20 Greatest Rock And Metal Debut Albums Of All Time

12. Korn - Korn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOVFHCXDdic Track List: 1. Blind 2. Ball Tongue 3. Need To 4. Clown 5. Divine 6. Faget 7. Shoots and Ladders 8. Predictable 9. Fake 10. Lies 11. Helmet in the Bush 12. Daddy When singer Jonathan Davis screams "Are you ready?" on classic opening track "Blind", the question couldn't have been more apt. No one was ready when this beast landed in 1994. Korn were different, a metal band which didn't follow the Metal rules. There were no guitar solo's and singer, Jonathan Davis, mumbled, wailed, howled and growled like a man in agonising pain. The bass was hip-hop-inspired employing a funk-slap style rarely incorporated in music this heavy. The riffs were massive and unorthodox, achieved by popularising the use of drop-tunings and 7 string guitars accompanied by dissonant sounds which were wrung from their guitars, often resembling a sound not unlike a parrot being strangled (we imagine). They even used bagpipes in the mix! So in answer to Jonathan Davis's question; no. No one was ready for this debut but it was cathartic and immediately touched the hearts of the disenfranchised and the bullied. Life's outcasts now had a voice and it was loud and defiant - the freaks were off the leash. Primarily, this was a band who sounded real, refreshingly raw, heartfelt and most importantly had an identity all of their own. It is no surprise that they went on to become one of the biggest bands of the 90's, selling in excess of 35 million records in the process. Nu-Metal and the influx of inferior identikit bands may have followed but don't blame Korn or their classic debut, they didn't know they had created a monster!