Greatest Hits Vol. 1 [Explicit Lyrics]

Korn: Jonathan Davis (vocals, bagpipe); James Shaffer, Brian Welch (guitar); Fieldy (bass guitar); David Silviera (drums).

Recording information: 1994 – 2004. GREATEST HITS VOL. 1 is a 17-track primer for Korn, a key force behind the “nu metal” tsunami that swept through pop music in the mid-to-late 1990s. Led by frontman (and former coroner’s assistant) Jonathan Davis, these California natives weave low-tuned guitars, hip-hop-fueled bass lines, and bleak imagery into memorable songs like the bile-fueled stomp-fest “Right Now,” goth-tinged “Alone I Break,” and frenetically raw “Freak on a Leash.” Davis’s struggle with family dysfunction is a consistent theme, from the band’s self-titled 1994 debut (a foreboding “Clown”), right up through 2003’s TAKE A LOOK IN THE MIRROR (an uber-heavy “Did My Time”). Korn also keeps pace with peers Marilyn Manson and Limp Bizkit (who both recorded unlikely covers) by adding a pair of new tracks—a faithful reading of Cameo’s “Word Up!” and, in keeping with their anti-authoritarian bent, a slight tweaking of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Parts 1, 2, 3).”