OK, I'm a little drunk and already realize that this will probably not be a well received post. I'm sure some of you have already closed this thread, but hear me out.

Nu-metal drew heavy inspiration from hip hop, which I remember many back in the day naming as one of the reasons for hating it. Sure, there are so many terrible white boy rappers in the genre, but as we know many nerds have a burning hatred of rap to this day, and it's almost certainly at least partially thinly veiled racism.

A band having a DJ was definitely singled out as a reason to dismiss them, and since DJs grew out of the hip hop scene, it reeks of us-foreign-policy to me.

You could also argue that it's just narrow minded rock and metal enjoyers dismissing anything outside of their genre, but I definitely don't remember them having nearly as much of a problem with industrial bands like NIN, Ministry, Godflesh etc. using samples, drum machines and electronic music elements. It sure seems like hip hop influences were far less tolerated thinking-about-it

Am I onto something or is this just weird overthinking that randomly came to my mind?

  • fanbois [he/him]
    ·
    3 months ago

    I think it's a genre that was incredibly locked into it's time. The sound, the vibe, the aesthetics all coagulated into this peak Y2K moment, where it looked like it's the future... And then basically it was a musical blip, apart from a few bangers and Linkin Park as one the most successful bands of all time. Is there even a (known) band in last ten years that would call what they make "nu metal"? Even Linkin Parks music sounded nothing like their early stuff after 2007 or so.

    • BelieveRevolt [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      I think it's a genre that was incredibly locked into it's time. The sound, the vibe, the aesthetics all coagulated into this peak Y2K moment, where it looked like it's the future... And then basically it was a musical blip, apart from a few bangers and Linkin Park as one the most successful bands of all time.

      There were also just a shitload of nu-metal bands with a terrible white boy rapper and frosted tips, to the point where I'm sure some of them were straight up created by record labels. The people nostalgic for nu-metal probably tend to forget, now that only the most popular ones are remembered, just how many shitty bands that all sounded the same there were. I doubt there are many people nostalgically listening to Reveille or Primer 55 or whatever.

      Is there even a (known) band in last ten years that would call what they make "nu metal"?

      A new band? Probably not, but with the recent nostalgia wave, so I'm not completely ruling it out. Many of the older and best known bands are still going.