Getting a "Head" in Life

You didn't think I'd stray away from puns for that long, did you?

Despite recent announcements, I'm so far keeping with the 90s theme.  That being said, can anyone guess what oh what I am referencing with the title of this here post?  Anybody anybody?

...

[looks at watch]

*Siiggghhhh...*

Bingo!  It's Brian "Head" Welch!  No, I know you didn't actually answer that.  I just like putting words in your mouth.

So Mr. Welch was, once upon a time, one of Korn's guitarists.  Then he quit some years ago because drugs and depression and Korn and stuff.

You know... as much as I like them, I probably wouldn't wanna be in Korn either.

Then he came back...
as a drug-free
yay!
born-again Christian.
Uh oh.

As a Christian myself, I'm not saying that was the problem.  I think I'm a pretty spiritual guy; believe in a higher power of some sort, I think there's more to life and our world and what happens after this than a bunch of chance chemical reactions.  Shit, I'm an ordained minister!

Cuz that... totally means things these days.

But when the whole "Christian" thing is preceded by something like "Born-Again"... prepare for crazy.

Or at least stupid.

Actually, ol' Head's little case of the Jesus bug was more of the latter.  He released his first solo album, titled "Save Me from Myself".

Take it from the top.  Thought the title was pretty hokey off the bat.  Also thought the religious iconography on the cover was a little heavy, but once I looked up what Head looked like and realized it was him (in some form) on the cover...

...and that he indeed looks like a nu metal Jesus...

...I was pretty okay with it.

Then I listened to it.

I'm not gonna tear this album to pieces; listening to it, you can tell Head put a lot of himself in this record.  It's far from the worst album I've heard, not even, oh, bottom fifty.  Probably more, actually.  I've heard an asston of albums.  But in terms of letdown, it was pretty far down there.  Primarily comprised of boring power-chord progressions, none of the unique riffing that we know Head can do so well; some gothic-sounding keys that were pretty sweet at first, but got repetitive after the third song; songs all dragged, all pretty much the same (mid)tempo, same tone.  And the lyrics.  Yee.  Again, I don't wanna be mean, because Head's one of my favorite guitarists.  But if you're going to write a song about, say, your big ol' opinion on abortion... please wrap it in some subtlety, folks.

So that happened.

Then I heard his solo act was re-christened (or christened?  I don't know if calling your solo act "[Insert your name here]" really counts as a christening) as "Love and Death" and he/they/whatever came out with a new album.  Naturally, I was afraid.

Then I listened.

This album, in a sound: HHHHNNNGGGGGGUNHFFFFFFFFhnn.  No, that's not what the album sounds like.  That's more the noise that me and my loins made.  Everything that wasn't there the first time around, everything we expected from the Headster before, was delivered in full on his "re-christened" effort.  People are still calling it a "Christian" thing, saying it has "Christian" themes and bla bla bla, and know what?  I don't give a flying fuck.  The lyrics might even be about pro-choicers being allied with Satan (not my belief and not representative of the Christian faith as a whole), but I couldn't tell and the music's great, so I don't care.  Truth be told though, if I found out that was the thesis of the new record, that'd sour it a teeny bit for me.

A favorite o'mine, complete with Princesque title:

Not a perfect record, but god-diddily-damn does it have me excited for the future of Head.  'Scuse me: Love and Death.

By the way, I'm not knocking the Universal Life Church at all; I think what it is, what it stands for, and what it tries to do are wonderful things, teaching us that religion should be without rigors, free of strata and classification, and have only one rule: Don't Be A Dick.  And to you fucking hipsters becoming ordained just to make some douchey in-your-face commentary on the "commercialization of religion" or something else I really don't care about: Stop it.

Stop it nao.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Korn

Tabs currently open: a random King Diamond-related Wikipedia article, Grooveshark, petition for a third Alice game (SIGN IT BITCHES: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/372/809/248/make-american-mcgees-alice-in-otherland-a-reality/?cid=FB_TAF_CIT), OKCupid, this, porn, and a writing blog that isn't mine.  I've been alternately checking the slowly-increasing amount of signatures, pecking away at a reply message to a sweet young lady from my dad's hometown, trying to figure out what the FUCK this post is gonna be about, yearning for my pre-bed fap, and reading that other thing.

For you prudes weirded out by the fact that I've touched my wiener a couple times during the writing of this post, I posit to ye: calm thy tits, it's the 21st century.

KIDDING.  No sperms were harmed during the making of this post.

But at last I decided to stop being a bum and pull up my list o' ideas.  Lo, at the top of the list, was the title above.  Simply cuz I'm proud of that title, even if I may not be able to provide a real ending (again), I feel I owe it to myself to turn it into a real thing.

Suggested by the above title, I used to freaking hate Korn.

I can't imagine why.

A lot of it I'm guessing had to do with Jonathan Davis' voice.  I realized a few years ago, some years after first being exposed to them, that I liked everything else besides the general tones of his caterwauling.  The rhythm section, the riffing, the imagery, their use of electronics and studio tricks, how unique their sound was/is/whatever, the fact that Todd McFarlane animated multiple music videos for them, even most of their lyrics.  You know, when they weren't cobbling together various nursery rhymes and calling them songs.  Seriously Jonathan, what the fuck?

It was just the dude's voice that sometimes ground my gears.  To me, it sounded like someone doing a bad Marilyn Manson impression.  Over the years, I've come to terms with this, realizing I've gotten over even less accessible vocal stylings in the past, so why should I let something like that hamper me from listening to something I otherwise truly enjoy?  Sorry, what's that?  Because music typically has lots of vocals and they can make or break a band?

Hm.  Point taken.

In any case, I eventually came to "get" Davis' unorthodox take on the human voice.  It just wouldn't be Korn without the closet monster trying his absolute hardest to sing your angsty self to sleep.

More dreads, less adorable.

All the bonus points in the world if you know what this is from.

What's that?  Time for another Self-Deprecating Disclaimer?!!?!  Yeah, yeah it is.  *Sigh*

So I realized, coming to the "end" of this thang, that there's no real story here.  No one thing that Kornlightened me, no epiphakorn...  Oh dear god, I should've just stopped at "Kornlightened".  Point being, the entire "arc" was this:

1) Disliked Korn.

2) Got over myself.

3) Liked Korn.

Holy rig-ma-roley, there's not even a point to this.  Have a creepy drawing.

Weird that I think this is awesome?

richardakirk.com

Did Linkin Park Kill Nu-Metal?

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.