Critical Analysis of Nu Metal as a Genre in Music - Essay Example

Critical Analysis of Nu Metal as A Genre in Music Contents of the Report Introduction History: The Beginning, Evolution and Progress Nu metal "A new metal genre" Popular Bands in Nu metal References Introduction It is a common belief that drugs are the best stimulants. People go crazy about doing anything for them. They argue that there cannot be any other form that could energize them better than these. However, the fact under covers is that there cannot be a better stimulant than music. It energizes, gives pleasure and people not only have a soothing atmosphere around them but they almost always become disciples of it. The tunes, harmonics, beats, vocals and almost everything associated with music is crafted so well that it can lull any person to the sweetest dreams ever. If addiction is to be defined with respect to music then it is love and passion. Music takes many forms. Each genre is unique. Styles, region and origin make them apart but music brings them together. A very special genre of music that embeds power and melody in a magical harmony is Rock Music. Rock music has its origin in the late 1940's in the United States (Christe, Ian 2003).Typically, Rock music is accompanied by Guitar, Bass, Drums and often a Keyboard. Vocals play a prominent role in this form of music. Much attention goes towards the melody in vocals and the Electric guitar dominates the foreground. In the beginning Rock music was primarily popular in United Kingdom and the United States but by 1960's it started to gain world wide popularity. History: The Beginning, Evolution and Progress Chuck berry in 1955 invented Rock and Roll (Christe, Ian 2003). It was after him that the British blues had come up with increased speed of their rhythm guitars. Their music had a driving power that no other music on earth had. A few years later Beatles band was formed. This band went on to achieve world wide success. They were the first proponents to bring guitars on to stage. They turned their music into a mass media attraction. Various forms of rock music were derived later and each had its own significance. The evolution of various genres in rock music is mainly associated with time. In 1960's a blend of Rock music with folk and jazz respectively came up and were known as Folk rock and Jazz rock. In 1970's a number of subgenres of rock music came up with the influence of soul and self importance. These include soft rock, progressive rock, art rock, techno rock, synth rock and punk rock. (Christe, Ian 2003) 1980's was the golden era in the history of rock music that saw the birth of hard rock, heavy metal and alternate rock. Thanks to bands like Metallica (Thrash metal), Megadeth (Speed Metal) and Iron Maiden (Hard Rock) that shook the world with almost all of their albums striking gold. They obsessed death, pain, hatred and evils in the society and that reflected in their lyrics as well. This drew the angry young crowd towards Metal Mania that spread like plague across the world in no time. Rock music established itself as a major business at International level. 1990's saw the time for Grunge style rock, Brit pop and Indie Rock. A new musical genre in the mid 90's that has its origin from Alternate metal, Thrash and Hard rock came up as "NU METAL". (Kitts, Jeff and Tolinski, Brad 2002) Apart from these forms many others like punk rock, psychedelic rock, soulful rock; Speed Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Underground, fusion etc have come up with improvements over their ancestral or base forms of Rock music. Each of these forms of Rock music has its own history and origin specifics and bands that are real professionals. Each form has its own pros and difficulty level in composing and performing. Each has its own way of drawing crowds towards it. Creativity in each and every aspect of the basic attributes associated with Rock music is what differentiates these genres of Rock music. Nu Metal: A new Genre A new perception arrived in the minds of the people that style in performance was more important than the quality of matter they presented. Many musicians were dissatisfied with this, Glam Rock, and they started to develop other form of music that is called Grunge. Grunge took its birth from heavy metal and alternative rock in the late 80's. Grunge mainly focuses on clear vocals with basic chords and soft beats in the back ground. Nirvana gained a huge popularity in this genre till their front man Kurt Cobain was dead in 1994. (Kitts Jeff and Tolinski Brad, 2002) In mid 90's a new musical genre that has its roots of origin from Grunge, alternate metal and funk music came up. This new genre is called as "Nu Metal". Nu metal inherits the similar song structure as the Grunge. More importance in Nu metal is given for how vocals are presented. Instruments used in Nu metal are different from those used in other genres of rock music. It uses a guitar, Bass, drums, turn table, keyboard, synthesizer and vocals. Nu metal adopts a lot of heavy music, palm muting and fewer smaller leads. Strong riffs along with a mix of heavy drumming; scratching forms the base for nu-metal. Bands under nu metal often fall under multiple genres so the classification of a band into one particular genre becomes difficult. It is a homogenous mixture of two or more genres. For example, Limp Bizkit falls under Rap core. In nu metal a DJ becomes the VIP. He is important than a guitarist. Rap is almost always used in the vocals of nu metal. A fine mix of scratching along with clean vocals, chorus and Rap merge makes a decent nu metal song. Guitar playing in nu metal is more focused on rhythms than complex leads. This is because in nu metal the focus is on expressing anger, frustration or making the crowd dance with their beats. Hence guitar is used for rhythmic purpose only. Riffs and power chords are selectively used. The kind of instrument and tuning used for guitar work is basically de-tuned strings that are drop-D. Due to this solos are rarely done. Also seven string guitars are commonly used. Nu metal faces a lot of criticism by experts who claim that guitar playing in Nu-metal is not proper. Unlike traditional metal bands where the speed of a bassist adds value to band's terrific sound, the nu-metal bands have bass slower. Either the sound is very slow so that it gets disappeared in the back drop or it is very strong overtaking the vocalists role. Six string bass guitars are common in Nu metal. As rhythm has a very big influence in this genre, bass is considered as the lead instrument in Nu-metal. The band Limp bizkit uses five string bases. (Kitts, Jeff and Tolinski, Brad, 2002) Heavy drumming is seen while chorus performance is there and it drops down the vigor and intensity while verses are sung by the vocalist. A DJ holds important role with scratches and adds to the band's asset as a kind of rhythmic instrumentation. The song gets going very well with this turntablism. Nu metal bands focus a lot on their vocals and lyrical content. The vocalist will be a specialized person who can modulate his voice in all possible cases. They can scream, shout and even sing slow songs with a lot of emotion in it. In most of the nu metal bands, Rap is used as complementary to main vocals in bands that show have excessive vocals. Best known example is of the band Linkin Park where Chester benington and Mike shinoda have a good chemistry and complement each other well to make the song a big hit. This is termed as Rap core. There are many ways in which rapping and singing (screaming, shouting and melody verses) can be combined. They can either happen in an interleaved manner or an over lapped fashion. It depends on the nature of the song and the interest of the band. Linkin Park generally uses the interleaved fashion of combining rap and vocals. This is how Nu metal is being differentiated from Hip Hop. The lyrical Content for Nu metal bands is very important. The success of the song lies mostly in the lyrics that they write and vocals that express the emotions. These lyrics throw light on day to day issues in life. It focuses more on the problems associated with the teenage crowd and there by wins the crowd of this age as fans in particular. Their sufferings, abuse, status, relationships are put to light in the best possible lyrics so that people are more intrigued to find themselves closely attached with the song. The vocals put forward the emotions felt in the lyrics. For example, Linkin Park's "Numb" puts the feelings of a young girl who is treated ill in peer group and looked down upon, not given any encouragement for her interests, made fun and all such abuse is shown. Everything done by her is magnified as a mistake and that makes her life terrible. This is what almost every teenager feels that he/she is not treated well. They want that importance that they don't get. They can imagine themselves closely to this situation and gets influenced a lot by this song. These kinds of songs are played again and again in any room and that says that it means something to someone. The lyrics describe her feelings in the most accurate manner. It explains that the person is not able to keep up trying to please others and reach to their expectation and is getting killed inside. "Tired of being what you want me to be feeling so faithless lost under the surface, don't know what you are expecting of me put under the pressure of walking in your shoes, Every step that I take is another mistake to you and I become so numb ." That's it! Nu metal hits the stage with these issues that they bring up. (lyricsfreak.com, 2005) Song structure is also no different from the alternate metal or the Grunge scene. It has an intro to the song which is instrumental followed by a verse and a chorus to follow it, a verse again and an occasional bridge that will be followed by a concluding verse that ends the song. Mostly the songs end in chorus. The sound variation is clearly seen with every verse. The concluding verse has a louder chorus than usual chorus. All these features are same as that of the alternate metal and the Grunge. The Evolution Tree for Nu- Metal Popular bands in nu metal Some of the popular bands to name in the genre of nu metal are: Linkin Park Limp Bizkit Slipknot Rage against the Machine Linkin park, a Californian Band is a six piece band that holds the #1 position in the nu metal arena as of today. They achieved world wide fame with their debut album "Hybrid theory" (Soundspike.com, 2007) in 2000. This band falls under the nu metal genre and is one of the most important bands here. Soon after Hybrid Theory's success the band received offers to perform in international concerts. Meteora Album combined their nu metal and Rap core features along with strong backed up lyrics had brought success. The band has a DJ along with a Vocalist/Rapper/Piano player as Mike shinoda apart from the regular four piece band. The Lyrical content of this band is more towards the social issues, pain and relationships, misery and anguish. Many comment that the band's music is getting monotonous however it is still a very good band in the Nu metal arena. Limp Bizkit is known to be the creator of nu metal. The Floridian band is a five piece band that produced ten albums till date. Fred dust, vocalist brings his own style in his Rap merged with vocal that attracts audience. Their first album did not fare well at the billboards. Later on, significant other and Chocolate star fish and the hot day flavored water hit gold by selling more than two million copies.(thearmpit.net, 2004) Slipknot is a nine piece metal band that is known for playing some heavy music but is still considered a part of nu-metal genre. Formed in 1995, this band released five albums. The response to their first two albums was generally good. Subliminal versus hit the bill boards at #2 (Soundspike.com, 2007) Slipknot has an extreme style from rest of the bands. Their lyrics mainly concentrate on darkness. Apart from this their songs also show disaffection and anger. Rage Against the machine is an American Nu metal band which has a revolutionary socialist philosophy in their lyrics. RATM, a four piece band had its evolution from hip hop and hard rock. The band split up in 2000 came up with seven albums on philosophical issues. Their works have a controversial view to the government polices. This is seen in their Bomb Track record for supporting the Guerilla organization (ratm.com, 2004) Many critics point out that nu metal is not really Rock music as it does not do much of the difficult guitar work that is a trade mark of Rock music. However these bands have expertise themselves in nu metal and it is really difficult to categorize them as they fall in multiple genres. These bands strive to obtain social conscious in the society by throwing light at issues that are forgotten. Their quick popularity world wide is an indicator of the quality of music produced by them. References: 1. "EXCLUSIVE: Fred Durst Interview". thearmpit.net August 15, 2004 2. Yahoo! Music, Linkin Park Remixes Chart #2 Debut on March 26, 2007 3. Soundspike.com, Album Chart:March 19, 2007 4. Jolie Lash (2002-04-11). Slipknot at Rolling Stone, 2007-02-15. 5. Rage Against the Machine: official website. Fenruary 19, 2007. 6. di Perna, Alan. "Brave Noise-the History of Alternative Rock Guitar". Guitar World. December 1995. 7. Freind, Bill. "Grunge". St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture. June 23, 2005. 8. Christe, Ian (2003). Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal. HarperCollins. . 9. Kitts, Jeff and Tolinski, Brad (2002) Guitar World Presents: Nu-Metal Hal Leonard. ISBN 0-634-03287-9. 10. Lyricsfreak.com, Lyrics of Numb-Linkin Park found at: www.lyricsfreak.com/l/linkin+park/numb_20083800.html Read More