In Defense Of... Korn

In Defense Of... is an ongoing CHARTattack column where our contributors stand up for otherwise maligned acts past and present.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Nu metal sucks and blah blah fucking blah. But can we please think about a few things for a second and just not knee-jerk react? I get that the image of A.D.I.D.A.S. tearaways-clad, long-haired dudes barely playing their guitars all slouched over might be offensive to a lot of people, but try and not think about that for a second.

Here's why Korn's self-titled album is an important record, both in terms of rock 'n' roll history and what it did for music itself.

Consider that its year of release was 1994. This was a huge time of change in music. April 5, 1994 saw Kurt Cobain go into the garage on top of his greenhouse, take a hell of a lot of heroin and then shoot himself in the head, taking grunge (albeit slowly afterwards) with him.

There was a gigantic musical vacuum created with Cobain's suicide. Music fans were understandably upset, since Cobain represented rebellion against the status quo, a desire not to sell out despite how commercially successful his music and grunge eventually became and, let's face it: angsty teenagers needed to know someone else also thought the world was fucked.

Korn's self-titled album was released on Oct. 11, 1994, and effectively filled this vacuum. The music on Korn is arguably much harder and heavier than anything Nirvana did, and while Cobain sang in abstract terms about his problems, Jonathan Davis took things one step further by blatantly discussing such things as child abuse and bullying.

Sure many of the guitar riffs on the record aren't mind-blowing and kind of bastardize the point of owning an Ibanez seven-string jazz guitar (though you've gotta admit playing metal on one is pretty... well... creative). And sure, a lot of the riffs are borrowed from bands like Prong, who'd been doing the whole down-tuned, drop-D thing for a while. But if you're going to argue that, you might as well just say all of them are stealing from Neil Young, who was doing the same thing back with "Hey Hey, My My" in the '70s.

While nu-metal is almost universally reviled for attracting mindless jocks who beat up kids (which is ironic considering the original point was to give a voice to the kids who were being beat on), you do have to give Korn credit for stepping up on behalf of misfits everywhere. You also have to give them credit for being creative and popularizing a relatively unique sound.

Then came 1996's Life Is Peachy. Who can deny the chorus to "A.D.I.D.A.S." doesn't get stuck in their head every time they hear it? What was great about that song was that it was TRUE. Everyone does spend all day dreaming about sex. And with that Korn suddenly had an anthem of a song acknowledging the most carnal of impulses, all executed symbiotically in their Adidas track suits.

I don't need to argue that 1998's Follow The Leader has merit because it went 11-times platinum. That makes for a lot of people onside. Plus "It's On!" has to be one of the best opening tracks of the late '90s.

And let's talk about the video for "Freak On A Leash." It was fucking awesome, and easily one of the best music videos ever made. It was a totally original concept, and Todd MacFarlane's animations and direction made it even better.

The idea that one bullet, fired from a comic strip, can destroy things like parking metres, someone's coffee maker, another comic strip and narrowly miss a fat guy in a pool and then be turned back the other way by someone screaming at it... that was pretty rad.

Think about it, music videos were getting pretty boring at the end of the '90s. It was a stale artform. But this one reignited the creativity in the industry. For a little while anyway.

Korn have also been on the vanguard for higher level fan interaction for some time.

You know all these "hey, design our next video!" contests and "remix our song and win something!" challenges a lot of bands have these days? Well,  Korn were doing these things way before anyone else. They asked their fans to design the cover for 1999's Issues, and picked a winner and three runners-up, all of which were included in the liner notes for the album.

I realize that doesn't really say whether their music is good or bad and is, shall we say, a morally neutral point, but nonetheless it at least demonstrates savvyness and good will hunting on the band's behalf.

If helping to foster an entirely new genre in nu-metal and rising up to defend all the freaks and weirdoes of the alternative nation in it's darkest hour wasn't enough, the fact that they broke down walls between bands and fans should make them worthy of defense. And that's more than I can say for Animal Collective. I hate them.