As we all know, nu metal has well and truly returned. With bands such as Limp Bizkit, Korn and Linkin Park readying themselves for more globe-spanning performances, meanwhile there's a newer generation revisiting the same kind of tumultuous riffs and rap-inspired vocals that gave the sound its distinctive, rebellious edge. The only thing we're missing is a new wave of questionable fashion trends and unimpressed mothers.
In fact, a 2023 study found that the genre is more popular now than it ever has been when compared over the last 20 years.
Though it might have been well-adored, nu metal was also highly criticised and scarcely taken seriously, often by musicians belonging to other movements and subgenres, such as My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way and Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, to name a few.
Ironically, Tom Morello was one person who was far from impressed with the type of bands coming out of the early noughties' nu metal boom, despite the fact that Rage Against The Machine were arguably the blueprint for the entire thing.
In 2021, the guitarist apologised for birthing the genre, which he believed was conceived from Rage's short hiatus following the successful release of their 1996 album Evil Empire. Fans were looking to fill the RATM-shaped hole in their lives, and bands were looking to their brand of anarchic rap-rock as a sonic springboard, albeit one without the same political intent as Morello and co. embraced within their own music. Instead, the perfected rap-rock amalgamation was taken and reshaped into something which Morello believed to be both somewhat enjoyable, and at its worst, "fratty".
While in conversation with Loudwire, he explained: "For better or worse, Rage Against the Machine seemed to have planted the seeds for the genre that sprung up known as nu metal. My apologies.
"Rage Against The Machine created a genre and a total fanbase that we did not serve. We made records every four years. In that gap, labels were like, ‘How can we get a band that sounds like Rage but sang about girls and showed up for video shoots?'”.
He continued, "Low and behold, a genre was born. We've never considered ourselves to have anything to do with that genre. There's a lot of great music within that genre, a lot of great musicians in it, but the ethos of it tended to be much more kind of misogynist in nature, anti-woman and fratty. Whereas there was political and intellectual content to Rage Against The Machine".
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