Follow the Leader

Nobody needs to hear this before they die. An unnecessary moment in musical history.

this is bad
homophobic edgelord rap battle fred durst bad

Korn are definitely interesting, what they are doing is incredibly weird, nice clashes of discordant sounds, great drumming, satisfying crunchy guitars but the vocalist sounds like a deep gargling toilet flush. The random outbursts of scat singing sound comedic, but are performed with such intensity that I’m not sure that there’s any tongue in cheek element. When he is being more conventional it’s ridiculously intense “dead bodies everywhere!” He’s going for a posturing ‘deep’ aesthetic which I find hard to take seriously. It’s a shame that the vocals are so ever present because instrumentally I love this thing!

Whatever. I can feel myself forgetting this album while I listen to it.

Could not even finish it

Damn im honestly surprised by how low of a ratingbthis community is giving this album. I expect any metal newer than the 70s to be pretty polarizimg but damn.

This album is iconic for the 90s. I dont think its Korn's hest offering but it has some of their biggest hits and the tour that supported it is a known legend. Freak on a leash's music video is probably their most streamed and its a banger of a hit. Not every song is good and some is even pretty rough. But still, classic fucking album

I do actually like the first three tracks. The rest I could take or leave, and All in the Family has got to be in the running for worst song of all time

I honestly don’t get all the 1/5 ratings this album gets. 𝘍𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 is obviously very rooted in late-90s nu metal, but compared to a lot of albums from that scene, this one at least has some personality. The mix of heavy riffs, strange textures, and hip-hop influences gives it a more distinctive sound than I expected.

It still isn’t fully my thing, though. The album drags in places, and I’m generally not that into the whole nu metal style. But even then, I can at least hear why this became such a big record. It feels more ambitious and musically interesting than a lot of its imitators.

Why can't you just make nice music that sounds good and an album that is an appropriate length? For goodness sakes. I can't relate to this on any level, what emotions am I supposed to get from this screaming? Fuck knows. Fred Durst came on to shout some slurs, that was a nice intermission. Any gays that listen to this.... electric chair.

I assume Korn actually set out to be annoying, because there's no other explanation for the array of silly voices on this album. So congrats, lads - mission accomplished.

I liked Freak on a Leash on highschool, but other than that this is mostly forgettable nu metal. The tracks with Fred Durst and Ice Cube were especially bad. 2/5

I guess this deserves a spot because there was a time when nu metal was huge. And to know your popular music history you should probably at least know what it sounds like. That being said, I lived through nu metal’s popularity and I wasn’t thrilled to have to relive it. This genre just does not appeal to me. I can dig some of the heaviness, it’s not awful for metal instrumentals, and the bass guitar on some songs was cool. Just as a whole I don’t like it.

On some level, if the 1001 Albums books were going to touch upon nu metal, then Korn, as one of the biggest bands to come out of that genre, was bound to be mentioned. I can see the logic in them picking the album that launched the group into mainstream success, off singles like "Freak on a Leash" and "Got the Life". In fact, there are more enjoyable songs than just those two. The opening run from "It's On!" to "Dead Bodies Everywhere" was some of the most energetic, hard-hitting grooves I heard in a while, buoyed by Fieldy's thick bass slaps, Munky and Brian "Head" Welch's crunchy guitar riffs, David Silveria's pulse-pounding drums, and Jonathan Davis's harsh tenor with such truly guttural scat-singing. That momentum also carries into later cuts like "B.B.K." and "Reclaim My Place", and even with Jon breaking out the bagpipes for "My Gift For You". There are even some heartfelt moments to be found, like the tribute to a fallen fan on "Justin" or the unfeathered beauty Jon saw in his newborn son on "Seed", even if I'm not as into the pitch-shifted vocals during the scat breakdown of that track. There are points where Follow the Leader was on the cusp of being a solid record.

But man, we have to talk about the guest features. It is amazing how the only guest collab that I genuinely enjoyed was Cheech Marin sharing the mic with the band for a goofy nu metal rendition of Cheech & Chong's "Earache My Eye", and that was a hidden track. The actual marketed collaborations don't come close to being as fun or listenable as that. "Cameltosis" with Slimkid3 aka Tre of The Pharcyde was underwhelming in highlighting Jon's struggles to find love after being scarred by a previous relationship. "Children of the Korn” with Ice Cube ended up as an ill-conceived rally anthem for Gen X that couldn't bother to blend the rap and metal sides seamlessly. But probably the worst of all is "All in the Family", where Jon has a staged tongue-in-cheek rap battle with Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit that proved awkward for its time and has horribly aged. In fact, the songs with Ice Cube and Fred Durst are littered with Jonathan calling gay slurs in jest. Considering the man was bullied in high school and called such derogatory names, as brought up in earlier records, for him to use those same words like that is just the wrong lesson to take from that experience.

Follow the Leader is truly an album of peaks and valleys. I get that this album and its singles put Korn on the map, but not all of it has aged well or feels truly representative of what this band is capable of.

Production is great, I enjoy Freak on a Leash, but man it hasn't aged well at all.

I’ve probably seen Korn live more than any other band despite never listening to an album. In high school all my scumbag friends loved Korn and I’ll never say no to live music. That being said I thought this album was bad. Freak on a Leash is undeniably badass, but All in the Family is where I had to tune out and just let the album exist in the background. Holy fuck what a bad song. I should’ve stopped at Children of the Korn because that was terrible too.

There's a weird thing with numetal where the vocals don't have much variety. There's the standard shouty vocal and there's the higher pitched melodic vocal. Sometimes there's a whispered bit and sometimes there's a grunty bit.

The funniest bit is where they sling Vanilla Ice as an insult with zero self awareness.

"It's been eight hundred and seventy days, father, Will there be some TOOL soon? A little Blue Album to stave off the chills? Father, please tell me there's a modicum of Neutral Milk coming down the pike to quell my hunger"

Robert Dimery (for it is he): "Dah-Nah-Nah, Dah-Nah-Nah, Dah-Dah-Daa"

Pretty solid album

I'm sorry this is so cheesy 😂. Just give me the instrumentals. Bro just couldn't hold it in 😭 (2.5-3).

This isn't as bad as I thought it could be, mainly b/c it's well produced & David Silveria (drums) has got authentic funk in his bones, but this's mostly capital K Korny: it doesn't even have the balls to be kampy. Failing to be a bastion of admirable or necessary sincerity, Korn suffers from the same thing that bankrupts Trent Reznor's creative production: it's not remotely an interesting statement lyrically. 'Life sometimes pisses me off / It's never a good trip to me / Every time I reach for love / It's taken away.' Duh & so fucking what. The Cube feature is especially korny, & Durst's moment in the sun is pathologically awful: 'You pumpkin pie, I'll jack off in your eye.' In short, it gets worse & worse, & no amount of raging funk can salvage it.