Rockpedia
Heavy metal branch Full entry · 1994

Nu metal

Emerged 1994 Origin California, USA Subgenres 2 Vocals Sung and screamed
Heaviness
8
Speed
5
Melody
7

Sung and screamed. Clean singing and harsh vocals trade off, often chorus against verse.

In short

Seven-string guitars tuned very low, hip-hop groove, a DJ or sampler and lyrics about personal trauma. The decade's best-selling and most disputed genre.

How it sounds

  • Seven-string guitars tuned very low, with simple syncopated riffs.
  • Very prominent bass, often slapped or synth-toned, plus a DJ or sampler in the line-up.
  • Vocals moving between rapping, singing and screaming, with lyrics about personal trauma.

Hear what that means

  • The seven-string, tuned to A

    Korn - Korn

    The lowest guitar tuning anyone in metal was using in 1994, played on a seven-string with a riff of two notes and a great deal of space. The genre's whole sound starts here.

    Open on YouTube
  • Turntables as an instrument from 0:59

    Slipknot - Iowa

    Scratching used as a lead line and a percussion part, alongside a second dedicated percussionist. Nu metal's rhythm section is doing something no other metal genre attempts.

    Open on YouTube at 0:59
  • Every vocal register in one song

    System of a Down - Toxicity

    Whispered, sung, screamed and back inside ninety seconds, over a riff in an Armenian scale. Emotional volatility deployed as an actual technique.

    Open on YouTube

Loaded only when you press play — nothing reaches Google before that. Every second here is the uploader's own, read from the recording's tracklist.

The specifics

Tempo
80-120 bpm
Song length
3-4.5 min
Tuning
Seven-string guitars tuned down to A, or six-strings in drop B — the lowest tunings anyone in metal had used at the time, and the reason the genre sounds the way it does.
Production
Sub-heavy and mid-scooped, built for a car stereo, with turntables and samples treated as instruments rather than as decoration.
Written about
Childhood damage, Alienation, Rage without a political object, Family

What each part is doing

  • Guitar Riffs built from two or three notes and a lot of space, with pinch harmonics — the picking thumb brushing the string to make it squeal — as the main ornament. The interest is rhythmic, not harmonic; there are almost no solos in the genre.
  • Bass Loud, slapped or picked, and frequently carrying the hook. Nu metal is the only genre on the metal branch where the bass is regularly the most audible instrument.
  • Drums Syncopated and hip-hop-derived rather than rock-derived, sitting in the pocket behind the beat, with the kick pattern doing what the guitar riff would do elsewhere.
  • Turntables A real instrument here, not a garnish — scratching used as a lead line and a percussion part, which is the clearest evidence of where the genre actually comes from.
  • Vocals The full range in one song: rapped, sung, whispered and screamed, often within a single verse. Emotional volatility as a vocal technique.

What it isn't

That it was a commercial invention with nothing in it. It is the most critically punished genre on this tree and the technical facts do not support the verdict: it brought the seven-string into common use, it is where down-tuning past B became normal, and its rhythmic vocabulary — the syncopated, spacious, groove-first riff — is audible in a great deal of what came after, including bands who would deny the influence. The lyrics are frequently adolescent. That is not the same charge.

Told apart from

  • Rap metal Rap metal is the narrower thing nu metal is often reduced to: rapped verses over metal riffs. Nu metal sings as much as it raps, and most of its records are not rap records at all.
  • Alternative metal Alternative metal is the wider category nu metal grew inside, and it keeps the guitar solo and conventional tuning that nu metal abandoned.
  • Industrial metal Both use samples and both are rhythm-first. Industrial metal's machine is cold and repetitive; nu metal's is a groove borrowed from hip-hop.
  • New nu metal The revival — 2018 onward — which plays this sincerely rather than as nostalgia, and mixes it with hyperpop and emo rather than with hip-hop.

The genres this one is most often mistaken for. Written, not derived.

History

Korn released an album in 1994 that resembled nothing else: impossible tunings, bass up front and lyrics about childhood abuse. Slipknot added nine members, masks and percussion; Deftones brought shoegaze textures. It was the best-selling genre of its decade and the most mocked of the next, and it is now being rehabilitated.

Descended from

Branches into

Siblings on this branch

Sounds like this, elsewhere in the tree

Closest by the three ratings, among genres at least 4 steps away in the tree. A rating match is not a musical claim.