Old Mr Dangerous said

So sailing back to the og subject at hand, did Twiztid balance the rap rock Well?

Sometimes. Often, even. I love some of those Mutant rock tracks. Some H&H songs were okay.    

I thought they balanced it well because they didn't go full Limp Bizkit with the crossover or anything like that. At the heart of the tracks they stayed true to their hip hop routes.

Skipping ahead, Scruffy and I discussed before how there were very few bands that actually pulled off the rap metal thing, at least to the point where it wasn't an aural distraction.

Rage Against the Machine is the prime example. Everything fits so well and it rings organic, like it couldn't have been meant any other way. They also barely ever wandered into personal complaint areas, save for maybe Settle For Nothing, Born of a Broken Man, and some of the covers they did for Renegades. However, these could also be viewed as allegorical to civil injustice for the masses, not as literal family tales.

So sailing back to the og subject at hand, did Twiztid balance the rap rock Well?

Sometimes. Often, even. I love some of those Mutant rock tracks. Some H&H songs were okay.  

On the real I've always been a musical elitist, but I never made any bones about the reason why "your" music sucks is because it's not "my" music, which is fresh. I was a big hater when Linkin Park was popping off, but I almost had to be. It was a very angsty time in radioland, with LP, Limp Bizkit and Puddle of Mudd dominating the teenage cultural landscape while I subsisted on a steady diet of metal and wicked shit. 

"Angry Whiny Whitekid Music", I used to call it. This wasn't about image though, this was about genuine distaste for that sound. My brother used to have Hybrid Theory on constant spin between Get Rich or Die Tryin', The 8 Mile Soundtrack and, uh, Buttholes and Sausagelinks or whatever. Closest I came to that sound was Slipknot, and even with them I got real picky real fast. I used to have an arsenal of shade to throw at Linkin Park (but to be fair, I had plenty of exposure to them via forced promixity),

"Yell and headbang all you want. I can't respect your band if you look like I can beat each of you up."

"They should have named that album 'I'm Twisted Up Over a Bitch'. And the follow up should been 'I'm Still Twisted Up Over a Bitch but I'm Mad About Other Stuff Too ps Fuck You Mom I'm a Rap Rocker'"

'Heavy' and 'Aggressive' were words both MTV and the schoolyard rubes threw around a lot regarding those kind of bands, and it always rubbed me the wrong way. It was loud, sure, but it wasn't heavy. Not to me. Heavy wasn't sensitive. It didn't give a fuck about your feelings. It wasn't *about* your feelings. It gave you The Power if you want it, but be careful you don't get kicked in the teeth.

Aggressive wasn't your baggy pants and bad douchebag attitude. Aggressive to me was stalking you from blocks away with plenty of advance notice regarding your inevitable death. Aggressive was Diemuthafuckadie til you were so fucking dead we're gonna bring your undead ass back around to kick it all over again. I used to wonder what Fred Durst was so mad at- he gave himself that fucking haircut. He only had himself to blame so leave that poor furniture alone. 

Eventually I started dating a metalhead chick, which is a culture unto itself of elitist circle jerking. I fit in disturbingly well, considering I was the guy with whom any discourse could be negated with "What the fuck do you know? You like ICP!" ...I will boast of recieving the (absofuckinglutely meaningless) occasional distinction of being called cvlt as fvck tho.

That kind of snobby atmosphere cultivates (the delusion of) a critical ear. I've been called out more than once for my predilection for enjoying the most garbage, off-beat Horrorcore but turning into your self-righteous middle school music teacher for anything with more than three chords and a melody. The moral of the story is, you like what you like and there really is no accounting for taste.

Epilogue: Years down the road I saw the rapper dude from Linkin Park plugging his solo project on late night TV. It wasn't my style, but I had to admit that the guy actually does have legit hiphop chops. He could spit. And I really, really didn't want to. It was like finding out that the lil gay kid you used to tease in class is actually chill as fuck and you're forced to recognize that you're just an asshole.

scruffy said
dont see whats so 'not cool' about linkin park.  

i dont listen to that shit, myself, but i do bump stuff thats further down the wack-o-meter than them.  

i guess monoxide hasnt been yodeling as much lately?  seems like the first time its been brought up in a while.    

I dunno, I guess anything that sells platinum will always be seen as "not cool"by the elite youngsters and oldsters. Listening to ICP in general can end an entire introductory conversation. The people i work with, besides maybe 2, all can't wrap their head around why I enjoy listen to and attending the concerts of Insane Clown Posse. 

Some musicians that I enjoy, whom have rolled eyes when I mention them:

Garth Brooks

Aerosmith

Hank Williams III 

Fergie (3 songs, but still)

Alanis Morissette 

Dr. Octagon

Gangstagrass

Boyz II Men

Marilyn Manson

Yeah, music elitists are the worst. I once designed a shirt with three H's that read "Honorary Hipster Hunter". Because I hung out with an insane elitist whose insecurity about image and "coolness" soon became a descent into madness. This dude would say he hated a movie that he professed love for the very day before. All the time. I used to play Dog Beats and KMK with him when we were tripping 13 year olds, then he said they weren't cool. So I would bombard his MySpace with the silliest KMK pictures I could find to remind him of his past. Dude went from "white thug" to crust punk to faux yuppie, despite now being too old to keep trying on new hats. Yeah, people suck.

i dont listen to that shit, myself, but i do bump stuff thats further down the wack-o-meter than them.  

i guess monoxide hasnt been yodeling as much lately?  seems like the first time its been brought up in a while.  

TheFvckinKreeper said

Didn't know that, but for sure I believe it. I recall shortly before leaving Psy Mono saying they would love a collab with Five Finger Death Punch. 

...instead we got Twiztid and The Wickedness and Mono fucking up the classics with inappropriate and poorly executed gutteral vocals during live shows. Nobody from around my way gave The Wickedness any love. I guess they kept the drummer, Draxx0n Darklord or some shit. I'm not gonna be that jackass who says "huurr they rippin off Tech" but the fact remains, Tech did do both the vocals and live drummer first, and infinitely better. 

Innovating and playing with your sound is one thing, but that hard left into psuedo-mall metal was just a weird era and smelled like a post-Juggalo crisis of identity even then.  

Yeah if I'm not mistaken, Jamie uttered this on a FLH interview. When he praised Linkin Park the interviewer got silent and you could tell he wasn't too big on them, and Jamie said something funny about when you admit you like a band that's "not cool" and how awkward that can be lol.

Monoxide and that live yodeling has it's own thread too lol. It's that prevalent.

Old Mr Dangerous said
Perhaps Madrox should just do what he is feeling and make that pop-punk, screamo album he's holding inside lol

I recall Madrox saying how big of an influence Linkin Park was to him, on a rap and singing level. Bet he was affected by Chester's suicide quite a much.  

Didn't know that, but for sure I believe it. I recall shortly before leaving Psy Mono saying they would love a collab with Five Finger Death Punch. 

...instead we got Twiztid and The Wickedness and Mono fucking up the classics with inappropriate and poorly executed gutteral vocals during live shows. Nobody from around my way gave The Wickedness any love. I guess they kept the drummer, Draxx0n Darklord or some shit. I'm not gonna be that jackass who says "huurr they rippin off Tech" but the fact remains, Tech did do both the vocals and live drummer first, and infinitely better. 

Innovating and playing with your sound is one thing, but that hard left into psuedo-mall metal was just a weird era and smelled like a post-Juggalo crisis of identity even then.

I recall Madrox saying how big of an influence Linkin Park was to him, on a rap and singing level. Bet he was affected by Chester's suicide quite a much.

You have a good point about their versatility, though. Horrorcore aside they make a lot of diverse choices with sound. Mutant and H&H had a few tracks that were almost pop punk. Freek Show is for sure a product of its time with vaguely grunge and industrial touches, to say nothing of We Don't Die's then-current raprock sound.

My friends and I joke that "I Got These Feelings" wouldn't be out of place on a 80's New Wave playlist.

Where I'll disagree is between Abominationz and The Darkness. I said before that the latter feels like the second disc of an Abominationz double album. Hell, the whole last quarter of that album was its own B-sides.

TheFvckinKreeper said
Am I the only one who prefers New Nightmare over any of the LPs they've done since? 

Nope, I too much prefer New Nightmare. I think they somewhat got back to that "different" sound in a few songs off TCELO? which I dug.

If there's one thing you can't knock Twiztid for, is that they don't switch up there style. Every album sounds different and you don't get that a lot in this day and age of rap.

"Sick Man - *** - sounds like how Twiztid want to sound. House of Krazees with better production."

^^My thoughts exactly when I first heard that shit, only to have my wig obliterated with an actual House of Krazees closer, complete with all of the aural cues that ought to go into a modern HOK Track. Then...fuckall since, save for a Best Of Compilation. We got Zodiac before Krazees, for chrissakes. Between this and Samhain Witch Killaz, House of Krazees fans are a longsuffering lot.

Give me just one true-to-form Krazees LP and I'll be good with Twiztid's career for the rest of my natural life. I don't care if they wanna do Heartbroken and Homicidal 2: Double Penetration featuring The Black Viel Brides and offer free manicures and blowies for VIPs. Whatever dog, do you, I got my shit.

Old Mr Dangerous said

Down Here - ** - Mono can't help but let his subliminals deter from enjoyment. I preferred when ABK and Violent J did a track of the same name.

"Her ugly-ass titties had a rat hangin and chewin off of each nipple"

No Breaks - *** - always liked the song and video, reminds me of "Know Good.

Down Here - ** - Mono can't help but let his subliminals deter from enjoyment. I preferred when ABK and Violent J did a track of the same name.

Sick Man - *** - sounds like how Twiztid want to sound. House of Krazees with better production. Blaze is good in this, he should just join Twiztid. Fuck Triple Threat. Just call yourselves Blaztid... Love the horror icon roles, but those dudes don't need to be involved in this.

Unjust Love - *** 1/5 - I am biased because I love Danny Boone, and Rehab in general. Pretty catchy.

More soon.