Nu Metal Band Korn Has a No. 1 Song on Active Rock Radio — Is the Format Making a Comeback?
variety.comKatherine Turman Nearly 30 years after the band’s inception, Korn’s new single, “Start the Healing,” hit No. 1 on the Active Rock radio charts in mid-February.
It marked a triumphant return to the format, which made stars of the nu-metal trailblazers.Lauren Christy, a songwriter/producer who first collaborated with Korn as part of The Matrix for the band’s 2005 album “See You on the Other Side,” shares songwriting credit on “Start the Healing.” She’s close with singer Jonathan Davis, who, for “Requiem,” requested: “I just want your melodies, Lauren, I don’t need any help with lyrics on this record.”The emotional theme of “Start The Healing” is indeed personal for Davis, but its lyrics work on a meta level. “We’ve all been through a lot of pain in our lives,” Christy observes.” And I think it’s just that at a certain point, you’ve got to walk into the future.
And I feel like for JD, that’s where he’s at. Just walking into the light, you know?” The collaboration proved a winning formula as the song picked up spins and its video, which premiered on YouTube in November, racked up more than 3.7 million views.Korn’s sound hasn’t changed drastically since the band’s creation.
But radio has. And today, Korn — and other ’90s-bred bands including System of a Down and Linkin Park — get virtually no airplay on their hometown rock stations, where, in Los Angeles, a once dominant KROQ has slowly given way to competitor Alt 98.7, an iHeartRadio station, as both playlist their version of alternative.Ironic since, “When KROQ played Korn’s [1994] ‘Blind,’ it was the first song that really opened up the doors for that whole genre of heavy rock,” says David Benveniste of Velvet Hammer Music and Management Group, which manages Korn.
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