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Roughly half a year ago there was a discussion here on the cultural legacy and (then) recent renewed interest and negative portrayal of the Woodstock ’99 music festival in the mainstream media. I haven’t seen the two documentaries in question but I’ve heard commentaries on them, and they agreed that much of the sneering and hostility present in their narratives is actually directed at the nu-metal genre in general, and the antics of Fred Durst in particular. I was sort of surprised that nobody mentioned this in the discussion. Anyway, it certainly doesn’t surprise me that much that they’d contextualize the whole incident in that way, as nu-metal is generally seen as an embarrassing and pathetic cringefest which was a plague upon pop music at the turn of the Millennium, thankfully one that largely disappeared after a few years as quickly as it appeared. And it was roughly at the zenith of its popularity when this festival took place, which was dominated by nu-metal bands.
When I’ve heard these commentaries I started looking for more on Youtube as my interest was piqued. Back when the BBC Learning TV channel existed it ran a rather good one-hour documentary on the incident but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find it. (I saw one or two other short documentaries from the same period i.e. 2000/2001.) I do recall, however, finding some news report which featured a segment from an interview with Sheryl Crow, who also performed at the festival and had a rather bad experience. I saw this YT clip about two years ago and can’t find it again unfortunately. To paraphrase from memory, she argued that the reason she found the whole scandal repulsive was that the white male nu-metal fans who committed numerous acts of arson, vandalism, rape, harassment etc. were mostly from functioning middle-class homes in the suburbs, objectively privileged by global standards, yet were constantly angry and destructive and couldn’t even put it in words why. She basically accused them of toxic masculinity even though I don’t recall her using that exact expression, but I wasn’t surprised anyway because she came across as the average lipstick feminist.
Leaving the subject of the festival aside, I wonder how nu-metal will be viewed in the context of the culture war. It appears to me that as a phenomenon it was a canary in a coalmine, providing an outlet for the angst of the young white (mostly) male members of a social class that was turning into the precariat under a system of late-stage capitalism, whose average quality of life was about to start collapsing. (Rising rates of mortality, alcoholism, illegitimacy, fatherlessness, unemployment, opioid addiction, prescription pill abuse etc.)
Replying specifically to your comment about nu metal being seen as cringe in its time and after. I think this is correct, but it's worth asking what factors are at work here. What was nu metal, and why might people have hated it?
Class. The audience of Woodstock 99 apparently skewed middle class (the tickets were expensive, but I don't have demographic data); but broadly speaking bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit were "white trash," sometimes lumped in with acts like Eminem, Kid Rock, and (shudder) Insane Clown Posse. Moving into the '00s, a greater divide formed between social classes in popular music – the Pitchfork hipsters mocked and reviled the ICPs of the world (but celebrated trashy black music). This in contrast to the popularity of grunge in the early 90s, a genre which was aesthetically working class but which enjoyed popularity with middle class kids.
Race. Attitudes towards cultural appropriation in the '90s were obviously different; but even in 1999 it was understood that "white people shouldn't rap." Actually, it was probably harder to be a white rapper in '99 – nowadays there are acts like G-Eazy who apparently enjoy success despite their race. But in the '90s the major figures in peoples' minds as far as white rappers were... well, there was Vanilla Ice. Eminem ultimately side-stepped this in various ways – by being technically gifted and by using humour. The nu metal vocalists (Durst, Davis, Taylor) were neither lyrically talented nor (intentionally) funny.
Subject matter (i.e. male emotions, sexual abuse). This aspect is the most interesting to me, by far. Korn's frontman sang about his various childhood traumas, including sexual abuse. This was mocked at the time by other nu metal artists, but this is narcissism of small differences. Some examples of subject matter, by band: Limp Bizkit, breakups, murder, suicide; Slipknot, childhood trauma, rage; Korn, sexual abuse, childhood trauma, bullying; Linkin Park, breakups, sexual abuse, childhood trauma... I could go on. Moving into the '00s, nu metal gave way to pop punk (decidedly more ironic and emotionally guarded) and mainstream hip-hop (even the comparatively cerebral Kanye West never rapped about his uncle touching his private parts), with only emo music going anywhere near the kind of "icky" subjects discussed by Korn et al – and even then, it's comparatively tame and aesthetic. Why exactly we saw an outpouring of lyrics like these in the late '90s is a question worth contemplating.
It's worth noting as well that in the past ~5 years nu metal has enjoyed renewed popularity among the youths – Gen Z seems to have brought much of it back. I work at an art college, and see plenty of Linkin Park, Deftones, and Slipknot t-shirts – but not Korn or Limp Bizkit, so make of that what you will. And yes, they really do actually listen to those bands – I've asked them.
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The site ate my post but I don't agree with your last paragraph. I don't think was a canary for anything, the period 90-08 was a great time for white boys. The bottom only fell out for the white precariat in the GFC and things didn't start shifting culturally until like 2010-2012.
Was Nu-metal worse than other comparable music scenes? I have no idea but it seems to me that it's a good target to shit on (and disregard base rates) because it was so dorky, kind of like Juggalos.
I'd argue the situation of the white precariat class started eroding many years before 2008 but their problems were papered over by cheap credit and these trends remained unseen under the surface while public attention focused on the Bush Admin's wars and the usual culture war issues. I recall that Steve Sailer observed the data and concluded that negative trends in white life expectancy started around 2002.
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