roach, P.O.D. and System of a Down all became big hits, pushing most of their albums to platinum. The community was at its high in 2001 when it was the most popular metal music in American. Nu metal bands were getting signed with most record labels during this time. With bands getting signed easily, this brought bad quality to the community.
Into the early years of 2000 popularity died down and bands that started the wave wasn’t selling their new albums as well as their previous ones. With things slowing down, the metal community moved on to the next generation of metal music which is a pop / emo punk. Nu metal is still are and still quite popular. Some bands have changed their style other still the same. Either way Nu metal will always have that spot in society.
