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Nu metal's foghorn motto was that everyone should fuck off and die and leave you alone, which, of course, was perfect for the defiance against our parents we all have when mom and dad are still paying for literally everything we do.
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Trent Reznor once compared nu metal vocalists to people auditioning for Sesame Street's Cookie Monster, and it's true that pretty much every nu metal band has, at some point, probably sat around in the studio and gone, "Hmm, what bat-shit gargle can we get the kids to sing along to this year?"The "woo" in Deftones' "Street Carp." The orc mating sound at the beginning of Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness." The demonic scatting during Korn's "Freak on a Leash." It's all a big joke, isn't it?Now, I'm not very technical when it comes to the provenance of genres, but I appreciated that nu metal was basically metal's weird younger sibling—the little brother who gets suspended from school for trying to solder a classmate's hand to the desk. It was also indefinable: Some nu metal bands didn't have rapping; others didn't have superfluous DJs drafted in to do three seconds of scratching at the beginning of every song.
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Ozzfest, Milton Keynes Bowl, 2001. It was my very first festival, and the lineup couldn't have been more nu metal if you'd given every performer black goatees and frosted tips. Slipknot, Papa Roach, Soulfly, Disturbed, Amen, and Mudvayne were all there, supported by the kind of bands that made every teenage stoner blowing off PSATs believe they too could one day play a half-hour set to a room full of disinterested teenagers.I charged to the front as if I was a minotaur and not a young girl with developing boobs and easily breakable bones. I shoved a lot of cute boys and got whacked in the eye by a girl (cool!). The mosh pit fired me up: The shared enjoyment of music never felt so forceful than when Slipknot made us crouch down, only to "jump the fuck up" in unison and dodge the flying wallet chains (overdone now, thrilling back then).These days at gigs I stand at the back, arms folded. Though really what I want is to let go enough to partake in nu metal's demented tribal dance.
Just as nu metal's sound was confused and diverse, so was its dress code. Korn sported Adidas tracksuits and decomposing dreadlocks; Limp Bizkit had backwards caps and a guitarist who looked like he knew what human flesh tastes like; and the less said about Mudvayne the better.
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All music journalists ever associate Reading and Leeds with these days is doing coke with pompous indie bands in the Holiday Inn bathrooms. It'll always have a special place in my heart, however, for teaching me some essential life lessons during my nu metal era.One: owning being on your own. I don't think I'd be the woman I am today had I not lost all my friends during the main stage segue from Incubus into Slipknot into the Offspring in 2002, decided I was actually fine on my own and crowd surfed my way to the front.
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Nu metal was an interesting time for experiments in body adornment. Facial hair, for example, was worthy of its own specialist containment team. This was a time before conditioning oil, when most guys had wiry chin straps or, in the extreme case of Shavo Odadjian from System of a Down, actually attempted to see how many elastic bands they could fit onto their beards. Worse was the guy from Disturbed, who tried to style out the saber-toothed soul patch he'd actively inflicted on himself.It's not hard to imagine how they'd go down in the job office, let alone what it would be like, um, down there. I'm ever grateful to my mother for only letting me get so far as some offensive temporary braids, like the ones Rayna Foss from Coal Chamber had.Had I had free reign over what I stuck on or in my face, I would've had platinum dreads, piercings anywhere you could fit a needle, and probably some horrendous tribal tattoo on my neck. Not so great if your dream occupation is anything other than working in your local Hot Topic.
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I had no idea what misogyny was when I got into nu metal, but it's funny how songs that detail a "titty suckin' two balled bitch with a fat green clit" (Korn's delightful track "Kunt") set off the raging feminism alarm you didn't know you had. Nu metal was my gateway into alternative rock and, as I discovered grunge and then Riot Grrrl, I began to question why these fat-fingered white guys were slut-shaming women in their songs.For years I had relished in nu metal's gnarled riffs, swirling misery, and simpleton heaviness, when the music I was empowered by this whole time was, in actual fact, demeaning. Even Deftones, a masterpiece of a metal band, veer wildly between sexy and sexist at times. I'll never be able to divorce the music from my sense of nostalgia, but nu metal's problem with women is the genre's great shame. I haven't got into music at the recommendation of a boy since.
Slipknot were wrong about a lot of things. Like, say, boiler suits and clown masks being practical stage costumes. They were right, though, when they condensed the problem with the human race into one, screamable slogan. At their recent Wembley show with Korn, two people behind us in their Slipknot T-shirts bleated at my friend and I to sit down so they could see. They were about to play "Wait and Bleed," FFS.This fleeting moment of fury made me remember that it doesn't matter what band's name blares across your chest, or what multicolored hair extensions you have, or what boys with six-inch spiked hair you are into: being alternative is a state of mind. If you're the sort of person who asks people to sit down at a Slipknot gig then you should probably just fuck off, have a lemon ginseng tea, and beige away your Friday nights sewing War on Drugs patches onto your army surplus satchel.Follow Kate on Twitter.