And with Eminem’s debut, The Slim Shady LP, coming months later, it’s easy to see the culture had shifted to embrace a more confrontational means of entertainment. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Follow the Leader was released one year, to the week, after the debut of South Park, another hugely successful pop culture vehicle that chided the cynicism of the times into comic gold.

Of course, this 90s anger, viewed from our deeply dug bunker today, seems fairly antiquated and chummy compared to the round-the-clock, foot-in-your-face doomcasts we constantly scroll through, but hey, we were nubiles then, not yet used to societal breakdown and senseless widespread violence in our own streets.īy the end of the decade the presidency of Bill Clinton had turned into a comic strip, which further alienated voters and broke the enchantment of government to millions of restless suburbanites. It was an angry time and chaos took over nightly newscasts. Korn’s rise came on the heels of Kurt Cobain’s death and a burrowing sense of national discontent with the events of Rodney King, Saddam entering Kuwait, WACO, the WTC bombing, Black Hawk Down, the OKC bombing–a lot of bombings actually the major cases of Dahmer, OJ, the killings of Tupac and Biggie, the Unabomber. In the age of Total Request Live (TRL), Britney and boy band pop, Korn managed to translate all that negative 90s energy and century-shifting panic into a long-standing career. They revived metal and turned its atmospherics darker, adding horror movie suspense with strange tunings and Davis’s tortured whisperings and roarings. Lead by singer Davis, guitarists James “Munky” Shaffer, Brian “Head” Welch, bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu, and drummer David Silveria, Korn tore through the culture. Twenty years ago this month, Korn released their third album, Follow the Leader, a gritty metal album from the sewers of the suburbs that was as catchy as it was ugly. The video was a welcome bomb in the pop landscape of the late-90s. Jonathan Davis barks back at a speeding bullet, sending it back through gas stations, backyard birthday parties and other scenes of sweet, late-century America, in the video for Korn’s “Freak On A Leash.” Without a doubt, one of the finest music videos, embracing the concept of a fast-traveling bullet filmed in slow-motion as it barely misses the vulnerable.

Korn and deftones albums