April Fools Record Club - Korn, "Follow The Leader"

So, as promised, my mom says to me in the late ‘90s, “what is that ‘dumber in the night’ song I keep hearing on the radio?” I’m sure I gave her a blank stare, but I eventually ascertained that she was hearing the main verse of 311's “Come Original” as “dumber in the night, I get dumber in the night” which, if real, would be genius-level songwriting.


In a way, the April Fools Record Club has come full circle, since I have fond memories of Len’s “Steal My Sunshine” because it was a cheery, deliberately stupid radio single in opposition to the endless anguish and pointless aggression of the late ‘90s nu-metal that Korn begat.

As for Korn, never really my cup of tea but I could never dismiss them entirely because of some sonic eccentricities, including their guitarists playing 7-string instruments and the drummer’s penchant for clacking on his snare rims. Jonathan Davis, meanwhile, just strikes me as the ‘90s version of Wall-era Roger Waters along with Billy Corgan, eternally fighting battles from his adolescence.

Also, what’s with the weird underlining on the title of the Youtube video? Do people really refer to this album as “Ko – FotLe” or is it just more unnecessary stylization like the dumb umlauts in “nu-metal”?

A few stray thoughts (I can’t say I have the stomach for a 25-track Korn album):

“Freak on a Leash”
From someone who’s had a few of those experiences, it seems calibrated to sound intensely annoying (and therefore thrilling) to parents driving their Korn-loving pre-16s around.

“Got the Life”
I actually defended Korn for a bit based on this, largely (I think) based on its disco beat. I’ll say it holds up; one of the better singles of its era.

“Pretty”
This was my other defense of the band when my father, who worked in prison psychology at the time, told me about fellow parents who were freaked out about Korn. I did and still do appreciate Jonathan Davis being willing to castigate himself for feeling more sorry for himself than the victim in this story. Ha ha, a delightful April Fool’s caprice on us, monodrone!

“Cameltosis”
Let’s address the homophobia of this band in a way appropriate to the immaturity of this album: a song with that title is co-written by someone named Tre Hardson, which is either a stupid joke or is a person with a name that would by rejected by the gayest porn.


So yeah, I’d say it’s a worthy if deliberately stunted album in the alt-rock canon. I’ll be back with something worse next year! *flies away*

Even a fool can have a morality. This is bad. It has no redeeming qualities.

I haven't forgotten about this. I was off work last week which meant I was doing actual things instead of goofing off.

I'll start by saying something I've said before I'm not interested in lyrics, they are all dumb and bad and I will not be defending them here. Also, some background:

This album came out in 1998, when I was 14 years old. You'd think that'd be a prime age for an angry at nothing and everything teen to be getting into music that seems to be angry at nothing and everything but no, at 14 my music taste was much more mild-mannered though that wouldn't last much longer. I think this came up in another album club but I was very UK focussed so the tail end of britpop and the growing britrock scene of Ash and Feeder (among others) were my thing. I managed to convince myself that Green Day were too heavy for me for at least a year after my neighbour played me Take Back from Nimrod one night that summer which in retrospect "lol"

All this is to say that I didn't listen to Follow The Leader until it had been out for a while. More on that story later...

To start off, yes I actually own this album. The radio station where I went to school to periodically put out a crate of CDs they no longer wanted, and so, among other castoffs, I own three Korn albums and prominently display that fact. I don't think I ever listened to any of them, and certainly not in their entirety. I'm not a fan, but I wouldn't say I hate the band at all--if "Freak On A Leash" or "Twisted Transistor" comes on the radio, I'll leave it on. But remember when their version of "Another Brick In The Wall" was getting constant airplay? Fuck that. And yes, I also saw them live a few times, but only because they were co-headlining or opening for someone else.

Anyway, this album came out right as I was starting the seventh grade. I remember their stupid logo being drawn on desks (I read years later the backwards "R" was directly inspired by the Toys R' Us logo which only makes something dumb even dumber), and all of the kids I could already tell had no futures used to wear their T-shirts (I don't think the kid who got expelled for the phone-in bomb threat owned anything else in his wardrobe). So that was my first exposure to them before I ever heard of their music.

Anyway, for the actual album review: The gimmick of starting off with twelve tracks of complete silence seems entirely pointless, until there's something I'm missing and if there is I assume it's something incredibly stupid, so I feel like being generous and sticking with "pointless." When the actual music came on, I was enjoying it to some degree when it was just the bass-and-drum intro, before the vocals and effects kicked in and I began to lose interest. Still, as an isolated rhythm section, most of the album is tolerable and I could find myself nodding my head in time to the beat and ignore how stupid and whiny the lyrics are.

"Freak On A Leash," I don't know if it's just grown on me after hearing it thousands of times, but I don't hate this track, although I prefer the unplugged version they did with chick from Evanescence doing the background vocal. If I was forced to name my favorite nu-metal song, I guess this is it?

"Got The Life," Since everyone else seems to be at least partially defending this one, and I will acknowledge it is sonically different from the rest of the album, I'll just say I don't care for it and never have. Next!

"Children of the Korn" A few tracks later we come to this, a rap-infused "Parents don't like that their kids listen to our band". The target audience of this song probably hates the music their kids like. So on and so on every generation going in both directions.

"All In The Family," A track that's just Korn Guy and Fred Durst insulting each other over the music. While I can begrudgingly acknowledge that I don't hate Korn, the same cannot and will not be said for Limp Bizkit, which I do openly dislike. So, this track was probably my least favorite, although I will admit I did laugh out loud when one of Fred Durst's insults was "Your favorite band is Winger."

"Cameltosis" I'm trying to decide if there's someone who would find that funny who's also old enough to get the joke.

Anyway, remember how I said I own this because the radio station was tossing it out? Apparently the latter part of the CD was pretty scratched up, so I had to pull the plug somewhere early on in the last track, so I'll never know if it's the magnum opus that redeems the rest of the album. Either way, I'm relieved for the excuse to bail early. This was probably the one time I'll ever listen to (mostly) an entire Korn album, unless somehow one of the other two I own makes Record Club another month.

Hi 

Contrary to appearances I didn't listen to this album in full until I was in my late 20s though I was very familiar with the singles at the time that they were relevant. The only Korn album I own is the self-titled debut which is great - I would have nominated it but then I noticed I'd given it a shot for this feature a couple of years ago and it didn't get the votes so I have to let it go.

Why did I never pick it up despite loving the singles? Dunno. I didn't have a lot of money at the time so I had to choose carefully and there was always something I wanted more, I guess. So it was only when Spotify showed up that I gave this a go and while it's not my favourite Korn album I still like it a lot so here we go!


It's On - woowoowooooooo noises are good. The spooky guitar is good, feels nice. Nice flam into rolls on the snare before the first verse (and all over the place actually), that's one I'll probably borrow now that I've noticed it. The chorus riff is A Classic Korn Chord Progression so if it does nothing for you this might be a slog to get through. It works for me. Yr man sounds upset, that's all I know about that. It. Is. On.

Freak On A Leash - could have been the first song I downloaded on Napster. I never got into downloading whole albums on there because I didn't have the bandwidth for it to be sustainable so it was just this and a few other songs that were on MTV2 all the time. This slaps. It's good when he says "go". It's good when he's just making a bunch of noises. It's good when the bass is all clicky in the chorus. It's good when the drums get all tom heavy. I will always love this stupid song.

Got The Life - the thing you have to remember is that Korn were a party band at this point so why wouldn't they throw in a disco beat? I'm all for it. The drum fill half way through the chorus that goes ba-bada-bada ba-bada-bada with the extra snare hit on the 1 of the next bar is pretty sweet. OOeeoo. ooeeOO. The whole rum biddy boo bit sounds silly but again, I'm in favour of it.

Dead Bodies Everywhere - it's the downtuned riffs that really get me with this stuff. The bit around 3 minutes isn't miles away from Helmet or Soundgarden so why are Korn so derided when those bands aren't?

Children of the Korn - Oh. That's why. I remember now. This isn't so good. Limp Bizkit did the bring in an actual rapper thing better when they got Method Man on N 2 Gether Now tbh.

B.B.K. - Back on track. There's nothing that hasn't already been done on this song but I still like the pitchshifting on the guitars in the verses and the riffs in the chorus. The quieter parts are where you can see the Alice In Chains influence, I think.

Pretty - A Korn Song For People Who Like The Band Korn. The verses here remind me of a band that I've never seen anyone talk about called Less - all their songs have <1000 plays on Spotify but their album Piano Wire Smile is great if you like Undertow era Tool.

All in the Family - it's bad, I always skip it. No defence. Fuck off Fred Durst - you are the worst part of Limp Bizkit and have nothing to offer without the rest of the band.

Reclaim My Place - This one's great. Another monodrone in 2001/02 reference - on nights out to places that would play Korn songs my friends and I would do something we called 'korn moshing' which involved playing air guitar as if the guitar was strapped to your ankles. I think that'd hurt my knees if I tried it now.

Justin - giving it points for when it goes all spacey. Good chunky riff too.

Seed - sounds like it belongs on the lesser known debut album from Incubus, Fungus Amongus. Probably doesn't need to be here and the album doesn't need to be 70 minutes long but that's 1998 for you.

Cameltosis - yr man with the juvenile name from The Pharcyde fits a lot better with the vibe than Ice Cube did. I'm sure the lyrics are bad like they are on every song, I only mention it here because there are some C-bombs being dropped and I noticed while the rest of the words have washed over me as if it was all scat. I do not need these songs to be about anything.

My Gift To You - ah yeah, the bagpipes. It's a let down that this is all they get used for but it sounds better than the guy who stands on the corner of Union Street/Union Terrace in Aberdeen blasting out some really sub-standard pipework on Saturday afternoons, making you regret your journey into the city centre. What a jobby. Anyway, once the pipes go this is another standard Korn song so obviously I like it.

Earache My Eye - I played this in one of the covers bands I was in towards the end of high school. Not an obvious choice but it was a bit of a laugh. Fun song.

I don't get the beef guys. These songs (apart from the bad one) slap. They're good (apart from The Bad One). The riffs are good, the drums are good, the clicky bass is... well, it's an acquired taste. Stop listening to what Jonathan Davis is saying and start getting on board with the rest of the dang band. You're all wrong. None of you are free from sin.