The Best Nu Metal Albums of the late '90s and 2000s

Ross Robinson recorded them at Indigo Ranch in Malibu for Immortal and Epic, and nothing else on a 1994 rack sounded remotely like it. Blind opens on one ringing seven-string note and a hi-hat count before Jonathan Davis shouts the question, then Fieldy's bass arrives slapped hard enough to rattle the strings off the frets. Davis plays bagpipes later, on Shoots and Ladders.

Terry Date produced, Frank Delgado joined full-time on turntables and keyboards, and Maynard James Keenan sings the back half of Passenger. Digital Bath is why the record travelled outside the genre: Abe Cunningham playing almost entirely in ghost notes, Chino Moreno half-whispering, Stephen Carpenter holding one clean chorused figure until the chorus finally opens up. Spotify's edition front-loads Back to School (Mini Maggit), which the original sequence did not carry.

Rick Rubin produced it for American, and it entered the Billboard 200 at number one. Chop Suey! is four songs crammed into three minutes: a clipped acoustic figure, a double-time gallop, Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian trading lines a half-beat apart, then the sudden hymn at the end. Border case — nearer art-metal than rap metal, and better for it.

Nine men, two percussionists hammering beer kegs on top of an actual drum kit, and Ross Robinson at the desk for Roadrunner. Wait and Bleed is where the tune sneaks in — Corey Taylor sings the chorus outright over Joey Jordison's relentless kick pattern. Spotify carries the revised sequence, with Purity and Frail Limb Nursery pulled after a legal dispute.

Number one on the Billboard 200, with Ice Cube guesting on Children of the Korn and Fred Durst on All in the Family — the week the scene turned into an industry. Freak On a Leash justifies the fuss anyway: two minutes of ordinary Korn, then Davis drops into that scatted, spat gibberish while the guitars climb behind him.

Cut at Bad Animals in Seattle with Terry Date, two years after the debut Adrenaline, and Max Cavalera turns up to bellow all over Headup. My Own Summer (Shove It) runs on two notes and a rest — Carpenter's downtuned stab, Cunningham's snare landing a hair late, Moreno flipping between mutter and shriek with no gear change in between.

Don Gilmore produced, and the discipline is the whole trick: twelve songs, not one guitar solo, nothing running past four minutes. One Step Closer buries Joe Hahn's scratching under Brad Delson's drop-tuned riff, then stops dead so Chester Bennington can scream the bridge into the gap. Spotify offers no plain edition, only this Bonus Edition and a 20th-anniversary set.

DJ Lethal came out of House of Pain, Terry Date produced, and the album went straight in at number one on the Billboard 200. Nookie works because Wes Borland refuses to play an ordinary riff — high, clean, chorused octaves set against Sam Rivers' bass while Fred Durst does his aggrieved-boyfriend routine. Spotify lists a clean edition too; the explicit original is linked here.

Robinson produced the follow-up as well, and it folds in a cover of War's Low Rider — Spotify spells it Lowrider — plus a version of Ice Cube's Wicked with Chino Moreno guesting. A.D.I.D.A.S. is the sharpest thing on it: Silveria's hi-hat shuffling under a two-note figure, Davis deadpanning the verse, no chorus worth the name.

Named for the toxicology measure of a dose that kills half a test population, and sequenced with instrumental interludes wedged between nearly every song. Dig starts with Ryan Martinie alone, tapping and popping a bass part that would be a lead guitar line in any other band, before Chad Gray begins shredding his throat over the top. Border case: progressive chops smuggled onto Ozzfest.

Wayne Static took the title from Michael Lesy's 1973 book of frontier photographs and called the result evil disco, still the most accurate genre tag anyone in this scene managed. Push It sets a four-on-the-floor kick drum under machine-gunned muted guitar, so the riff ends up doing the job of a hi-hat. Border case: industrial rock in nu metal's clothes.

TVT put the debut out after the band had to drop the name Crawlspace in a legal tangle. Black is the argument for Lajon Witherspoon — a soul-schooled voice sitting on top of the downtuned riff rather than barking through it, Morgan Rose's snare cracking behind. Spotify carries only the Definitive Edition, whose final five tracks are bonuses and two of those are live.

DreamWorks signed them out of Vacaville, California and shifted several million copies on the strength of one song. Last Resort is that song: a guitar figure that repeats without variation for four minutes while Jacoby Shaddix raps the verse and sings the hook. Border case, rap rock built on a pop-punk chassis. Spotify's edition tacks a live Dead Cell onto the end.

Roadrunner's contribution to the Los Angeles wave, and the album that got a whole scene judged on eye makeup rather than riffs. Loco is better than that reputation allows: Meegs Rascón's figure lurching against Rayna Foss's bass, Dez Fafara barking the title as if it were punctuation. Spotify prints the closing track's full name, hidden message and silence included.