Decades Project: 2000s Music–Angry Music

During my early 20s, I listened to a decent amount of rap metal. Or as my roommate, Mark, called it…angry music. I would file share with him, and he always joked that if he wanted some angry white guy rock, he knew where to look. I had an eclectic collection of music (the good ol’ days of stealing music from the internet), but there were definitely a ton of these types of bands. It is kind of funny because the late 90s was really most of their heyday, but it feels like some of these bands released something that was good, but not quite great from 2000-2002.

Listen, Limp Bizkit was insanely huge when I graduated from high school and went off to college. “Nookie” and “Break Stuff” were played almost constantly. Seriously, you could hear their songs on every floor of the dorms. Then the next year, Fred Durst and his bandmates released Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water, which was good, but nowhere near as great as the previous album. I always thought this was the best song from that album.

You cannot mention this style of music without talking about Rage Against the Machine. Unfortunately, my favorite RATM songs came out in the 90s. But this album was released in 2000, and Rage showed how you can make covers into your own unique brand of music. Seriously, check out the original and see how much RATM turned this into their song. 

My sophomore year at Gannon ended up being kind of crappy. I had issues with my roommates, and once I made the decision to transfer to Penn State, I saw no reason to reconcile with them (funny enough, I have reconciled with one of them, we have been friends for years now, mostly playing fantasy sports together) and I spent many of my nights away from them watching TV or listening to music. One night, I saw the premiere of “One Step Closer” and I thought it was fantastic. I wrote down the band’s name, and the next time I went to the record store, I bought Hybrid Theory.

I saw them at X-Fest one year, they were good. But the highlight of the show was a dude without a shirt, and the hairiest back I have ever seen. As we walked toward the stage, you could see a giant empty space. It was people staying well clear of his back, like they gave him a three-foot perimeter, almost like he was radioactive. 

Just to prove the entire genre is not just angry music, here is 311. I bought this album when it came out, and honestly, I still think it is probably my favorite album from them.

And finally we have Bloodhound Gang. I guess they are rap metal, although I would not consider this song rap metal. But, I think this song is hilarious and totally captures Pennsylvania.