SLIPKNOT
Slipknot is an American heavy metal band from Des Moines, Iowa. Formed in September 1995, the group was founded by percussionist Shawn Crahan and bassist Paul Gray. Slipknot is well known for its attention-grabbing image, aggressive style of music, and energetic and chaotic live shows. The band enjoyed a somewhat meteoric rise to success following the release of their eponymous debut album in 1999; their fourth album, All Hope Is Gone, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. (More from Wikipedia)
As what I think of as alternative rock began to run out of gas in the 1990’s, the next movement was sometimes called modern rock (though I hear few references to that term anymore), which featured bands and artists like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Pantera and others. A lot of these bands created a combustible mixture of heavy metal and rap music, and one in particular I really liked, Rage Against the Machine. Besides casting the existing heavy metal scene as a bunch of wimps, they giddily sought to overturn every connection to earlier forms of rock music and, for a time at least, appeared to be poised to sweep aside the rock establishment altogether. The movement seemed to me to rise and fall rather quickly, but frankly, those artists never really spoke to me except on a few stray tracks.
(January 2013)
