Origins Part 2 Nu-Metal’s Completion: Two Bands That Dominated the Late ’90s
How Korn and Deftones Defined the Genre's Golden Era
In the mid-1990s, two bands emerged on the foundation laid by Faith No More, Helmet, and Rage Against the Machine. Korn and Deftones absorbed their predecessors’ experiments and pushed them to extremes, helping crystallize what became known as nu-metal. Korn redefined metal’s sonic boundaries with seven-string guitars and extreme downtuning, while Deftones expanded the genre’s emotional range by combining shoegaze’s dreamlike textures with nu-metal’s aggression. From 1998 to 2000, the nu-metal these two bands pioneered broke into the mainstream music industry in a major way.
Korn: Defining the Genre with Seven Strings
In 1994, five guys from Bakersfield triggered an earthquake in the metal scene with their debut album. Korn‘s sound was unlike anything else. The seven-string guitars played by James “Munky” Shaffer and Brian “Head” Welch reached much lower registers than standard six-strings. They tuned their seven-string guitars down a whole step to A standard, creating massive low end and aggressive tone. Bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu’s percussive slap bass merged hip-hop grooves with metal riffs seamlessly.
But what truly made Korn singular was vocalist Jonathan Davis. His vocals moved between clean singing, rap, screaming, and growling, moving between emotional extremes, a style some reviewers described as bipolar vocals. Instead of singing about power and dominance like traditional metal, Davis poured out raw trauma, alienation, and inner pain. This brought into metal the kind of catharsis and emotional complexity that alternative listeners were seeking.
Korn – Blind
The 1994 debut track Blind was Korn’s blueprint. Recorded in A standard, the song shocked metal fans with a low end unusually heavy for mainstream rock at the time. The riff created a hypnotic groove by repeating specific chords rather than using note-heavy traditional approaches. Davis’s vocals maintained tension throughout the song, moving from whispers to screams.
In 1998, Korn reached their commercial peak with their third album Follow the Leader. The album sold 268,000 copies in its first week, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. They pushed Beastie Boys to second place and Snoop Dogg to third. The album ultimately earned five-times platinum certification (5 million copies) in the U.S., becoming Korn’s most commercially successful work.
The singles Freak on a Leash and Got the Life were all over MTV. Got the Life became the first video ever retired from MTV’s Total Request Live, pulled from rotation after holding a top spot on the countdown for so long that the network gave other artists a chance. The song used A standard tuning and presented nu-metal’s perfect formula with whammy effects and extreme vocal techniques.
Korn’s influence was immediate and widespread. Linkin Park, Slipknot, and Mudvayne, virtually every nu-metal band that dominated the early 2000s, built on the foundation Korn had laid. Korn guitarist Brian Welch has noted that some of the bands Korn inspired went on to surpass Korn commercially, with Linkin Park and Slipknot in particular taking what Korn established and reshaping it into their own sound.
If Korn defined nu-metal’s aggression and weight, Deftones infused the genre with sensitivity and atmosphere.
Deftones: Bringing Shoegaze Sensibility to Nu-Metal
Deftones differed from other nu-metal bands from the start. While Korn and Limp Bizkit focused on rap and aggression, Deftones pursued heaviness and beauty simultaneously. Guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s downtuned riffs delivered overwhelming weight, but vocalist Chino Moreno’s vocals showed extreme dynamic range from whispered croons to intense screams.
Deftones – My Own Summer
The 1997 sophomore album Around the Fur still stayed relatively close to a conventional nu-metal sound. It was built largely around Drop C-sharp tuning, and aggressive riffs with Moreno’s intense vocals drove the album. But the standout track My Own Summer already showed signs of change. The atmospheric textures beneath the heavy riffs signaled that Deftones would become more than just a nu-metal band.
In 2000, Deftones entered completely new territory with White Pony. This album broke nu-metal’s framework and integrated elements of post-hardcore, trip-hop, shoegaze, and progressive rock. Drop-C tuning remained central to the album’s low-end weight, while DJ Frank Delgado’s turntables and synthesizers added dreamlike textures. Moreno placed greater emphasis on melodic singing, and he contributed rhythm guitar parts himself, increasing the album’s complexity.
The single Change (In the House of Flies) perfectly demonstrated Deftones’ new approach. Heavily distorted guitars coexisted with airy atmospheric textures. The song was simultaneously aggressive and haunting. That duality, the balance between brutality and beauty, was the theme running through all of White Pony.
The album achieved commercial success too. It sold 178,000 copies in its first week, debuting at number three on the Billboard 200 chart, behind Britney Spears’s Oops!… I Did It Again and Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP. It ultimately earned double platinum certification and became Deftones’ best-selling album. It also scored well critically, earning a 72 on Metacritic, while Change reached number three on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart and Digital Bath climbed to number sixteen on the same chart.
White Pony demonstrated that nu-metal could possess artistic depth beyond simple aggression. Bands like Chevelle, Taproot, and 10 Years later explored similar combinations of melody and atmosphere within heavy music.
Testimony from the Next Generation: Nu-Metal’s Legacy
As nu-metal dominated the mainstream in the early 2000s, a new generation of bands openly acknowledged Korn and Deftones’ influence.
On White Pony’s 20th anniversary, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda credited Deftones directly, noting that songs like A Place for My Head would not exist without them. He pointed to a rhythmic bounce reminiscent of his favorite hip-hop tracks, and to guitars that stayed heavy while somehow feeling smooth, almost like keyboards.
In 2023, Shinoda went further, framing songs like One Step Closer and Crawling as attempts to address deeper emotions than simple anger. He has argued that Deftones and Korn deserve more credit for pushing Linkin Park toward more sentimental lyrics, singling out Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis for opening the path to expressing introverted and complex emotions within the nu-metal scene.
But not all relationships were friendly. Ahead of a 2003 tour with Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and Mudvayne, Deftones’ Chino Moreno sparked controversy by framing the pairing with Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park as a problem, arguing that both bands owed their existence to him personally and insisting he wasn’t on the road to make friends, but to leave a mark.
In 2023, Moreno revisited the remarks, clarifying that his frustration was never really about Metallica, whom he admired, or about Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park personally. Rather, it reflected a period when Deftones were actively trying to set themselves apart from the rest of the nu-metal package on that bill. Over the years, Moreno came to regret his comments, but they illustrated the competition and tension within the nu-metal scene.
Nu-Metal’s Mainstream Breakthrough: 1998-2000
Korn’s Follow the Leader, Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other, and Deftones’ White Pony each sold hundreds of thousands of copies in their opening weeks alone.
Korn’s Follow the Leader sold 268,000 copies in its first week in August 1998, hitting number one on the charts. It ultimately sold over 5 million copies (five-times platinum) in the U.S. and exceeded 14 million worldwide.
Limp Bizkit – Nookie
Limp Bizkit‘s 1999 album Significant Other was even more explosive. It sold 643,874 copies in its first week, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200, and sold an additional 335,000 copies in its second week. It held the number one position for three weeks and sold over 5 million copies by the end of 1999. It ultimately earned seven-times platinum certification (7 million copies) in the U.S. and sold at least 16 million copies worldwide. On this album, Wes Borland first attempted seven-string guitar, inspired by Korn, using several rare models including the Ibanez RG7 CST.
Deftones’ White Pony sold 178,000 copies in its first week in 2000, debuting at number three on the Billboard 200. It earned double platinum certification and received platinum in Australia and gold in Canada, New Zealand, and the UK. It also succeeded critically, scoring 72 on Metacritic.
Nu-metal’s commercial success went beyond album sales. Nu-metal videos filled MTV’s rotation, and festivals and package tours such as Ozzfest and the Family Values Tour raked in millions of dollars. Nu-metal became the face of mainstream rock in the late 1990s.
The Revolution Completed
Korn and Deftones each pushed nu-metal in their own direction. Korn redefined metal’s sonic boundaries with seven-string guitars and extreme downtuning, expanding the genre’s emotional vocabulary with hip-hop grooves and introverted lyrics. Deftones proved that heaviness and beauty could coexist by combining shoegaze’s dreamlike textures with nu-metal’s aggression.
Bands like Linkin Park, Slipknot, and Disturbed have all pointed to Korn and Deftones as a starting point, and their influence runs through much of what dominated the early 2000s. Nu-metal eventually declined commercially in the mid-2000s, but its influence remains throughout the modern metal scene.
Faith No More opened the door to genre fusion, Helmet popularized drop tuning and minimalism, and Rage Against the Machine fused hip-hop and metal into a nearly seamless hybrid. Korn and Deftones took all of it further, pushing those elements to extremes and giving the emerging sound its defined shape as nu-metal. In the late 1990s, they rewrote heavy metal history.
