Korn: Life Is Peachy [IMMORTAL / EPIC]

Why you'll love it

Life Is Peachy debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 106,000 copies in its first week and went double platinum. It won Best Album at the 1997 Kerrang! Awards, and "No Place to Hide" drew a Grammy nomination.

About the album

Korn played somewhere between 200 and 250 shows in the year after their debut album, and by the time they came off the road they had a fan base and a set of expectations to match. They headed back to Indigo Ranch Studios in Malibu with producer Ross Robinson, and bassist Fieldy came up with the deceptively sunny title. Martin Riedl shot the cover photo.

The sound is metal riding hip hop beats, with Jonathan Davis's voice lurching from whisper to scat to full-throated howl. His performance on "Good God" is often pointed to as the moment nu metal found its shape. "Twist" bursts out of the gate in under a minute, "No Place to Hide" and "A.D.I.D.A.S." became UK chart singles, "Chi" grinds, and the band have fun with covers of War's "Lowrider" and Ice Cube's "Wicked," the latter with Deftones' Chino Moreno. Betrayal and revenge run through the lyrics, and Davis sells every word.

Limp Bizkit opened the first tour, then Korn supported Metallica and played Lollapalooza in 1997. It went from cult record to arena fixture in about a year, which is quicker than most of us manage to alphabetise the metal section.

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Tracklist

Listen

On Immortal / Epic (cat# 19958446151), a reissue of the 1996 album.