Follow the Leader

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.

Korn emerged at a time I generally listened to the heavier end of music, but never managed to land with me. I had the debut album and promptly gave it away. Listening to this I’m fairly sure my issue is Jonathan Davis’s vocals.
Songs like Children of the Korn feel like they are crying out for someone like Mike Patton to get hold of it.
The least said of the Fred Durst song the better.

Oh... oh dear...

Jonathan Davis is an acquired taste as a vocalist. And I have not acquired it. I had only heard Freak on A Leash going into this which I thought was grudgingly ok(ish). Everything else was new to me.

I like the guitars on most of the tracks. I like the heaviness. And I didn't hate Ice Cube turning up.

As for everything else, I think the low point is Fred Durst turning up (and increasing all the homophobia), but I'm not sure the bagpipes on the next song were much better.

This is essentially an irredeemable album for me. At one point I started daydreaming about Faith No More, and how much I'd rather have been listening to them.

Just no.

1/5

bom eh isso. esses nu metal do fim de 90 achando que tava abalando eh tudo a mesma coisa. uns gemidinho, uns barulho incompreensível do vocalista, os mesmo instrumento, mesmo som, mesma pseudo rebeldia/gritaria.

até tentei não dar 1 pq tem umas que são de boa ATÉ O MANO COMEÇAR A FAZER BARULHOS INCOMPREENSÍVEIS. me irrita demais papo reto, muito ruim

blood for the blood god?

This started off ok.
As a rock and metal lover I really wanted to like it.
But it switly went downhill.

...And then somebody got some fucking bagpipes out.

1001 Albums Vol. 0018: Follow The Leader
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Introduction: Well, we're going directly from one of my favorite albums of all time to one that I can say without a doubt will get the lowest score from me yet. I'll go ahead and say something that a lot of people don't agree with: Nu Metal is not an objectively bad genre. Deftones and System of a Down, if you can even classify SOAD as Nu Metal, proved that to us. That being said, Nu Metal is objectively hard to make anything good out of. The good stuff is very far and few compared to other genres. Korn actually made something that I would consider good...back in 1994. Their debut album is good. I will die on that hill. It was influential, unique at the time, and is still one of the most raw albums ever made to this day. There was still a lot wrong with that album, yet the good still really outweighed the bad. Unfortunately, Korn would never be able to live up to the standard of their first album ever again. That's where this album, Follow The Leader, comes in. By this point, nu metal artists had begun to shift away from the early anger and angst of the genre. Nu Metal had become mainstream and they began to lean more into a style that would keep that attention of a wider audience. Of course, you did have artists such as Slipknot still carrying that early Nu Metal angst around this time but that's besides the point. Nu Metal had become mainstream, and that's where some of the problems with this particular album come in. This album, released in 1998 by Korn, leans much more into a "cool kid" and pop-like style than their previous albums. This is especially true on songs that feature other artists. I know this because I've already listened to a bit of this album. I won't lie, there was a brief period of time where I thought that this album was actually pretty good. That said, I literally hadn't even listened to half of the songs on it. Looking back too, I actually can see why I was generally wrong about that sentiment as well. There is one song on this album that I look back on fondly, I'm sure you know what it is, but most of what I heard I look back on and question why I ever found it good. Now, despite all of this, the album would release to general critical and huge commercial success. It would go on the charts, singles would go on the charts, and critics would talk positively about it as well. This would give me hope, but then I remember everything I've heard from this album so far and most of that goes away. I'll go ahead and say it, the score on this site for this particular album is valid. It's not too low nor too high. Rare case where I actually agree with the people of this site. Anyway, with all of that said, let's just get this hour-long album out of the way.
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Track 1: It's On! Score: 8/10
Track 2: Freak On a Leash Score: 9/10
Track 3: Got the Life Score: 9/10
Track 4: Dead Bodies Everywhere Score: 7/10
Track 5: Children of the Korn Score: 4/10
Track 6: B.B.K. Score: 6/10
Track 7: Pretty Score: 5/10
Track 8: All In the Family Score: 2/10
Track 9: Reclaim My Place Score: 5/10
Track 10: Justin Score: 6/10
Track 11: Seed Score: 6/10
Track 12: Cameltosis Score: 4/10
Track 13: My Gift to You Score: 6/10
Track 14: Earache My Eye Score: 2/10
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Conclusion: This...this was a really rough one. I mean, it was really, REALLY rough. It actually started out pretty damn good but then just completely fell off after that. Completely. It's not the worst thing of all time by a longshot, but it's one of those scenarios where the bad outweighs the good. I'm sure everyone on here is aware of why, but I'll go into it anyway because that's what I do. To start, the music on this album is actually...pretty decent throughout most of the album. There are a few songs where the music is exceptional as well. While some might consider it lazy, the groovy guitars, the almost middle-eastern feel at times, the wavy sounds which I have no idea what the hell is making, and so on form some pretty decent and somewhat interesting sounds. For the most part, it's not great, but it's still interesting and unique. Admittedly, the music does get extremely repetitive and predictable in a lot of the songs, especially in the second half, but it's still generally decent throughout. The same level of quality cannot be said about pretty much everything else about this album. Every single gripe that people generally have about Nu Metal is present on this album. The whole Rap Rock vibe wasn't as present as I remember it being in this album. It's definitely there, but not to the extent that you would find with other Nu Metal artists at the time. Korn's iconic angst and anger are also present on this album...while some may consider this a good thing, I do not. Yes, it helps the album feel more unique, but it also feels as if Korn is trying to blend something that gives off "cool kid" or "rebellious teenager" vibes with some of the very dark and serious topics of their older works. It didn't work out as well as they thought it would. It could have been a lot worse, but this kind of blend was pretty much doomed from the start so that's not saying much. This kind of adaptation to the genre while still keeping what makes you original does deserve a bit of credit though. It's good that Korn kept their image and lyrics the way that they always had instead of changing their theme completely for the sake of money. Good on them for that. Despite that, the lyrics on this album are only good at best. I will say that Korn does Nu Metal lyrics a lot better than other artists in the same genre, however The first few songs are actually pretty good, but it kinda falls off after that.This is especially present with the...collab songs. To give another compliment to Korn, these songs that involved other artists were easily the worst on the album besides the hidden song that didn't need to be on there. Nevertheless, they still suck...terribly. All In the Family literally has to be up there for one of the worst songs of all time. The other two are just so odd and so experimental in all the wrong ways...and they have horrible lyrics too. Yeah, the collab songs shouldn't have been on this album. As for the songs Korn solely wrote, their lyrics are better, a lot better...but that's not saying much in the first place. The lyrics are decently written and are vaguely up to interpretation. They have a core theme about inner pain, loneliness, hate, and so on. They're good. Not great. This isn't helped at all by the forced anger present in Davis's voice throughout most of the album. Notice how the highest rated songs had genuine singing without any of the added bluff of anger to it. Yeah, the anger is very clearly forced and that's not a good thing at all. Maybe your band might become a bit more personable to some fans, but you sound completely fake to others. A lot of songs could have gotten a higher rating from me had this not been a theme consistent throughout the entire album. With that said, there are a few more things I want to mention. Freak On a Leash and Got the Life are great. It's a shame that the entire album couldn't have lived up to the quality these two songs presented. Pretty is a song that I almost find to be...almost disrespectful in a sense. It's not that I find myself disgusted by it, it's just that...you should always handle such sensitive and graphic topics with extreme care and respect. Making a song about such a dark, depressing, and horrible event just feels...odd. It's not even Davis that it happened to either like in Daddy. That's different. The horrible thing happened directly to him. He was affected by it. He should have the right to create a song about it if he wants to. Pretty just feels a bit disrespectful since it was about someone else completely. Alright, that's all I have to say about Pretty. Finally, Justin is a pretty sweet song. It's the meaning it was even written in the first place that I gave it a six instead of a five. It's nice. Anyway, with all that said, this album is...actually kinda bad. Like I said, it had its shining moments, but that was literally a moment in terms of the album's length. It's not good. It's not something that I like. It's unfortunate, I like to always see the positives in music but the negatives are so glaringly obvious here that I can't help but criticize more than praise. With all that said, this is definitely the worst album I've generated so far...worst by quite a bit actually. Sorry to say it, but the junk seems to finally be revealing itself.
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Follow The Leader Score: 5/10
Song Average: 5.6/10

This isn't something I was into when it came out and I was like 14 (prime target audience for this record I would imagine) but I'm interested to listen to it today to see how it has held up. I would assume it hasn't really (spoiler, not well). I kind of feel like the whole Nu Metal genre garnered its fans in a very short timespan and doesn't really appeal to anyone who wasn't there at the time.
First song my immediate thought was 'jesus were Jonathan Davis's vocals always such shit?' I totally get why the appeal to angsty teen boys was so strong. Thank god I'm not an angsty teen boy anymore. Although I do have to admit that I quite enjoy Freak On a Leash.
So the music isn't too bad. I actually enjoyed some of the guitar parts, though the tone is super brittle and oversaturated. Some great drums in there too, although they largely suffer from terrible sound as well. It seems like a lot of the Nu Metal bands from this time were in the studio asking themselves 'How do we make this record sound as shitty as possible?' and this album is certainly one of those. The vocals and the lyrics are just terrible. Some super juvenile and ridiculous lyrics and blatant homophobia are kind of hard to get past. I mean I suppose this album belongs on the list because it is a good example of this genre. And why the genre was short-lived. 2/5

Another 90s metal band I could not get into as a teenager but I enjoyed most of this album (didn’t care for the Ice Cube collab). Solid album!

Можливо не настільки гарний реліз як їхній дебютник, але все одно один з найкращих альбомів у дискографії корн. Добре пам'ятаю як купив його на касеті, коли був десь у 8-му класі, мабуть, і мені ця музика здавалась дуже важкою, особливо пісні типу Reclaim My Place.

Також відмічу My Gift To You, атмосферна та емоційна пісня.

Words cannot truly describe my emotions listening to this album. My gosh. First, let's address the elephant in the room, Fred Durst. Now that he's addressed, let's get onto the album. Awful. Just awful. I thought I liked nu metal. I thought I liked Freak on a Leash. I have never listened to it with a critical eye and honestly it's just not very good. Then, flop after flop and this album is just boring at best and the worst sounds you've ever let grace your ears at worst. The best part of this album is Slimkid3 and Ice Cube. I don't even like hip hop that much. Who let this album reach the public? That has to be against some federal law. The guitarist is really good though.

Well... I've never liked nu-metal.
Korn... Maybe it's the worst band in this genre

I genuinely like this. I liked it when it came out, and I like it now.
In a sea of extremely forgettable nu-metal bands, Korn managed to be interesting enough to stand out, and have a unique sound that still hasn't been duplicated (not sure anyone has tried to be fair).

2 Aged horribly

More palatable than Slipknot. But still just sounds so futile.

Korn deed mij rond de eeuwwisseling weinig. Ondanks de stevigheid voelt het altijd wat leeg. Toch kan ik de muziek van Korn niet over één kam scheren. Ondanks de terugkerende grauwen, is er best veel variatie. Vooraf zitten twee nummers gelijk in mijn hoofd en die staan beide op dit album. Freak on a Leash is een nummer met een handtekening, dat vrij toegankelijk is. Ondanks en grom en een (lekker) lage lange bassdrum is het best een rustig en prima opgebouwd nummer. Het tweede nummer dat vooraf in mijn hoofd zit, is één van mijn grote ergernissen. Children of the Korn is wat betreft de muziekstijl best mijn smaak. Een combi tussen rauwe rock en rap. Maar de uitvoering is zo belabberd, dat het eigenlijk een schande voor het genre is.

Ook na het opnieuw luisteren blijven deze twee nummers dominant in mijn hoofd. De meeste nummers doen mij weinig. Korn heeft vrij veel geluid, maar toch mist er vaak iets. Dat blijkt ook wel ruim 10 jaar later als de band The Path of Totality uitbrengt. Het bekende Korn-geluid wordt aangevuld met dubstep en ineens voelt het niet meer zo leeg. Dat had ik nodig.

2,5 ster

Better than Coldplay

I loved Korn in the 90s, and I still think that overall this is a very good album - it's just not the rock solid 5-star I thought it would be when I saw it pop up. I still think the bangers are bangers, but I never thought this was one of Korn's best albums, and I think that there are plenty of songs that sound dated, and the one with Fred Durst deserves a docked star all on its own.

Overall, I think it deserves 4 stars. It's a good album that maybe didn't stand the test of time, but was an important and critical piece of art from a time where this style of music was dominant in the zeitgeist.

This album sounds like a 14-year-old boy's bedroom smells.