This is an entry I've been meaning to do for a while, alternately pecking at it and letting it sit because I really, really, really want to do right by what's in my head, not just write the usual drivel like "Uhhhhhh yeahhhh maannn totally, like, stuff, opinion".
But short answer: yes. They did.
Admittedly, yeah, a lot of nu metal's either silly (Limp Bizkit) or alienating (Korn). However, we did get some seriously legit music out of the movement, whether it be rife with hooks and poetic lyrics (SOAD and Deftones), some stuff that, despite its harshness, has an artistic and proggy color to its sallow cheeks (Mudvayne, Soulfly). By the end of the 90s and early 2000s, we're getting some crossover; bands like Disturbed on the radio, Deftones wins a Grammy, little victories like that. It seems like this stuff could be a lot less niche, like if more artistic minds dabbled into the grungy, oily ore that is the sound I've come to love, then it could be a more appreciated, more established... I don't know, thing.
So we come to the genre's apex, the tipping point before it could be re-upped for the next decade, it's making or breaking point, right before half the bands watered themselves down into post-grunge and the other half flat-out disappeared or stopped caring about gaining new fans. Hybrid Theory hits it big.
I should've made an outline for this stupid article... argh. Anyways, soldier on!
So Hybrid Theory does a couple things. One, it does arguably give the genre a little jolt of life. By dominating the alternative airwaves, they allowed other such bands (like some of the ones I named above) to stay the "cool thing" for a couple years longer. Two, it takes the Promethean fire of nu metal and gives it to the Future Scene Kids of America, a big chunk of America's youth that really doesn't get the zeitgeist that this music comes from, something I'm not sure how to feel about, being part of the sub-generation born only a couple short years before Cobain ate gunsmoke, a totally separate chunk of youth that may not be able to call themselves 90s kids, but certainly aren't 2000s kids. Three, they broadened the definition of "nu metal" (which, in itself, was a broadening of metal), perhaps a bit too much. What do I mean by that? Well... I honestly have a really hard time calling them any kind of metal, let alone nu metal. They're certainly not anymore, but even then... I mean, you had the attitude, the imagery, harsh + clean vocals, the heavyish guitar, but... I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's the fact that in place of aggression, they whine and blame, maybe it's the lack of emphasis on riff that their contemporaries have. Woah now, think about it! Pretty much all their hooks lie in either Chester's vocals or some electronic trick. Both are things they do well, but the guitar, more specifically the riff, has always been an integral part of the genre that people associate Linkin Park with, and honestly with them it just sounds a little... thin. Where the hell was I?
Right, nu metal, dead. Got it. So how exactly did Linkin Park derail this once-proud musical mutation? Not exactly sure... Shit, maybe it was a death of natural causes and perhaps I'm just blaming LP cuz they're the last and most popular act of a scene they were arguably part of; maybe I'm blaming them because they had the ball and they dropped it, showing everyone that "hey, if Linkin Park can't even (or don't want to) keep this up then why should/could anyone else?" Maybe they paved the way for half the post-nineties aggro acts to undergo the horrible transformation into post-grunge. Well, whatever it was, that tipping point I was talking about earlier? I can't help but feel like they pushed it back the other way.
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