Released:  August 18th, 1998

Recorded:  March – May 1998

Genre:  Nu-metal

Record Label:  Immortal / Epic

Duration:  70:08

Producer:  Steven Thompson, Toby Wright

Personnel

Track Listing

Singles

Why Follow the Leader is One of My Favorites

Korn had a healthy, growing fan base after their first couple couple of albums, but it was with Follow the Leader that their popularity absolutely exploded.  Everyone loved this record and singles “Got the Life” and “Freak on a Leash” became almost inescapable for a couple of years.  Several rap-rock and nu-metal outfits exploded during the last couple years of the decade, primarily Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Kid Rock, with countless others including Coal Chamber, Sevendust, Orgy, Slipknot, and Deftones, and even established acts were modifying their sound to appeal to a new audience, such as Anthrax, Machine Head, and other 80’s metal bands.  It may not be fair to attribute all of the success to Korn, but their popularity certain played a huge role in the genre’s rise.

Follow the Leader (ironically titled considering how many bands would imitate this formula) is sill a pretty heavy album despite all the hip-hop elements.  Rather than replacing their guitars with turntables (so to speak), they worked hard to integrate the two sounds.  It’s easy to dismiss it as a fad and remember the music in a negative light, but I do believe it was, at one point anyway, good music before we became so oversaturated with it.  Most songs feature quieter verses with some degree of hip-hop influence followed by a pounding chorus, driven by Korn’s dual guitar setup and thick sound.  Many songs also use one guitar for the rhythmic crunching and the other for higher pitched accompaniment.

In line with the many hip-hop elements are also small electronic touches, ranging from pieces of beats to squeaks and squeals that rise above the bass-heavy instrumentation.  Though the beats and grooves my be rooted in hip-hop, any actual rapping is typically  handled by guest performers while Davis does everything front shouting, to grunting, to growling, and even a little scatting; I suppose he comes closest to actually rapping on “Got the Life.”  The most overt rap tracks, “All in the Family,” “Cameltosis,” and “Children of the Korn,” all feature vocals from Durst (of Limp Bizkit), Hardson (The Pharcyde), and Ice Cube.

For those lucky enough to hear Follow the Leader before the oncoming surge of nu-metal, it’s likely to be remembered as a pretty good listen.  The catchy beats and distorted guitars always make for a great sound when combined effectively.  It’s a very even and consistent album as well; there’s a unifying sound but each song is unique on its own.  I remember listening to this record over and over and I never considered any of the tracks to be filler or substantially less successful than any others.

“Freak on a Leash” has a dash of madness thrown in, as well as a crushing breakdown with some supremely angry scatting.  “Dead Bodies Everywhere” is one of the album’s least hip-hop influenced tracks with what sounds like an ultra-fast funk rhythm slapped out by Fieldy.  Whirring synth adds to the menacing nature of the verses, and the chimes take me back to “Shoots and Ladders” on Korn.  In fact, this sort of sounds like an updated version of the first album.  “Children of the Korn” has some of my favorite lyrics and contains some of Davis’ most bizarre vocals during the verses – something between a growl and bark.  “Pretty” is another rock-oriented song, filled to the brim with rage.  “All in the Family” is the rap-rock track, with Davis and Durst trading some of the funniest insults ever at each other (got to love “fagpipes!”).  It’s completely juvenile, but also a ton of fun to listen to and laugh along with.  “My Gift to You” is the most emotional cut on the album, though clearly it’s also the most demented.

This is an album that has been picked and poked and prodded more than most others from the 90’s, so I doubt I can really bring anything new to the table.  I do sort of hate how the music is over simplified as “metal with hip-hop elements” because Follow the Leader is still very much metal.  Other bands took the hip-hop aspects much further (Limp Bizkit) and I think that Korn got unfairly lumped in with what the movement became rather than what it initially started out as.  (See my article on the Deftones’ Around the Fur for some of my more in-depth thoughts on the rise and fall of nu-metal.)  I actually feel bad for Korn (in the way I feel bad for all platinum selling multi-million dollar musicians); they came to loathe the credit they received for driving the nu-metal movement and were running away from it as fast as possible just a year later.

Follow the Leader may not be my absolute favorite from Korn, but I still love listening to it.  For one thing, it’s miles beyond anything that came in its wake, probably because it was never an imitation of anything to begin with.  The guys just wanted to combine pounding guitars with danceable beats and powerful grooves and it worked wonderfully.  It’s not their fault that the hard rock world was flooded with subpar wannabes.  I got a ton of mileage from this album, and it’s still as catchy and booming as I remember.

Written by The Cubist

Other albums from Korn in this series:

• 1994 – Korn – Issue #2
• 1999 – Issues – Issue #63

Back to The Cubist’s 90’s Albums