10 Terrible Rock Songs That Killed Classic Albums
7. Back to School - Deftones
Every move that Deftones made in the ‘90s seemed to be inching closer to something like White Pony. As much as the band may have wanted to wear their metal influences on their sleeve, this is where they changed into something a lot more atmospheric, embracing the sounds of shoegaze to create a different kaleidoscope of sound than what the nu metal crowd had ever seen. That doesn’t always translate to sales though, and the label wanted something a little more marketable.
Even though the record was done, Chino Moreno was furious that the label thought the album wouldn’t sell, knowing that they wanted something that could compete with bands like Limp Bizkit. As a joke, Chino wrote Back to School to show the label how simple it was to write one of those angsty pop metal songs, only for the label to completely misunderstand the joke and put all of their backing into this one song.
With a music video that seemed like a metalized version of Smells Like Teen Spirit, even Chino admitted that he wasn’t the biggest fan of this song, saying that it was part of a compromised disaster and being disappointed that it was included on every other copy of White Pony. The band may have already made a full album statement, but this is the one step too far that they never wanted to take.