Follow The Leader

This album is every bit as enjoyable as I thought it was when it was originally released. Which is to say - not very. The longer the album goes on the more it becomes something akin to an aural military endurance test. About half way through I’m tapping out with the same ferocity as I would if I found myself in a Ronda Rousey arm bar inside the octagon. I love the concluding statement on the write up from the book… “So did this angry, twisted music do anything positive? It certainly made a truckload of money.” If that is your take - why the hell put it in the book? If I am being completely fair - Freak on a Leash is definitely a unique sound that lended itself to a lot of other music and I shouldn’t discount that simply because that particular sound is almost certainly the soundtrack in my own personal version of Hell. Still - the “beat box/scatting” is atrocious and I’ll die on that hill.

Collectively, we are all dumber for listening to this record. Unequivocally, you don’t need to hear this before you die.

Oh no. Nu-Metal. Sweet Gary. Call me a freak on a leash because this is prison. This has "Edgy, Weepy Teen" written in neon green spray paint all over it. It's like they took all the cool parts of metal and then added all the worst parts of industrial and goth rock. I blame southern California for this. Plus, the lead singer is using that weird nasal tone that everybody used in the 90s. It's like Dave Matthews got put into the Microwave and then was forced to watch The Crow over and over again. Not a fan. Trent Reznor probably regrets inspiring these guys. How the hell did they get Ice Cube and Cheech on this turkey?

What appealed to this 14 year-old, hidden beneath his Korn hoodie on the bus to school? Where to start? How about: "I cannot every love another cunt / You trick ass slut / Look twice and you'll get fucked"? Truthfully, no. I didn't hate girls, didn't actively enjoy them being brutalised in the music I liked. I even skipped Kim back then, not yet able to parse its brilliance. I knew Korn (probably, hopefully) didn't mean it. But 50% of their appeal for me was simply that they said things my parents wouldn't approve of. You know that adolescent itch, the one that has to be scratched. So from a personal point of view, this garbage is defensible. And so too from an artistic one... in theory. Flirting with danger and taboo is an important function of art. There are too many great examples to name. This just happens to be a shit one. So why did I latch on to Korn's danger dance and not the good ones? Simply, partly they did it with no subtlety and I was almost as dumb, partly the other 50% of their appeal: dick bick energy riffs, creepy gimmicks, occassional breakbeats, basslines that spend most of the time building up to a letdown--I mean breakdown--and, of course, Davies' spastic yip-yapping. But those two elements, 100% of the appeal to me, are only 50% of KoRn's sound. The rest is characterised by emotionally-stunted morons who've chosen the hinterland between self-pity and self-aggrandisement because they don't have the... I don't know what... to grow up. Teenagers get a bad rep for being intolerant, so fair play to me for putting up with that side of a crappy bargain for so long.

Holy crap this is terrible. Literal sonic garbage. I would rather go completely deaf then listen to this album again.

Not for everyone, but one of the best examples of its genre. Also helped popularize extended range guitars in metal.

There is only one Korn album that should be anywhere near this list and buddy, this ain’t it. They are so sonically limited as to sound no different from song to song, album to album. The stuff they’re peddling now aged 50 is the same as they were peddling at the start of their careers, same as here. Whatever way you cut it, it’s all self-generated angst, pseudo-hip-hop stylings with zero comprehension or cohesion and (of course) bagpipes. There is a song on here called Cameltosis - these songs written by men in and around their 30s - which tells you all you need to know. Truly stupid.

hs favorite

This album goes hard.

Not my favorite Korn album but was definitely groundbreaking for it’s time and was super influential in molding modern metal.

I made it through! Imagining they were singing “old Macdonald had a farm” on every song helped.

Jonathan Davis’s singing and vocal scatting, scratching, whatever the fuck that noise he does with his throat is, makes an already tedious album borderline unlistenable. Not even an Ice Cube cameo can salvage this record, and the less said about ‘All In The Family’ featuring Fred Durst the better.

Korn’s lead singer has all the dramatic subtlety of a poorly-dubbed anime villain. I literally died laughing when he did his first muppet intro... an angst-ridden “KOORRRRRRRNNN!” Amazing. I have not really stopped laughing thinking about this. The muppet monster beatboxing is SO FUNNY!!! Omg!!!! I am dying. Such is my Jekyl-and-Hyde reaction to this album: unqualified disgust, followed by incredulous belly laughs. The absolute nadir of this album (yes, I listened through the full hour and seven minutes) is the 14-year-olds-whining-"no, ur gay", poorly conceived diss track “All in the Family.” If I was dissed by Korn, I would be proud. What an honor! It’s really not the band, or even the production, that makes this so bad. The production may be a tad cheesy, even for 90's nu metal. But that's just the price of admission. No, It’s really those vocals, and the heinous, hilariously self-aggrandizing lyrics. No one human has sounded this whiny for this long. He manages to make me cringe so hard until I've collapsed in on myself into a small, cringey ball. Then, from deep within this small super-dense object that has become my disgusted soul, comes... laughter. Deep, uncontrollable belly laughs. Then repeat. It's a kind of enjoyable cycle. I had fun! 1/5

Rating 1 due to the rampant homophobia

Gave up halfway through, Limp Bizkit pushed me over the edge lmao. There are some moments where my Lizard Brain takes over and I find the grooves trashy in a fun a way but then when I pay the slightest bit of attention to what I'm listening to I'm like, "Hey! What the fuck?" This Aussie breaks their long streak of 5/5s and gives Follow the Leader their first one Starbucks latte* out of five. *The joke here is that Starbucks performed so poorly in Straya that the only remaining branches here are at touristy spots where visitors who know nothing about our coffee culture go to.

the year was 1999, the location was woodstock. Nah, like fuck i was there. Korn passed me by, i was more in to the knob jokes of blink and limp bizkit. listening to it now i realise it was a bit harsh for them to get lumped in with the nu-metal crowd of retards as this is serious music for serious people.

Hey look! It’s korn! ROOGA-ah-ah ROOGA-ah-ah

I had a thoughtful review written about this album and how while we may not like it, we have to reckon with the fact that Korn and bands like them made it onto mainstream radio in this era, but it all got deleted and i'm crestfallen. || Its easy to dunk on, but this sound changed rock and metal. Thank god it has continued to change and we're past it though.

Best Song: Children of the Korn. I guess Ice Cube was a nice contrast? Worst Song: All In The Family. The combination of Durst literally just speaking garbage rhymes and then the Korn fella shouting random homophobia. I have nothing in common with anyone who likes this track. Overall: That bark-like scatting that they do on nearly every track is so obnoxious. It has this "not matter what I do, its music" hubris that I just find annoying. Music for people who think loud is an emotion.

Didnt really like it then, dont like it now. Aged worse than I expected. Aged worse than I have. Shite.

I just... I mean... really? Okay, let me try and be fair here since Korn is the seminal band on my skiddy metalhead husband's youth. I'll admit nü-metal was a moment in time where something very different started happening musically. Someone was innovating, that's what must make this album worthy of our consideration. I don't think it was different or innovative for the better though. Woodstock '99 is a perfect example of how dangerous the energy that this music taps into can be. Inciting white male aggression never turns out well for anyone. I'm all for misfits and weirdoes finding the things that make them feel seen and understood. I'm all for a darker artistic expression of self, it can be powerful and cathartic to express your pain and vulnerability, like Kurt Cobain did. And it's important to have shared experiences and relate to others. Music helps us do that in such a transcendent way, especially controversial music. But I just don't like this. It's too hateful and frankly, scary.

Dreadful. I'd rather peel my own skin off with a broken bottle than have to sit through this again.

I don't leave many reviews but I wanted to say that I definitely did not need to hear this before I died. I'm glad that the list is exploring different genres but isn't there better nu metal out there? I particularly found the vocals and lyrics very annoying. And the instruments weren't doing anything interesting to hold my attention.

Oooh, look, the R is backwards! Get ready for something edgy here, people. I've low key dreaded getting an album like this to review, but I decided I have to give everything a fair listen. But man, this one really tested my patience. I guess I can say now that I've listened to a Korn album all the way through. That's something, right? Musically the album is fine. The guitars (Head and Munky), the bass (Fieldy) and the drums (David Silveria), they actually aren't bad at all, and the band is talented at what they do. Their sound is heavy and very much in the vein of a lot of music from this era. But it’s boring. The arrangements are samey and the album is also entirely too long. They're obviously trying to go for something dark here, but they don’t elicit any kind of feeling from me. As for Jonathan Davis… a lot this album’s problems land squarely on this guy’s plate. Davis’ vocal style is terrible, whiny-then-vomiting, forgettable. That weird scatting he likes to do is just dumb. The rapping makes it somehow worse, my god. I was going to dig into the songwriting, but I went in and read the lyrics, and good grief. Davis (and by extension, the band) has an anger problem. He has a problem with women. He seems to especially have a problem with his own success. Other artists have similar problems, but they’re better songwriters. I don’t have the energy to close read garbage lyrics today. I feel like I've been more generous to some pretty hard to listen to albums that have been generated for me, like from Napalm Death and Sepultura. But see, there's a world view and some creativity behind that music that I respect, even if it's not my thing. This music feels very empty to me, a cash grab attempt to be edgy that is embarrassing for me to have to listen to, as a person with ears. Fave Songs: None. How about least favorite song? There are so many candidates. I'm going to go with All in the Family, what kind of warmed over garbage was that?

No. Just no. This almost makes me wish I gave Slipknot a 2 so this could inhabit it's own tier of awful.

An interminably long album featuring lots of growling, vocal-fry singing, whispering, gibberish, and bagpipes. It's not just that the music sucks. The lyrics are inane, and I feel like I'm being generous with that description. A low point is "All in the Family," where Jonathan Davis and Fred Durst trade stupid insults that are variations on "You're a fag lol" for five very long minutes. I had successfully scrubbed this song from my brain, but here it is again, tormenting me. I don't hate this album as much as I fear having to hear it again. That may not be true; I do hate it as well. Best track: Freak on a Leash

i tried to be open minded with this one, but it just really sucks

Never liked the band when this was released and dislike them even more now. Nothing of interest here and the more I actually listened, the more I hated it. That was over an hour of time I'll never get back, as it burned so brain cells I'll need to listen to hours and hours of babies crying to recover. In who's hell world goes this album make the list??

This album makes me wanna go Mmmm nuppa ehh nuppa nuppa rumma loooo ruppa eh Mmmm nama nama reoww Ra re nuppa Mmmm nappa rappa all day long.

no me gusta

Très bon album, la bass est vraiment novatrice, les vocales sont pesant mais émotifs. On y retrouve des gros hits, par contre quelque tounes ou interludes inutiles. Je trouve que c’est de la musique pesante mais accessible et c’est vraiment ce que Korn fait de Mieux! Un groupe qui a influencé beaucoup de groupe de nos jours. Je lévite; Got the Life, criss the chef d’œuvre ça même Pierre va aimé ça. Freak on a leash, its on, BKK, my gift to you Je l’évite; Children of the korn la toune n’a pas rapport et c’est très moyen, le battle entre Davis et Fred durst aussi c’est pas nécessaire (all in the family)

For people who like it when someone screams in their ear.

Would have liked it when I was 13, but I'm in a better place now. Or at least I have better taste in music.

Tering wat een troep

This is really not good. Wouldn't have recognised a Korn song if I'd heard one before this, and probably wouldn't now, aside from maybe Freak On a Leash which sounds vaguely familiar. It's far too long, it's screamy at times for no real reason, and it falls miles on the wrong side of the edgy / attention-seeking line. Don't think this even merits a 2.

Fucking awful. Shame on Cheech Marin (but not too much. He's a really good guy.) for participating.

Look, I can fuck with music like this. But this has been done a LOT better since, and before. Even when I heard this as an angsty 13 year old I remember thinking ‘eughhh…. no’. There was this girl called Claire who I became friendly with - she turned out to be a compulsive liar - who I thought was cool because she introduced me to rock music pretty much. But even then, when it would have been cool to like Korn… I didn’t. Some really juvenile / misogynistic / homophobic / horrible stuff in here. It’s all the same. It’s too long and boring. NO THANKS. I looked up Claire recently and all I could find was that she started a computer company that folded within 2 years, otherwise nothing.

I once saw Korn at a music festival when I was fifteen. My mate threw a bottle of piss and it hit the drummer right on the head. That's the best thing about them. Best Tracks: Freak On a Leash; Got the Life; Children of the Korn (feat. Ice Cube)

Oh man. You know what... I'm not going to even listen past the first song. That's right. I'm not even going to give it a chance. I just can't stomach this right now.

A perfect nu metal alboom-da-da-mmm-dum-na-ee-em

Great album!!

So good. I loved this.

Reminds me of my freshman year in college and my friend at the time John Walston. 5/5

Crunchy, I liek

Loved it! Always have!

Epic

Sonically brutal, lyrically extreme, absolutely not suitable for children or those of a nervous disposition. I lovee it! Takes me straight back to hanging out in the pub with my friends, scaring off anyone who wasn't into "our" music. Not sure it'll do very well with many people, but it's one of my favourite bands and albums

Always a winner. Can't go wrong with this banger.

Yeah Korn

sonzeira, pesada

🌽

Really like the album as an intro to metal. Favourite songs are "Freak on a a Leash", "Children of the Korn" and "Seed"

Simply magnificent album, the best of the band. Powerful, with many hip hop influences....magnificent.

I liked it, idk why everyone disliked it, need to stop reading reviews before listening to stuff myself

Fantastic, iconic bass tone.

I never really got into Korn when they came out, but I get it. I was working at a Sam Goody when there first couple albums dropped and they definitely caused a stir. They were different and quickly created a following. I just always kinda thought they sucked. But, having listened to this album again, I can confidently say they don't suck. I still don't really like it, but they deserve to be on the list. And, I'm giving them a bump for having created a unique sound in the middle of the pop-punk, pop-metal era.

J'ai adoré cet album, seulement voici son problème: l'ombre de Mc Fly et Carlito plannait au-dessus de moi tout au long de l'écoute. J'étais effrayé à l'idée d'entendre un "je suis une tik-tok girl" rententir, et suis donc resté sur le qui-vive pendant les 1h10 de metal proposé par nos joyeux gueulards de Korn.

Parfois le monde décrive le métal comme du ''criage'', et ça existe certainement, mais j'ai vraiment pas trouvé que ça s'appliquait à cet album. J'ai même trouvé l'album assez lyrical et intéressant. Beaucoup de chansons que j'ai adoré et c'est pourquoi ma note est élevée. Par contre, je ne peux pas donner 5 étoiles à cause du vibe du groupe. Les chansons sont hargneuses, fâchées. C'est des émotions importantes mais je n'ai pas nécessairement le goût de me faire mettre dans ce mood là quand j'écoute un album. Même dans le featuring avec Fred Durst, ils font juste s'envoyer chier tout au long de la toune. Je suis trop de bonne humeure pour leur donner un 5.

Honestly, kind of a fun reminder of a certain time and place, except for the risible "All in the Family" which is a mortifying reminder of a certain time and place.

I like Korn; I liked Korn but now I'm 45 and just doesn't hit the same. Da-boom-da-da-mmm-dum-na-ee-ma -3!

Surprisingly enjoyable in places, the drums are lively, the tunes are catchy. But some of the lyrics - especially the hip hop cameos - have not aged well. It also gets very samey by the end. Absolutely non essential, but better than I expected.

This album does not hold up at all. The nu-metal craze had a huge impact on music however it was a flash in the pan. Not very good except for the two big hits.

This was an exhausting 70 minutes listen; why so long, boys? And why so much whining? This album is perfectly described in the lyrics of Ben Folds' Rockin' the Suburbs: "Let me tell y'all what it's like Being male, middle-class, and white It's a bitch, if you don't believe Listen up to my new CD, sha-mon I got shit runnin' through my brain So intense, that I can't explain All alone in my white-boy pain Shake your booty while the band complains ... I'm rockin' the suburbs, I take the checks, and face the facts That some producer with computers fixes all my shitty tracks ... You better look out because, I'm gonna say "Fuck"" Preach, Brother Ben, amen.

Godawful, damaged, whiney, shouty shite. Terrible cover, terrible record, massively overlong. And when they rap? Laughably bad. Not quite 1-star rotten but it was extremely close.

Back in the late 90's, early 2000's you had two bands that got shared under that weird header 'Nu-Metal' that you would find on almost every summer music festival in Europe: Deftones and KoЯn. One band I absolutely adored the music and albums of. Around the Fur and especially White Pony were landmarks for this new sound. Heavy with a deep underground layer of angst, superb songwriting, the Deftones were fantastic. Korn on the other hand were lyrically childish, musically only had one trick and were by all measures uninteresting. Live though, it was a different story. Deftones just plain sucked. Every time. I don't think I've ever seen them perform well. The sounds and atmosphere they created on their albums never made it to a live experience. And Korn went the other way. They were able to make even the biggest hater of their music dance and jump and get a little smile on their face when all their fans did the back on forth on Reclaim My Place. Now back listening to this album... It really has not stood the test of time and wasn't really good to begin with. I think "Got The Life" is the only redeeming feature on an otherwise dull experience. I will never have to revisit this. I'd see them live though if they were at a festival again.

I really tried but there is absolutely nothing for me to enjoy. In general I am very reluctant to giving 1-star ratings, but this gotta be my first one. I was actively waiting for this album to end. Added later: In the second part of the album there were few moments that I liked. When they just focus on riffs, the overall style becomes bearable. But not enough to redeem the majority of the album.

Shite

Holy fuck this is bad

Whiney nu metal vocals, twice as long as it should have been, and some homophobic lyrics thrown in. Should have left this one in 1998.

boom na na oom na na inna boom na na oom na na inna boom na na oom na na inna boom na na oom na na inna boom na na oom na na inna- ...GO! (Jilly's Rockworld explodes into a mass of bouncing hair) Why is there no Deftones on this list? There actually were some good nu-metal albums (White Pony) but I'm only being handed ones with a couple of good tracks. Exhibit 108 of stop giving me crummy metal albums that artificially deflate my metal average. Oh dear god All in the Family is absolutely fucking terrible. Was going with 2 but due to both that and 67 minutes it's going down.

The music is like uninteresting Deftones at its best and a trash blend of rock-rap with a circus swagger at its worst. The rap feels like an adopted posture, the style but a pose. While the lyrics seal the deal that it's an empty gesture towards the rap form more than meaningful cultural expression or engagement. There's also a cough syrup derivative of NIN somewhere in here, too. It's as if Filter were filtered down to add as a flavor to this swill. The further I get into this record's track list the less impressed I am and the more certain I become in my assessment. A definite reaction to this despite me being the ideal audience: I love hip hop and I love metal. And yet, the 90s did themselves few favors spawning the likes of metal-rap bands like Limp Bizkit and Korn. What went wrong?

I didn't know those "No parents allowed" signs that angsty pre-teens put on their bedroom doors could record albums. Pretty cool!

This was genuinely the worst thing I’ve heard. Not a single second did I enjoy it and it’s genuinely insulting that this garbage is on this list. In no world should someone want to listen to this.

White male aggression poorly disguised in nu-metal form - what could go wrong. Corn shit. One of the very very worst things you can do in life is to listen to any of this, let alone all of it. 0/10 1 plunger for my ears/brain 🪠

01) It's On! - 5,0 02) Freak on a Leash - 5,5 03) Got the Life - 5,0 04) Dead Bodies Everywhere - 4,5 05) Children of the Korn - 4,5 06) B.B.K. - 4,0 07) Pretty - 4,0 08) All In The Family - 4,0 09) Reclaim My Place - 4,0 10) Justin - 4,0 11) Seed - 3,0 12) Cameltosis - 4,5 13) My Gift to You - 4,0 14) Earache My Eye - 2,0 TOTAL: 4,14 (41/100) Current ranking: 233/239 Never in a million years did I think I'd be listening to a Korn album, especially when it's 36 degrees Celsius outside. My brain is mush anyway, God only knows what will be left of it after seventy minutes of this noise. Here I am about halfway through the album, and I have to admit that it sounds different than I expected. Not better, just different. I thought Korn was some noisy, serious metal band and what I got was practically Limp Bizkit. I fu**ing hate Limp Bizkit. This was always between one and two stars, but two stars required a little more effort.

This is trash.

The singing was whiny and the rapping embarrassing.

Nope.

Sigh

I truly don't think I'll ever fully recover from hearing "All in the Family".

p838. 1998. 1 star. Foul mouthed, obnoxious, unpleasant and distinctly average heavy metal/rap fusion. This hurt my ears. "You hate me/And I hate you". Yup, about right.

Awful. Nothing redeeming.

it could be 2 if the album was shorter

Now I know why Korn fans were so weird.

I was a bit confused by the plethora of negative reviews. Chunky riffs gave it promise. Then he started doing whatever you call those vocal twitches. At first time I thought he was about to vomit. Then he does another weird one followed by the dreaded "growl-shout." I agree with the reviewer who couldn't stop laughing. This is hilariously bad. Absolute shit, but funny.

Okay then, my time has come. My first Korn. Here we go. The production on it isn't bad. But the Fred Durst song finally broke me. This one's a big nope for me. It does make you really miss when rock was fun.

Damn, this has aged like fine milk.

Pre-1001 Generator I would have guessed that I wouldn't like this album because I'm not really into metal. Now I can confidently say metal isn't my favorite but it's not without its positives. Still searching for the positives in this one. Can't believe they got Ice Cube on this.

1/5. I heard jokes about this band and didn't want to give it a bad rating without listening to it myself, honor and all that. Today, I regret honor because that was just bad writing. I can definitely see why this is in this book, I should listen to it so I can set the standard of what not to do if I wanted to write music. I mean it was definitely very popular for a reason, which is why I don't have much hope for the future. Not terrible song: Seed, Freak on a Leash, Reclaim My Place

Why???

No thanks.

WHY IS THIS HERE

Yesterday I learned I hate Korn… more than I originally thought was possible.

Is this 'death metal'? Whatever, it's for 13 year old boys, not for me.

I had Slipknot earlier in this list and I ended up enjoying it; so I went into this with an open mind. It's awful, they try so hard to be edgy but I'm not buying it, just a bunch of try-hards acting like they're hard. Dropping some slurs in All in the Family totally lost any lingering respect I might have had for the fact that they can make chords happen on their instruments. I'd give this a 0 if I could. Garbage.

This was so bad that I have to assume it was just a mean joke, right?

This does not deserve to be on the list for any reason. What the f***?

My senses were in less pain than in the case of Slipknot, yet my sensibilities were all the more injured for it.

Korn is one of my favorite bands of all time, second only to Linkin Park so i came into Follow The Leader expecting nearly everything from it, and yet somehow, I'm still so impressed with how amazing this album is. This album had an incredible sound which blurred all the right lines between heavy, weird and haunting which made my whole listening experience so enjoyable. So many songs also had some really fun and unique ideas with an example being All In The Family which is just two intoxicated men just thinking of the best disses on each other and i just loved every single second of it, in fact every song here is just a pure banger. Hybrid Theory may forever be my #1 but this is still easily a close second. Best Song: Dead Bodies Everywhere Worst Song: Earache My Eye

My personal musical tastes were forged in the fires of the late nineties and the furnace of Nu-Metal. While there is much of the genre and scene from that era that I cannot atone, I will forever be in debt for the spark this album and others from then ignited in my soul. Despite some abhorrent, deeply misogynistic and homophobic tracks on this record that were juvenile then and appalling now, this is a bonafide 5 stars from me. It all starts for me with the iconic album cover and artwork from Todd McFarlane. Profound, thought-provoking, and even a little cheesy I just love the mood that it sets for the music within. Being of the CD age, I remember that this album started on track 13 after a minute of silence (something lost as we've transitioned to streaming). As It's On finally kicks in, the ride begins with all the hallmarks of the Korn sound from the chugging dual guitars, to Fieldy's one-of-a-kind bass, to Johnathan Davis' singular voice. Freak on a Leash, Got the Life, Dead Bodies Everywhere and so much more defined the music of my life at that point and they still hit the same today. This was peak cameo/collaboration in rock and metal music and the featuring tracks on this record are sus, for sure (although Earache My Eye is ridiculously fun and an inspired inclusion on this record, if you ask me). While I have grown and so has my musical palette, I don't listen to this as often as I once did. And while I don't listen to it much these days, I enjoy every moment of the experience when I do. High school is a strange time for all of us and I'm glad I had this album there with me then.