The Seven Lamest Nu Metal Bands of All Time

By: Matt Oliver
For every generation, parents wonder what the heck their kids are listening to. Whether it is was the '50s when Elvis had screaming girls fainting, the Beatlemania of the '60s and '70s or the 80's with the hair metal explosion of Twisted Sister and Motley Crue. Unfortunately, my generation was introduced to a new type of metal, Nu to be exact.

Nu Metal was brought on by the less-than-lovely blends of 7-string guitars, screaming vocals, rapping lyricists and sometimes DJs, meshed with unfashionable dreads, pants with a billion zippers to nowhere and more makeup than KISS could handle — no wonder my parents thought I was crazy. The genre was ushered in by pioneers, Korn, Slipknot and Limp Bizkit, and given festivals Family Values Tour and Ozzy Osbourne's OzzFest, gave birth to the metal's bastard child.

Though Korn and Slipknot are pretty lame in their own rights, they are the industry standard for Nu Metal. Point being, it gets a lot worse from there. The list you are about to witness is the lamest of the lame.

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7. Mushroomhead

Officially naming themselves Mushroomhead in 1995, Ohio's Slipknot clone soon took stages with masks, jumpsuits and the insane member count of eight, with names like ST1TCH, Dr. F, Dinner and DJ Virus. How many drummers, keyboards and vocalists does a nu metal band need? Despite going on to sell millions, and still taking stages and putting out music in 2013, Mushroomhead is still gore porn-loving, fratboy metal at its worst.

6. Mudvayne

The song “Dig” was undoubtedly the epitome of cheesy, nu metal angst. Whether you were at Hot Topic, watching MTV or inside of Wearhouse Music, you saw a guy with blue hair screaming, and a bald headed bassist with red hair devil horns on the TV. Ten years later, you just have to look back and ask yourself, “Why was I so angry with life, to listen to this song on repeat?”'

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5. Drowning Pool

Rest in Peace, Dave Williams. It is no laughing matter when anyone dies, especially if it is the voice and face of a band. Though their debut album Sinner went on to go platinum, “Bodies” is the song in question here, and warrants Drowning Pool as one of the lamest nu metal bands. The fact that the breakout hit was used by the US Military as a musical torture song, tells you something. To be fair, if I heard any song on repeat for 10 days in a row, I would not be happy. But c'mon, “Bodies” for to hours while being tortured, really!? Now that is impressive. The band has since gone on record, saying that it did not agree with the military's use of the song.

4. Evanescence

You know you are lame when you're being misidentified as a Christian Metal band — not to mention sharing the same label as the god awful (no pun intended) band, Creed — and end up riding on the coattails of nu metal's popularity. Evanescence hit the pinnacle of nu metal mainstream standards with their debut hit, “Bring Me Back to Life,” as it was quickly used in WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and is placed in the movie Daredevil. Both incredibly lame placements. Not that anyone really takes wrestling seriously, but would you be intimidated by a wrestler who reps Evanescence as their theme song? I surely don't. Strip away the leather and the black eye makeup and all I see and hear is a Disney Channel, bubblegum pop band.

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3. Papa Roach

If you were in high school when Papa Roach was big, you were not cool if you couldn't play “Last Resort.” The band went on to have massive success, while they rode the wave of the '00s nu metal popularity. Claiming the ears of many Suburban, angst-ridden youth, with their triple platinum album Infest, the rap/rock vocals of Jacoby Shaddix inspired plenty of even more unlistenable bands to follow . After years of meddling with nu metal, the band took a lowerkey/more mature angle with Rock. In 2009, their video “Lifeline” was nominated for Best Video of 2009 in a Fuse TV contest while losing to none other than Britney Spears, who also beating out Daughtry, Metallica and Paramore. Sad.

2. Saliva

Saliva won hearts with their debut album, Every 6 Seconds, referring to how often men think about sex — pretty douchey. “Your Disease” and “Click Click Boom” are among the most popular songs of the group, while in their nu metal phase with glorified rap style vocals. The album alone puts Saliva on the tipping point of lame. But in 2002, lead singer Josey Scott, did the unthinkable and teamed up with Nickelback's (one of the worst bands ever) frontman, Chad Kroeger, for the Spiderman's incredibly sappy theme song, “Hero.” To further tarnish to their image, the band released a song on Saw 3D's (worst reviewed chronicle in the Saw series) soundtrack in 2010.

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1. Lil Wayne

Surprise! Lil Tunechi takes the cake here. Appearing in Limp Bizkit's “Ready to Go,” Weezy F Baby tops our list and only makes it evident that he is officially out of touch and complete garbage. All the other bands started making this shitty music in the '90s and early '00s when it was supposedly acceptable. What is Weezy's excuse for cranking this crap out in 2013?

Spitting the lyrics like, “Fuck the world, bust a nut. I'm on this and that, and such and such,” “Shots! Shots, shots, have a lil' liquor. Got the bitch taking shots like Reggie Miller,” and Uh, I can't stop, I won't stop. I got the pistol on me, I guess I went pop makes Fred durst who coined the phrase, “I did it all for the Nookie,” sound like Shakespeare and Wayne eternally ignorant.

But oh, let's not forget his rock album debut Rebirthin 2009. The album depicts Wayne as a rock god, slouching on chic furniture, wearing school boy skater clothes with a Fender guitar resting on his body. Trust us, the music doesn't sound any better than that description. With a lead single called “Prom Queen,” and a less than stellar vocals that make Wayne sound like a slow talking, whiny bitch.

The album caught a lot of criticism from fans and media, and our brother Jeff Weiss from LA Weekly and LA Times, called the album “one of the worst albums of the year” — amen to that brother.

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