Nu Metal

Bounce before speed

The metal that put a turntable on stage, nu metal, was built from the low string up and bolted to a hip hop pocket, and it lowers its guitars a full step or more, chops the riff into syncopated stabs that leave holes for the kick and snare, and sometimes parks a DJ behind the drums to scratch through the wall of guitar like a crowbar through plasterboard. The songs follow pop form. Speed is not the point.

The voice follows the drums rather than a melody line. Rapping, singing, screaming and growling all turn up, sometimes inside a single song, delivered in the rhythmic cadence of hip hop. What separates nu metal from its neighbours is where the weight comes from: thrash loads it into velocity, while this music digs it out of the depth of the tuning and the space between the notes. Take the drums away and the whole building caves in.

Nu metal leaves Bakersfield

The map spread out of California in the middle of the 1990s. Korn came out of Bakersfield, Deftones out of Sacramento, Limp Bizkit out of Jacksonville and Slipknot, nine members numbered zero to eight, out of Iowa. Steered in the studio by Ross Robinson, the producer the trade dubbed its godfather, and marched from town to town by Ozzfest and the Family Values Tour, the sound flattened the charts: Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory became the best selling debut of the century, and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water sold more than a million copies for Limp Bizkit in its first week. The ceiling gave way.

Metal's old guard crossed the line and paid for it. Recorded with Ross Robinson, with Jonathan Davis, Mike Patton and DJ Lethal joining on "Lookaway", Sepultura's Roots hauled the Brazilian band into the new sound in 1996, and three years later Machine Head drew fire from its own fans over the rap passages on The Burning Red. Robb Flynn counted a minute and a half of rapping on the whole album. The fans cried sell out anyway.

Nu metal gets confused with three neighbours. Rap metal is the narrower thing, verses rapped over riffs; groove metal handed the style its downtuned bounce through Pantera; and industrial metal lent the samples and loops, which is why Pitchshifter sits on both maps. The line into metalcore runs through the 2010s, when nu metalcore bands such as Issues dug the bounce back up, and the 2020s brought Tallah, Tetrarch and Wargasm to a generation that found the old records on TikTok. Nobody had buried it deep enough.

Where to start

Six nu metal albums, from a ranch studio above Malibu to the top of the Billboard 200.

• Korn Korn Immortal/Epic, 1994

  Recorded with Ross Robinson at Indigo Ranch, Jonathan Davis on bagpipes in "Shoots and Ladders", and double platinum in the United States.

• Sepultura Roots Roadrunner, 1996

  Chants recorded with the Xavante people in Mato Grosso, number 4 in the UK and number 27 in America, the band's highest place there.

• Pitchshifter www.pitchshifter.com Geffen, 1998

  The band's first major label record, drum and bass pumped into the riffs, about 60,000 copies sold in the United States and songs on PlayStation soundtracks.

• Slipknot Slipknot Roadrunner, 1999

  Nine members, Ross Robinson again, and the first album Roadrunner ever saw certified platinum in the United States.

• Machine Head The Burning Red Roadrunner, 1999

  The Oakland band's sharpest turn, Ross Robinson producing, and a Police cover Robb Flynn fought to keep off the record.

• System of a Down Toxicity American/Columbia, 2001

  Rick Rubin and Daron Malakian producing, 220,000 copies and number one in its first week, and three singles on the Hot 100.