MTV Asia

http://www.mtvasia.com

By Joe D'Angelo, with additional reporting by Heather Parry (MTV.com)

Not too long ago, the rap-rock and nü-metal spawn of Limp Bizkit and Korn were everywhere. For a while, a few down-tuned minor chords played on a low-slung seven-string, some bone-crushing beats and a guy growling about his tortured soul seemed a surefire recipe for success.

That's no longer the case.

The lukewarm reception of new albums by Papa Roach and Korn, coupled with the partial evaporation of rap-rock and nü-metal from radio playlists, may be an early sign that these strains of rock - one marked by raps and beats blended with conventional rock, the other by a merging of melodic death metal, traditional metal and chomping beats - are about to die.

"It's just time [for a change]," Limp Bizkit's DJ Lethal said. "Some bands out there - I'm not going to say who - they just milked the hip-hop-rock-beats-scratching thing. So it's done. It's time to move on."

When one of the genre's main players acknowledges that rap-rock's reign is over while preparing Limp Bizkit's follow-up to 2000's Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water, curiosity about the tentatively titled Less Is More is piqued. Not only are folks wondering what it's going to sound like, but how -- and if -- the band that helped usher in a trend can grow to become career artists.

"If it's Chocolate Starfish Part 2 I don't think it'll do that great," predicted John Lenac, rock editor for radio trade magazine HITS. "Although there are a lot of Limp Bizkit fans out there, overall that sound just doesn't do as well anymore on the radio."

Given the artists who contributed to Less Is More - Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, Helmet's Page Hamilton, Korn's Brian "Head" Welch - Limp Bizkit don't appear to be retracing their steps. But even if the band goes, as Lethal described, "definitely more rock... with pretty much zero straight hip-hop" on the album, it won't be the first group to snip the rap out of the hybrid formula that set off its career. At least one band beat Limp Bizkit to it -- and has disappointing results to show for it.

In an effort to evolve musically, and perhaps sensing that rap-rock's flame was flickering, Papa Roach made a point of emphasizing the rock on their new LP, Lovehatetragedy, the successor to 2000's triple-platinum Infest. And true to their word, the album, released in June, is virtually devoid of hip-hop elements, save for a bridge in the first single, "She Loves Me Not." The song was a hit at rock radio, but subsequent single "Time And Time Again" failed to match its popularity, despite (or perhaps due to) its use in a Pepsi Blue TV spot. Unable to broaden the band's core fanbase, which allowed it to sell a very solid 135,000 copies in its first week, Lovehatetragedy stands with 571,000 in total sales and has vanished from the Billboard albums chart seven months later. A gold album is nothing to scoff at, but with sales of less than 20 percent of the previous album, Lovehatetragedy has been a disappointment.

"Lovehatetragedy really is a fantastic record, but it didn't have a hit like [Infest's] 'Last Resort,' " HITS' Lenac said. "It all comes down to a hit is a hit is a hit, and 'Last Resort' is one of the biggest hits to come out in the last five years."

Korn also felt the sting from radio's lackluster reception of their latest album, Untouchables. Its first single, "Here To Stay," made an initial splash at radio and the album debuted at No. 2 on the charts with nearly 500,000 copies sold in its first week. But Untouchables started to slide when its next single, "Alone I Break," failed to take off. While third single "Thoughtless" hasn't exactly been ignored by radio, the album now stands at No. 159 on the chart, selling just 6,000 copies per week. Follow The Leader (1998) and Issues (1999) each sold more than 3 million copies, but Korn's 2002 album looks to have hit its plateau at 1.2 million.

Evidence of the genres' impact remains on the airwaves in the forms of P.O.D. and Linkin Park, both of whom enjoyed success in early 2002. But unlike 2001, when Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory was the year's best-selling album with sales of more than 5 million, singles by either band just aren't surrounded by their own kind anymore.

Bands that still manage to do well in a pared-down environment tend to have been part of the trend's upswing, like P.O.D., who were cultivating their sound for more than seven years and have the fanbase to prove it; or they excel with the formula, like Linkin Park, whose Reanimation sold more than a million copies in 2002, impressive for a remix album.

"Sure there's a lot of rap in [Linkin Park's] music, but they have great melodic hooks," said Guitar One Editor-in-Chief Troy Nelson. "Mike Shinoda raps while Chester Bennington sings these soaring choruses. They have this mass appeal - the people who are into rock and hip-hop. Plus, top 40 radio even embraced 'In the End.' It's like they have it all."

For their part, Korn and Papa Roach certainly didn't release subpar albums. Both LPs were welcomed by critics, with two writers for The New York Times ranking Untouchables among the 10 best albums of 2002. Its sales figures, however, place it as the band's worst-selling studio album. File-sharing and bootlegging have likely contributed to slumping sales for much of the industry, but without sustenance from radio, vital to an album's longevity, the odds of any new album topping the success of its predecessor are slim.

"I don't see an awful lot of loyalty to bands," said musicologist Paul Fischer, associate professor in the department of recording industry at Middle Tennessee State University, whose job it is to watch and explain musical trends. "It's all about, 'What's the buzz?' or, 'What do I have to know about?' And audiences will go with the flavor of the moment, rather than paying attention to a particular artist and watching them develop. So unless that artist generates some kind of buzz -- gets on the radio or on a real hot concert tour -- there's not a lot to draw attention to them to generate the sales."

If radio playlists are a reaction to the requests of listeners, and most people don't want to hear Korn and Papa Roach on the radio anymore, they certainly aren't open to second-tier acts in the genre, like Orgy, Dope and Hed (Planet Earth). Instead, they're favoring more straight-ahead rock groups like Nickelback and Puddle Of Mudd, who have the top two most played songs of 2002 in "How You Remind Me" and "Blurry," respectively. This stream of middle-of-the-road rock bands doesn't necessarily mark the start of a new trend, however -- comfort-food bands like Nickelback, Puddle Of Mudd and 3 Doors Down tend to dominate playlists in between trends.

"The music that always seems to stick around in rock is the more straight-ahead stuff, like Nickelback and Puddle Of Mudd," Guitar One's Nelson said. "It's the hooks and lyrics that never go away."

Nelson caught a taste of the changing tide the hard way. Papa Roach were selected to be the cover story of the August issue of Guitar One. After selling 3.2 million copies of their last album, the decision seemed like a no-brainer, Nelson said. But the issue wound up being one of the magazine's worst sellers of the year. Meanwhile, the issue that featured Nickelback on the cover was one of the best sellers.

One major-market radio station, Lenac said, completely removed all traces of rap-rock from its playlist over a year ago, and in one month saw a significant increase in ratings. For the majority of people in 2002, the rap-rock and nü-metal thing may have been played out.

"That's why I left Limp Bizkit," said guitarist Wes Borland, who departed in October 2001 to focus on his no-rap new band Eat the Day. "I smelled it then ... People grow up. People get tired of the same-old, same-old. Evolution is a good thing."

The mainstream appears to tire of trends every three or four years. Rap-rock and nü-metal's grip on the masses lasted for about as long as that of grunge, alternative, teen pop and boy bands. The novelty wears off when the music reaches a saturation point.

"Nothing lasts forever," Fischer said. "Mainstream business is geared toward moving units. [Labels] jump from trend to trend looking for where the sales are. They're thinking, 'Oh, let's imitate that band that sold well for another label last year, so we can have one too.' And they'll beat it to death."

Music made during the peak of a trend can also tend to sound dated. People who thought Crazy Town's mega-hit "Butterfly" was the soundtrack to their summer of 2001 didn't want the band back around the following year. Without a hit single, Crazy Town's Darkhorse has sold less than 60,000 copies, or four percent of The Gift Of Game's 1.5 million in sales.

Wes Borland says that if his old band doesn't move forward, it'll suffer the same fate. "A lot of the Limp Bizkit stuff is great, but it had its time period and now it's time to let it go," Borland said. "Just like you can't race the same horse over and over again. It's going to get tired and die."

Kid Rock is one versatile jockey, then. He helped ignite the rap-rock genre with 1998's Devil Without A Cause and pimped it through 2000 with the retrospective The History Of Rock. He returned in late 2001 with Cocky, whose first single, "Forever," was quintessential Kid Rock in the vain of "Bawitdaba" and "American Bad Ass." But it wasn't the hit his previous singles had been.

So Kid Rock adapted. Grounded in the country music strain displayed on Devil's "Only God Knows Why," Cocky's fourth single, "Picture," a duet with Allison Moorer (Sheryl Crow on the album and video), has become a crossover hit at radio and significantly boosted Cocky's sales in the last few weeks.

Kid Rock wasn't the only artist to break during the peak of rap-rock and nü-metal and find further success by changing things up. On their 2001 LP, Every Six Seconds, Saliva were the epitome of rap-rock. The 2002 follow-up, Back Into Your System, is far less rap-oriented, and it's all-rock single "Always" is among the first rock-radio hits of 2003. In 10 weeks, the album has averaged sales of 30,000 copies per week.

Another cause for nü-metal and rap-rock's slip from the spotlight could be a diluted talent pool caused by so many similar-sounding bands. American Head Charge, Primer 55, Adema, Cold, the Union Underground, Dope, Apartment 26, Hed (Planet Earth) and Skrape -- all of whom released albums between 2000-2001 -- left more of a collective impression than individual ones.

"What was innovative and sounded different a year and a half or two years ago is suddenly everywhere, because all the major labels have jumped on the bandwagon," musicologist Fischer said. "Once it gets to the point where every third record pushed to radio stations sounds similar, the labels make an effort to be different because [the musical style has run its course]. That's one of the things that can put the brakes on a trend."

While mainstream audiences may have lost interest in sound-alike nü-metal acts, distinctive bands such as System Of A Down found a place at radio in 2002 and have the album sales of both Toxicity and Steal This Album! to show for it. Being able to sustain a career means being able to keep the music moving forward for the fans, and that might be easier without the pressure to fit in.

"In some cases, not being the trend of the day gives those musicians more freedom to stretch," Fischer said. "The artist can express themselves a little bit more, and the fans who weren't just the trendy fans, those who really like the music, will pay attention to it."

Maintaining the balance of being innovative while not overstepping the audience is an issue that Limp Bizkit face as they prep their new album. The first LP the group is recording without founding guitarist Wes Borland, it's seen by some as the make-or-break album for the band. For Less Is More to pass the test, it needs to transcend the past and set a direction for the future. And if frontman Fred Durst's predictions are to be taken literally, get ready for a Limp Bizkit the likes of which we've never seen.

"The fact that I am sick of this new rock inspired me to reinvent it and be one of the pioneers," Durst said. "[This is] a stepping stone for our genre, [and we want] to really help contribute to it in a positive way, the same way we contributed to it back in the day. It's time to reinvent and pull a Madonna on everybody."