Written by:	iaberis
Published:	20.10.2006

Every traditional metalhead seems to hate this new kind of metal? But why so much hate? Is it the use of turntables that reminds us of this lousy "Hip-Hop" music and the "Rap" life style? Is it the remembrance of Linkin Park and "the fucked-up childhood lyric concept" as a member of the Metal Storm on-line community once said?

Well, whatever the reason may be, let's have a look on the genre's definition in wikipedia:
Nu metal (also called new metal, aggro metal, man-rock or nü metal using the traditional heavy metal umlaut) is a musical genre that has origins in the mid 1990s. It typically fuses influences from the grunge and alternative metal of the early 1990s with hip hop, electronic music and other metal genres, most often thrash metal and groove metal.

If you look around, you'll see that every living organism is evolving. That's the difference between something living and something dead. A dead thing can't develop or show some progress. Same thing happens in metal; metal was born almost 40 years ago and has changed into many forms and sub-genres. Power, Gothic, Death, Thrash are all some forms of this wonderful thing called evolution. Same thing is Nu Metal, we couldn't expect that something as powerful as metal, would stay untouched by today's life style and way of living. So this new genre is an evidence that Metal is not dead, as many believe. Although many people deny it, Nu Metal is a part of Metal. But let's have a look on how this genre appeared.

Somewhere in the beginning of 1990, bands playing alternative rock/metal and other metal-influenced music started creating they're own kind of music that was not part of any particular metal sub-genre. Bands like Alice In Chains, Primus, Rage Against The Machine, Faith No More, Tool, Body Count (with the rapper Ice-T on vocals) or even Nirvana influenced this movement and gave the fuse to other bands to follow their steps and get in this new metal-influenced style. There's a whole list on wikipedia about the bands that play or influenced the nu-metal movement, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nu_metal_musical_groups.

So, it seems that Nu Metal is a mix of metal and rap/hip-hop, two unlike kinds of music with two different ways of life. Something like that naturally caused many reactions and controversies by both sides. Although it brought metal closer to rap fans, many hardcore fans didn't accept it, believing it's something that degrades metal and it's lower in quality of lyrics and music. I had the same opinion about bands like Slipknot or Korn till a friend of mine, showed me tablatures of what these bands play and I was amazed. Although it seemed to me that they play standard riffs with low quality lyrics and worthless screams, now I have a different idea about them and this kind of music in general. Although I hate rap and hip-hop, I'm beginning to get use to the idea of turntables in metal too. And in the end, the sound still remains metal and hardcore.

But is it really that bad to use instruments and borrow elements from other music styles? Music is evolving all the time and metal follows this evolution. We can't listen to the 80's style for ever and misjudge anything new. New artists with new ideas in the metal scene deserve a chance and some respect too. We can't stick with a particular metal style forever. If we chose this way, there will be a period in the future that old metalheads will be placed aside, listening to old, nearly ancient bands and to a few new bands trying to copy their music. Think for example Metallica and how they changed their music in their latest album, St. Anger, to access the young people and a wider audience.

Personally, I'm not a fan of new metal or any of the bands mentioned above and I don't judge music by the instruments or the vocals they use. I don't have preconceptions about any kind of music and I generally listen to everything that sounds good to my ears? I don't listen to rap of course, but that's another thing. But I do judge music with my own standards and I don't reject any band or kind of music, because some people just don't like it. That shows a lack of strong personality? Make your own choices and don't listen to every single-minded person that tells you what to listen to! Remember Rage Against The Machine and their "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" lyric!

Closing this, I'm not saying to all of you to "stop listening to your favorite metal style," but just give a chance to the new bands and the new metal styles, called Nu Metal or whatever name they want to give it. Who knows what the future holds for the metal scene? RnB Metal? Beat/Dance Metal? Pop Metal? If so, what's your choice? Follow your times or stick to the old guys?