10 Rock Music Debuts That Changed The Game

The sounds of nu metal around the end of the '90s was starting to get more than a little bit cartoony after a while. For every band like Korn that felt like they were tapping into some pure pain in their lyrics, there were also bands that felt like they were mugging for the camera to get on MTV, whether it was the school bully persona coming from Fred Durst or whatever the hell Kid Rock was trying to do back then. And just when it felt like things couldn't get more cartoony, here came a band from Iowa with masks on their faces...who somehow made one of the best first impressions ever.

Compared to the raw pain that you would get on other nu metal records, every track on Slipknot's debut is what happens when pure rage and anger is condensed into song form. While there are definitely traces of nu metal in Corey Taylor's attempts at rapping and Sid Wilson's DJ scratches, these guys seemed to pull from any heavy genre they could think of, like the industrial sounds of Ministry or Slayer's brand of thrash.

There are even a few moments that are more than a little bit scary to listen to at times, like Corey sounding like a man trapped in a mental asylum on the tail end of Scissors or the death metal growls that gave us a teaser of the fury that was to come on Iowa. People have been looking for the next Slipknot for years, but it takes something more than just loud guitars to touch something this brutal.