I hear the term 'nu metal' to describe certain music, yet I still can't get a straight response as to what it exactly is. Can someone actually tell me what defines 'nu metal'? The only answers I can ever get out of anyone on the net is usually some biased answer like "whiny jock bands" or "boy bands in disguise of guitars" or whatever, but whenever I research the bands they describe, most of the time those descriptions almost certainly aren't true at all (often quite the opposite in fact), and I personally think a lot of the bands that get described as them are quite good and the people who write those comments don't know shit about them. So can someone actually give me a serious, unbiased definition of what nu-metal is? This has been giving me the shits for ages.
It'll probably continue to do so for a very long while, or until you learn to stop caring. Nu-metal does not have a specific definition, it could encompass pretty much anything.
Kinda like rock music in general I suppose. Or just music, period. Genres suck I suppose, it's all music. But I still want to know what other people mean when they say nu-metal.
It started off as a type of heavier music usually with distorted guitar, a funk/jazz rhythm section and rapped/screamed/shouted vocals.
All I know is most of it's in Drop C, D, whatever on guitar. Heavy distortion, shouting, and some other stuff.
I always thought of it as a fusion of heavy metal with hip hop and sometimes electronica/techno/atmospheric type stuff, usually with angsty lyrics and a lack of instrumental breaks/guitar solos. I don't really consider Breaking Benjamin nu metal because they have longer songs with guitar solos and they don't rap. Nu metal to me is bands like LP, Disturbed, Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, Korn, etc. Downtuned/7 string guitars, lots of distortion and screaming/rapping mixed with regular singing.
I just label everything as rock. End of story, sub catagories suck. But i would say the above bands (see post above) are all nu-metal. It's a hard thing to define, it's more what you think.
I agree with that. There's too much bullshit bickering between genres, I always cringe whenever I pick up some metal magazine that's like "this is real metal, this isn't" crap, and these same people claim they're open minded and that everyone who likes the other genre are not. Those people aren't open minded, to me they're just narrow minded the other way. Some people like both nu metal and real metal. Not everyone cares. I like the variety in hard rock nowadays. Anyway, thanks for that. Wikipedia's definition does seem accurate to me. Now I know what bands to refer to as nu metal and which ones not to.