Those two were accomplices more than enemies, though; Robinson amplified the demands Jordison made of his bandmates as nu-metal’s first master technician. Slipknot had sheared off most of the instrumental excess that came with coming up in Des Moines’ death metal scene (home to band names like Modifidious, Vexx, and Inveigh Catharsis), but not Jordison. His kick drum could replicate the sound of a jet engine or an industrial thresher. And then it gets punctuated by the sound of a guy bashing a steel shipping container or a beer keg, a perfect merger of virtuosity and dumb violence; I imagine this is what Lars Ulrich thought he was hearing during the St. Anger recording.
Though Slipknot is a nearly flawless execution of a single idea, Slipknot, the band, were still figuring some things out. “Tattered & Torn” and especially “Prosthetics” are Slipknot’s “experimental tracks,” showcases for Jones and turntablist Sid Wilson that argue for an alternate history living out their earliest dreams of signing to Ipecac and touring with Fantômas or Mr. Bungle. “Spit It Out” lives on the complete opposite end; this is the song that got the interest of Robinson and Roadrunner Records and sounds like Static-X in a Spirit Halloween. When Taylor remembers that Slipknot are a metal band, they sound like the subject of a congressional investigation. When he raps, he sounds like the backpacker you’d avoid in the school cafeteria.
The most revealing document of Slipknot figuring it all out comes not from the bounty of demos and live cuts, but the official video for “Wait and Bleed.” Though Slipknot are playing in front of a dazed, crazed crowd of thousands, it doesn’t look glamorous, because it’s not; the footage is from Mancow’s Lazer Luau II, a 1999 shock-jock radio festival at Ankeny Airfield in Des Moines. The video is overlain by a hazy scrim, like the camera was sitting on the tarmac in the oppressive Iowa summer. Compare that to the live clip for “People = Shit,” off their 2001 follow-up, Iowa. In “Wait and Bleed,” Taylor mutters, “This song is called ‘Wait and Bleed.’” Before the beat drops in “People = Shit” he hollers, “Let me see your fucking hands in the air, London!” They now have higher-end, custom-made gear, they do crowdwork, they headbang in unison instead of flopping all over the stage. Even if you still get them confused with Insane Clown Posse, there’s no denying how incredible it looks.
Yet by 2001, there was a lingering sense that this style of music was on its way out. Korn’s Issues, Limp Bizkit’s Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water, “Back to School,” all of it was still doing numbers, but the returns were diminishing; Linkin Park proved that nu-metal was more likely to merge with their TRL competitors than vanquish them. I distinctly remember leafing through an issue of Rolling Stone with Slipknot on the cover and a four-star review of the Strokes’ Is This It, and thinking it could be a cultural turning point à la Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana duking it out at the Video Music Awards. The next issue was their 9/11 tribute; Clear Channel stations banned songs ranging from 311’s “Down” to Drowning Pool’s “Bodies” and Jimmy Eat World had to temporarily self-title their breakthrough album. No one knew what America needed to heal at that time, but it probably wasn’t “People = Shit.”
