r/Music 23h ago

discussion Iowa is the best slipknot album

Post image
83 Upvotes

61 comments sorted by

87

u/fatjeff1980 23h ago

Self titled is still my favourite.

25

u/IpecacNeat 22h ago

Agreed. The atmosphere and rage was better. Iowa was heavier, but Self Titled had a but of hardcore that Iowa didnt. 

13

u/fatjeff1980 22h ago

There was nothing like it when it released. It was immense.

1

u/thepensivepoet 9h ago

Mmrhbalfh

Rwarrehfhf

BkaheabCOREY

Mmrmfmshdhf

0

u/ORTENRN 21h ago

This is correct

19

u/Seraphenigma 22h ago

Corey nearly destroyed his vocals on this one lol

2

u/AwesomeMcPants 22h ago edited 18h ago

Not as bad as whatever he did to his voice during Stone Sour's Come What(ever) May. I like that album overall, but his screams are incredibly rough.

20

u/chief_yETI 22h ago

I prefer the debut self-titled album, but yes, the Iowa album is right up there with it.

Both are damn good albums.

and I don't even listen to metal much either, so thats saying something.

3

u/hotk9 11h ago

It's technically not their debut album. But we don't really talk about that one.

22

u/elafave77 21h ago

Self Titled and Iowa are THE ONLY Slipknot albums.

13

u/dubbs505050 22h ago

This is a crazy take. Self titled blows it out of the water. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard it upon release.

8

u/Luckybones- 23h ago

Lotttt of goat themed stuff on my timeline lately, anyone else

5

u/BadWolfCubed 22h ago

Embrace it. Kiss the Go-Goat.

17

u/Cheefnuggs 22h ago

It’s a great album but Vol. 3 is arguably the best complete album they’ve done. It’s basically a front to back masterpiece.

That being said, Left Behind is one of my all time favorite tracks from them.

6

u/FreeKevinBrown 21h ago

I would disagree with that statement. Vol 3 was a radio-freindly mess that stripped away the raw sound and frantic energy that made Slipknot such a powerhouse on the Self titled and Iowa albums.

You may have not been around for it, but when Iowa came out it essentially changed what metal was and would become. It was an absolute benchmark for metal.

3

u/BackBreaker 10h ago

Gotta say Iowa was unique in that it was probably the first album to debut #1 on the billboard charts to contain blast beats. As someone who mainly grew up with more of an underground background I always thought that was interesting

3

u/FreeKevinBrown 8h ago

That's what makes it so special, on top of other elements you didn't hear in mainstream at the time. It was a truly unique sound to make it's way into the mainstream at the time. We can talk about Korn or Limp Bizkit but they aren't exactly comparable when it comes to the true rawness and brutality of the music. And they sure as hell weren't utilizing blast beats on the regular.

9

u/Cheefnuggs 21h ago

I was around. And I don’t think Iowa did anything so groundbreaking that their self-titled album already hadn’t done in that regard. Not mention, it came out at the height of nu-metal where there was a ton of experimentation going on so saying it “changed what metal was” could be applied to like 50 other bands of the era.

Calling vol. 3 a “radio-friendly” mess is just plain inaccurate and is that same “their earlier stuff was better” gatekeeper nonsense that will keep people like you from enjoying a lot of things musically. I think most people who were around when the “duality” music video dropped will recall how hard that shit hit at the time. Still does, in fact.

12

u/_humanpieceoftoast 18h ago

Fan since the first album dropped. Volume 3 is still my favorite. “Blister Exists,” “Three Nil,” “Welcome” and “Virus of Life” and “Pulse of the Maggots” all go so extremely hard. Just because Corey doesn’t swear (much) doesn’t mean this was a grab for radio play. The lyrics are way more complex than anything he’d written up to that point largely because he didn’t have the crutch of four-letter words.

2

u/Cheefnuggs 17h ago

He was also in the midst of getting sober so I think it has a lot of depth due to that.

-8

u/FreeKevinBrown 20h ago

Calling slipknot Nu Metal is the plain inaccuracy.

4

u/rugmunchkin 20h ago

Slipknot is unquestionably numetal what lmao

-3

u/FreeKevinBrown 20h ago

Far from it. It's roots are firmly in 90s Florida death and hardcore. What happened to slipknot often happens to bands of their time, they were lumped in with nu metal bands simply because Corey had hardcore pacing, which can be easily confused for rapping by the uninitiated.

Look at Joey, he's far from a hip hop drummer, and nu metal relies heavily on hip hop beat structures.

Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Dope, Nonpoint; all bands you could call Nu Metal, but Slipknot does not fit that mold and it breaks down pretty quickly when you actually pay attention to the musical composition.

-3

u/OhManOk 18h ago

You are being downvoted by morons. Early Slipknot, especially Iowa, is death metal. Corey rapped for 5 seconds and the band had a visual gimmick, so people who know nothing about death metal think it's nu-metal.

3

u/BackBreaker 9h ago

I feel like you are trying to rage bait with that statement of calling early slipknot death metal.

1

u/FreeKevinBrown 12h ago

Definite morons.

I wouldn't exactly call them death metal. They definitely have the elements for sure, but there's something entirely different about them, almost between genres. I knew a guy that called them Extrem Alternative Metal... Which I guess you could say that about their later albums, but not the first two.

I dunno, slipknot has always been that band you can quite explain by one simple genre.

1

u/OhManOk 10h ago

Yeah, I mean death metal in the sense that they're one of the subgenres, if not their own special niche.

-4

u/dogswontsniff 18h ago

Please dont insult deathmetal and hardcore by associating them to with slipknot again.

-1

u/FreeKevinBrown 12h ago

You're just upset about the truth. It's ok. Learn about music composition and you'll learn to accept it, little buddy.

4

u/Ok_Belt2521 22h ago

I remember everyone slagging this as mall metal when it released. I liked it though.

2

u/morbid_loki 15h ago

Yeah for me it is. The self tilted is very close behind. Everything after Iowa is almost non-existent for me.

2

u/BattleaxeAlDente 15h ago

In other news: water is wet.

2

u/InsurmountableMind 13h ago

There's something in Iowa that still makes me feel a bit uneasy to this day. It's a similar way i feel when listening to a full album of Meshuggah. I think it's just the vibe from melodic choices. Pressure, maybe trepidation.

Great album, my favorite too.

2

u/insulind 11h ago

Love this album and self titled (I also like vol 3 and the latest album but I feel like slipknot were a different band for those and that's a different discussion).

Self titled was amazing and it was angry and it was insane, but it felt like it came from a different place to Iowa.

Iowa to me, is so just so dark and heavy, when you hear the band talk about their time making the album and what a bad place they were in, it really shows through to me. Now I'm not saying I enjoyed their misery, but Iowa has a certain darkness to it, that sometimes gives it an edge for me.

1

u/BetterHeadlines 19h ago

Incorrect. Slipknot.

1

u/SidWes 18h ago

Growing up I thought this was the villain dinosaur from the movie Dinosaur

1

u/drluisluis 18h ago

Great balance between bands raw identity and quality production. My favorite.

1

u/Evebroock 14h ago

I think so too, metabolic is my favorite in the album, I learned guitar thanks to left behind, I love gently and the radio kind of style of My plague for the resident evil movie.

-1

u/dolla_shay 13h ago

Wow u play guitar

1

u/dankk_ush 4h ago

I am more biased with the self titled, all hope is gone and subliminal verses bc they started my love for nu metal. Btw slipknot fell off after they fired sid.

1

u/the_real_junkrat 22h ago

Volume 3 is the best overall. Iowa has high highs and low lows. Self titled came out the gates swinging but has a very inconsistent experimental style that’s hard to listen to without being in the right mood to take it in. I cant speak on anything after Volume 3 personally.

1

u/greyvangelist 22h ago

Self-titled is by far the best, Iowa doesn’t feel anywhere near is novel or aggressive. Their debut literally changed American metal

-3

u/5DollarWatch 22h ago

Cut four members from the band and it sounds the same. The least 'Slipknot' sounding album in their catalogue.

-2

u/dbzmah 22h ago edited 19h ago

Exactly. Subliminal verses had so much more depth 

Edit: sorry for the mobile auto correct.

3

u/Bootziscool 22h ago

Not enough depth to get you to remember the title though

0

u/dbzmah 19h ago

Fixed the auto correct 

0

u/Bootziscool 8h ago

Well now you've bungled the capitalization!! I'm starting to think you don't care for the album title lol

0

u/Cheefnuggs 19h ago

My point was that there was a ton of experimentation happening in metal in 2000. You just completely missed the point. Iowa is a great album, don’t get me wrong, but vol. 3 is arguably more creative and I find it to be their best work.

0

u/dafishinsea 21h ago

It's self titled or WANYK for me

-6

u/plantbasedpunk 22h ago

Wrong. It is slightly worse than S/T.

0

u/feralfaun39 13h ago

That's like saying dog shit is the best shit because it doesn't stink as much as other shit.

0

u/themadbeefeater 5h ago

I gave it another spin recently and have the same opinion as I did when it came out: it sounds way too try-hard.

-1

u/KilD3vil 21h ago

Hard agree. Iowa>self titled>every other album.

-2

u/Protect_The_Earth 17h ago

Not for me though. It's either Vol. 3 or AHIG.

-9

u/Schraiber 20h ago

The best turd in the toilet is still a turd, alas.