NÜ metal sucks. Right? It’s what critics have screamed ever since the taste-defying mashup of funk-metal, rap, industrial, and post-hardcore stormed onto the charts in the mid ‘90s. When bands like Slipknot, Linkin Park, System of a Down, Korn, or Limp Bizkit dominated the charts, the take was muted by raw success. But the second the acts slipped…the entire movement was (more or less) decried as tasteless trash—the worst of rockism, utterly beyond the pale. Why though? Could the last truly successful (from a chart perspective) rock movement REALLY have no redeeming qualities? And if it did…why hasn’t anyone been thinking about them? Well—one hero has. It’s Holiday Kirk, the “CEO of NÜ Metal,” whose remarkable twitter-project “crazy ass moments in nu metal history” has brought welcome attention back to the style—and shone a spotlight on a new generation of artists reimagining the sound. We talk to Holiday about why he fell (back) in love with the style, the mixture of dumb and brilliant that defines its output, And why Korn were the best sellouts of all time. Then we get heady, and try to think through the political implications of the genre’s white male rage—and what it means that it was so thoroughly rejected by the tastemakers of the Obama era. Come for a validation of the musical trauma of throwing away your copy of Hybrid Theory. Stay for a discussion of the class, politics, taste, and the meaning of Rock in American history.
Music: Uniform - "Permanent Embrace"
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