KoRn’s Debut Turns 18

. . .

“ . . . but the enemies of metal, we can’t forgive.”
Manowar, “The Gods Made Heavy Metal”

To understand KoRn’s importance, we have to understand cultural climate of 1994. In January 1992, Nirvana’s Nevermind knocked a Michael Jackson album off the top of the Billboard charts and tore down hair metal’s Spandex Curtain. Everything was changing. The Cold War was over and the West was victorious. America was cleansing itself of the ’80s. All of the excess, the big guitar solos, the big hair, the big boobs, the big piles of cocaine and cash, the big videos, all of it had to go. In the ’70s, punk tried to give rock an enema. In January 1992, “grunge” moniker aside, it succeeded.

Nevermind was also a lyrical and conceptual enema. Nobody wanted to hear about nuclear war, religious control, government control, global warming, pollution, or the economy anymore. They also didn’t want to hear about the exciter, raining blood, livin’ on a prayer, or cherry pie making grown men cry. The lyrics turned artsy and angst-y and personal; they had nowhere else to go.

The metal that had welled up from the underground was being forced back into the dirt. The genre’s biggest names continued to move albums and tickets, but outside of Metallica, they’d passed their apogees. Pantera had by this time morphed from bared tits to bared teeth, and would continue doing well in the unfolding apocalypse.

On August 1, 1994, KoRn stepped onto the broader musical stage with the single and video for “Blind.” On October 11, KoRn the album arrived. The album and the tour that followed it were not hugely successful at the time. It didn’t matter. To watch the video is to watch everything about heavy metal, from the first chords of “Black Sabbath” through the glory of 1986 and the warm aftermath, everything up until 08/01/1994, be flipped over.

. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laCTny-z-L0

KoRn – “Blind”

. . .

The band didn’t look like metalheads. Dreadlocks, corn rows and stubby . . . hair knobs? Goatees? Shiny Adidas tracksuits? Enormous baggy jeans? No headbanging? No windmilling? No foot on monitor poses? The guitarists folded over at the waist, instruments nearly scraping the ground, bobbing in place, subordinate rather than dominant, disinterested looks on their faces. The singer was caressing the microphone, rolling his eyes back into his head. Huh?

They were playing 7 string guitars. The additional string was tuned to A. Not high A, low A. Guitar virtuosos had used 7 strings before to unleash greater heights of shred. KoRn was clonking out the lowest pits of thud. They were playing riffs so simple that the Ramones thought they had sniffed too much glue. Metal’s charging staccato was gone, replaced by lurching grooves that forbade headbanging. There were no guitar solos and there were less than a half-dozen parts in the song. The drummer would hit this pad and an electronic “whump!” would sound out. Where was the double bass? The singer was crooning into the mike in this precious, intimate, manner and then shouting like a hardcore vocalist during the choruses. He was singing about personal problems, feeling blind to situations in his life. Huh?

Metal had broached some of these tropes. Tunings had been trending downward. Bathory and Hellhammer had gotten by with few solos, few parts, and simple, messy riffs. Pantera had done the hardcore vocals and lurching grooves. But all of these things together? Huh?

KoRn smashed all of these concepts together and destroyed what was left of old metal’s popularity. People stopped associating metal with Slayer and Black Sabbath and Judas Priest and started associating it with StainD, Disturbed, Linkin Park, Jugulator, and Limp Bizkit.

Those are my retrospective impressions. When KoRn was released, I was listening to punk and Soundgarden. I saw the video for “Blind” and was repulsed by it. The music was slow and boring. Johnny Rotten would’ve spit on the singer and called him a cunt for singing like that. The band looked like filthy idiots. Their name was misspelled. “Glad the whole band thing’s workin’ out fer ya,” I thought, “because I wouldn’t want those dreds dragging across my burger patties.” “Shoots and Ladders,” with its “knick-knack paddywack, give a dog a bone” line made me convulse with laughter and cemented my impression that this band was shit. Future encounters with KoRn did not change my mind.

. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loc9eI_jiII

KoRn – “Shoots and Ladders”

. . .

Listening to the album these days, it’s actually not terrible. It’s not good either, but it has moments. I can see why people love it. Most of the song intros are excellent, but a minute of quality music does not a song make, grindcore aside. The riffs only want to mosh. They’re good at it, but they’re still amateurs. The songwriting is conventional and competent and removes the need for solos. The band has a limited toolset from which to write riffs and songs: “Chugga-chugga” and “scree!” I have grudging respect for the results they MacGuyvered together with a crab mallet and a roach clip..

Decent riffs do dot the album, but they are too few and far between. Frankly, it’s boring. Jonathan Davis’ wounded crooning is irritating as fuck. His vocal performance is overdone. It’s trying so hard to be earnest and to be taken seriously. The only time it connects is the end of “Daddy.” The drumming is awful. It often tries to push a groove, but the timing feels off. The fills are repetitive, and there are too many of them. They tend to arrive out of nowhere and neither build nor release tension.

The lyrics might have resonated with kids, but they are still terrible, and those kids could’ve listened to a better band. There’s an irritating duality to them. Are they bullying, or are they being bullied? “Clown” is the best example of this. It opens by analyzing a skinhead who was threatening Davis, but then it closes with “turn around and get your face beat.” Songs like “Clown” are why KoRN concerts were eventually mobbed with angry douchebag jocks.

There are additional things to consider. First, KoRn and KoRn might’ve destroyed real metal, but they also sort of saved it. See, when I was in high school, they were really popular. All the metalheads I knew listened to KoRn. Given the band’s eventual album sales, I surmise that the situation was similar in high schools across America. KoRn was the entry drug. Over time, the KoRn backpatches were supplemented with Metallica and Slipknot patches. Then they were supplemented with Slayer patches, and that progression continued. It didn’t matter if albums like KoRn sucked, because that was all these metalheads knew at first: Exodus was a bible chapter, Anthrax was a bovine illness, and Metallica was a hard rock band.

KoRn slew real metal, yeah, but grunge is what really did the damage. Grunge diverted major labels and flighty mainstream fans from bands like Slayer and Judas Priest. Debate my theory in the comments: KoRn helped keep major labels vigilant to metal’s sales potential. I believe that in a cynical and uninformed way, major labels viewed KoRn and nu-metal’s success as validation that bands like Hatebreed, Lamb of God, and even Mastodon could move units.

These days, KoRn is partially responsible for things like pop metalcore, derpy tough-guy deathcore, and good cop/bad cop vocals. Between that stuff and creating/inspiring nu-metal, I don’t think the album will receive much fanfare on this site. I’m ok with that. It’s not terrible, but I hate it anyway for what it is and for what it represents.
It’s the ultimate angry teenager’s album for the 1990s, and it is very much of its time, a knot tied by bringing disparate musical and lyrical tropes together. Grunge looked inward. Metal’s sonic tools were only useful as means to an end, and those means were rarely employed. KoRn adopted metal’s most basic tool, to be heavy, as their only means, and then they looked inward. The result was an album that sounded like teen rage: heavy, dramatic, overblown, simple. Shallow. Tiresome.

Today, KoRn is an adult. It has to grow up. It doesn’t have any more excuses for juvenile stupidity. Beat the clown’s face? Go to jail. Stop reciting nursery rhymes. Stop whining about how tuff high skool was. For fuck’s sake, stop scatting, nobody’s impressed. We can hold it responsible now as an adult. From this point on, it’s just maladjusted.

Real metal had a rough time from ’94 to ’04, but it’s back and it’s healthy. KoRn‘s ultimate fate is up to you. I’ve taken my swings at it. Revenge, as the saying goes, is a dish best served cold.

. . .