{"id":371,"date":"2016-02-01T04:21:06","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T04:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/?p=371"},"modified":"2016-02-01T07:25:19","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T07:25:19","slug":"korns-greatest-hits-album-liner-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/?p=371","title":{"rendered":"Korn’s Greatest Hits album liner notes"},"content":{"rendered":"
Liner Notes for\u00a0<\/span>Korn\u2019s Greatest Hits<\/em>\u00a0(Epic\/Immortal)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/header>\n
\n

\u201cEverything\u2019s been done. Nothing is new.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what a well-known MTV veejay said about rock and roll back in 1992. And who could blame her? Hair metal was over, the indie scene was stale, and punk was 15 years old\u2013nearly as nostalgia-oriented as the goofy rockabilly and surf bands cropping up everywhere. Nothing was new all right. And as the music industry turned its hungry gaze toward hip hop, more than a few music magazines predicted the death of rock.<\/p>\n

But somewhere out in the central California desert, rock was getting grisly new life. Its reanimators were five kids from Bakersfield who\u2019d come of age \u201cstanding around in dirt fields, drinking beer and watching people fight,\u201d and their sound was as big and foreboding as nearby Death Valley: the heaviest guitar sludge ever recorded coupled with a singer who used the stage as a personal shock-treatment lab to explore the darkest regions of his psyche. It was powerful enough to be the new voice for millions of fed-up and pissed-off youth the world over\u2013a possibility that struck fear in the hearts of high school administrators and \u201cconcerned citizens\u201d everywhere.<\/p>\n

Now, ten years, six albums, and more than twenty million records deep into a career that spawned an epidemic of imitators, Korn\u00a0remains untouchably atop the brutal genre they almost single-handedly spawned. Only a handful of bands ever change the face the rock; fewer still find ways to keep it fresh without selling out their original vision. And that\u2019s the secret to Korn\u2019s long-running success in a music world where 15 minutes of fame is 10 minutes more than most artists ever get\u2013or deserve.<\/p>\n

But it hasn\u2019t exactly been a cakewalk\u2026.<\/p>\n

In the beginning, Korn\u00a0scared the living hell out of radio, MTV, and the music business in general. Anything too original makes record executives nervous, and they\u2019d heard nothing like Korn\u00a0:\u00a0James \u201cMunky\u201d Shaffer<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0Brian \u201cHead\u201d Welch<\/b>\u2019s 7-string guitars were tuned lower than a standard bass for an alarmingly sinister growl that made so-called \u201cheavy metal\u201d bands sound downright quaint in comparison. Instead of the usual rock guitar clich\u00e9s like soloing and power chords, Munky and Head filled instrumental passages with creepy playground sounds, sirens, squeaks \u2013 anything to create the bleak, bombed-out urban environment necessary for\u00a0Fieldy<\/b>\u2019s booming, hip-hop-schooled bass riffs. Drummer\u00a0David Silveria<\/b>\u00a0anchored everything with a heady blend of power and precision.<\/p>\n

This was the perfectly eerie musical backdrop for\u00a0Jonathan Davis<\/b>, a former coroner\u2019s assistant who was unlike any singer in rock. Whatever he did\u2013sing, scream, whisper, or wail\u2013was done without a trace of macho metal posing or \u201cI\u2019m-so-detached\u201d alt-rock elitism. Davis raged about the bleak world he knew (schoolyard dicks, local meth freaks, his own abusive home life), and he was too deep in to care about looking cool.<\/p>\n

Horrified record execs looked the other way, and Korn\u00a0languished for years without a deal, earning their famously loyal fanbase with nothing but nerve and an overpowering live show. Eventually someone at Epic\/Immortal had the guts to give them a shot, and the result was Korn<\/em>, a 66-minute blast of grooving hostility that torched hard rock\u2019s rulebook and took the \u201cmetal\u201d right out of heavy. When Davis screamed \u201cAre you ready?\u201d in the opening moments of \u201cBlind,\u201d he probably knew that radio and music television\u00a0weren\u2019t<\/i>. But the kids sure were, and by the time Korn released its follow-up, 1996\u2019s\u00a0Life is Peachy<\/em>,<\/i>\u00a0enough fans had amassed to debut it at No. 3 on\u00a0Billboard\u2019s Top 200. This album was even more caustic than the debut, and rants like \u201c@#%!\u201d cemented Davis\u2019 rep as one of rock\u2019s foulest mouths, to the point where a Michigan high school kid was suspended for wearing a shirt that merely said \u201cKorn.\u201d Korn hammered the school with a legal order and got the kid reinstated, an early example of their very personal relationship with fans, but by no means the last.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Korn-sounding bands were popping up like zits. Suddenly 7-string guitars, which had been almost extinct in the pre-Kornmusic world, had become standard in heavy rock. Flattering, sure, but dangerous: Korn didn\u2019t want to be part of some flash-in-the-pan trend, even if it was a trend they invented. So they headed back to the studio with a plan. And while things got just a tad decadent in the studio\u2013captured as it happened for fans via live weekly Internet broadcasts called \u201cKorn’s After School Specials\u201d\u2013Korn stayed focused on the goal at hand: to put as much distance between themselves and the wannabes as possible.<\/p>\n

The result was 1998\u2019s well-titled, massively successful\u00a0Follow the Leader. Debuting at No. 1 on\u00a0Billboard, the record\u00a0forced<\/i>\u00a0radio to pay attention with the breakaway singles \u201cGot the Life\u201d and \u201cFreak on a Leash,\u201d the latter of which earned a Grammy for Best Short Form Video.\u00a0Rolling Stone\u00a0<\/i>would christen it one of the \u201cessential alternative albums of the \u201890s,\u201d and fans seemed to agree\u2013Follow the Leader\u00a0went quintuple platinum.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, Korn had the clout to start transforming the music in other ways: they put together a hugely successful traveling rock festival with the snidely titled Family Values Tour, which produced a gold-certified comp CD of its own. Then they launched a label (Elementree), going platinum with their first signee\u2019s debut (Orgy\u2019s\u00a0Candyass<\/em>).\u00a0<\/i>Bigtime or not,\u00a0<\/i>Korn knew exactly who to thank for the newfound glory, and decided it was time to give the fans a little payback.<\/p>\n

First they chartered a jet, political-campaign style, and held fan conferences all over the country (the Korn Campaign). Then they made time to hang out with a with a terminally ill fan through the Make-A-Wish Foundation\u2013and ended up so down with the kid that they named a song for him (the haunting \u201cJustin\u201d). After that was arguably their biggest fan-appreciation act yet: they put word out that they wanted Korn fans to create the cover for their next record. But more than 25,000 submissions later, Korn was left with the daunting task of choosing one. So they didn\u2019t; when\u00a0Issues\u00a0was released in 1999, it came out in four different, equally excellent fan-created covers. (The rest of the submissions went up on the studio wall, and can be seen in the album\u2019s liner notes.)<\/p>\n

Musically,\u00a0Issues\u00a0set Korn in a new direction, incorporating lush vocal melodies and an \u201castonishingly broad range of energy levels and textures,\u201d as writer J.D. Considine put it. It debuted at No 1, with a high-charting single in the soaring \u201cFalling Away from Me,\u201d and the band landed an unprecedented, gloriously tasteless guest appearance on Comedy Central\u2019s\u00a0South<\/i>\u00a0Park<\/i>. When Korn premiered the album at Harlem\u2019s historic Apollo Theater\u2013the first rock band to ever play there \u2013 even\u00a0Newsweek\u2019s\u00a0<\/i>eyebrows raised.\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0\u201cFor one blistering, bizarre hour at the Apollo,\u201d they wrote, \u201crock and roll ruled the roost.\u201d Korn’s fan-base embraced the musical change (a trait that would become characteristic of them), sending\u00a0Issues\u00a0to triple platinum status. When it was time for the tour, Korn made a move every rock fan dreams of: they let the fans pick the entire set list via Internet vote.<\/p>\n

Always ambitious, Korn took the new sound even further with their next opus, 2002\u2019s platinum\u00a0Untouchables. Adding strings, synths, and assorted electronics to the typically fierce Korn caterwaul made for a \u201cpurgatorial symphony,\u201d according to\u00a0USA\u00a0Today.<\/em> Mainstream press like\u00a0People Magazine<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0were now on board, and the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0wrote, \u201cNow that it has accepted melody as central, Korn reveals new skills and ideas in every song.\u201d Korn got filmmakers the Hughes Brothers to direct the video for \u201cHere to Stay,\u201d which upheld the band\u2019s tradition of illuminating how kids in America have inherited a punishing array of societal ills. The song garnered Korn yet another Grammy (Best Metal Performance); the album debuted at No. 2; and true to form, Korn discounted tickets $10 for all fans under 20 throughout the tour.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Fieldy found time to write and produce a solo album, while Davis co-scored the film\u00a0Queen of the Damned<\/i>. By the time Korn hit the studio in 2003, it was with a renewed passion for their early sound.\u00a0 The platinum\u00a0Take A Look In the Mirror<\/em> was lean, crushingly heavy, and uncompromisingly vitriolic. The album was rush released to stores\u2013four days ahead of its planned release\u2013when it was discovered that an inferior copy of the music had been leaked to the Internet by an unknown source.\u00a0 (An unmixed version Korn\u2019s Untouchables<\/em> album also mysteriously made its way onto the Internet, months before it arrived in stores).<\/p>\n

But the brunt of Korn\u2019s anger this time out had nothing to do with illegal downloading\u2013quite the opposite. While \u201cDid My Time\u201d and \u201cRight Now\u201d charted as singles, it was a brilliantly conceived \u201canti-hit\u201d called \u201cYa\u2019ll Want A Single?\u201d that made the record\u2019s biggest impact. Slamming the music industry for its cookie-cutter pop mentality, the song\u2019s video flashed disturbing music industry statistics while Korn completely obliterated a record store in response. The anti-corporate message hit a chord with music fans everywhere\u2013including the FCC-plagued Howard Stern.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably the most inspirational, the most spectacular understanding of what\u2019s going on in this country right now,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe that young people\u2026 are freaking out right now because of what is going on with the religious right. They are angry.\u00a0 They are angry about the corporations running the music business. They are angry with the radio business\u2026 What Jonathan Davis is able to do is tap into the mood of young people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who else but Korn could score a hit by purposefully raising their middle finger to the entire corporate hit-making machine? That kind of uncompromising attitude is fundamental to good rock, and it\u2019s as rare in today\u2019s prefab music world as it was back when Korn began. It\u2019s one of the reasons that\u2013after ten remarkable years and the kind of success that would smother the fire of most like-minded bands\u2013Korn matters just as much today.<\/p>\n

Who knows what uncharted territories Korn will traverse in their second decade as a band. But one thing\u2019s certain: this group does not rest on its laurels. Expect big things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liner Notes for\u00a0Korn\u2019s Greatest Hits\u00a0(Epic\/Immortal) \u201cEverything\u2019s been done. Nothing is new.\u201d That\u2019s what a well-known MTV veejay said about rock and roll back in 1992. And who could blame her? Hair metal was over, the indie scene was stale, and punk was 15 years old\u2013nearly as nostalgia-oriented as the goofy rockabilly and surf bands cropping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}