Listmania: A KoRn Reaction Piece!

So… Spin Magazine decided to publish an article entitled “The 10 Best KoRn Songs”… which you can find here. Our initial reaction was… “Meh. Who cares?” Followed by “Sure this as been done before somewhere?” and then “Wtf?!” as we noticed “Alone I Break”, “Daddy” and “All In The Family” are on their list. They are important tunes for various reasons but for our money, hardly deserving of being on “The Best” list. “Blind” is fortunately on that Spin Magazine list which it has to be, it’s arguably the song that made the band and is their most influential piece of work.

There is no doubt that the Bakersfield California Nu-Metallers are important in Metal history and that their first three or perhaps four albums will go down as influencing a generation of Metal bands but… Have they really done that much of note since? Sure they’ve had some fine individual tracks since then and some perfectly listenable albums but aren’t you always going to chose “Freak on a Leash” over “Right Now”? Thinking about it KoRn have had some music videos that have actually made the songs.

“Thoughtless” with its anti-bulling Prom Night revenue themed video complete with Exorcist moment is a masterpiece as far as videos go and inspired Evanescene to cover it with a fine take on the track. On the subject of bullying, “Faget” has to go down as one of the finest examples of a track that deals with bullying and Mental Health as well as the stigma associated with being anything other than someone who fits in. It’s arguably one of the finest cuts on their debut album.

If you did want to talk about something that wasn’t on those first four albums then the anti-music industry “Y’All Want A Single” is worthy of note. It’s a tune that again features an interesting video as the band smash up a record store.

The bands Ross Robinson produced second album “Life Is Peachy” is probably the bands most underrated album and with important cuts like “Twist” and the song that got us into KoRn in the first instance all those years ago “God God”, it achieves a sense of fun that is sorely lacking in the bands newer releases. Time to get off that soapbox?