Rebels yelling again as 'metal' returns

Louder, angrier - but shorn of '80s big hair - heavy metal is back.

Teens have been attracted to the genre since Black Sabbath first picked up guitars 30 years ago. But its latest incarnation - highlighted by antics even Ozzy Osbourne never thought of - is even darker, making a generation of parents who grew up on KISS reach for the "off" switch. And this isn't just college students fascinated by the virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix. Increasingly, 13-year-olds are downloading Korn and Tool off the Internet.

The antics - and a few of the parents - are on display at Ozzfest, a tour showcasing this so-called "nu-metal." On stage, a band called Slipknot is lacerating the air with buzzsaw guitars and screeching vocals. It's unintelligible. But you might not want a libretto sheet: Slipknot's albums wear the "Parental Advisory" sticker as a badge of honor.

Thousands of teens cheer whenever Slipknot's nine members, wearing "serial killer" masks that would make Hannibal Lecter recoil in horror, thrash their heads in sync. But 'N Sync, they're not, and this is never more apparent than when they casually toss a stuffed goat's head around the stage.

"It's pure adrenaline," yells teen Jason Corkum, "and their masks are awesome."

Rebellion partly explains why teens have rediscovered heavy metal. But some observers say the current popularity of the music reflects boys' confusion about their gender's role in an era of "girl power."

"Kids derive a great deal of their sense of themselves from their peer group. And the peer group uses culture, especially music, as a badge of identity," says Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology at New York University.

"One way of differentiating yourself from the other crowd is by being more raw, more angry, more assertive, more offensive."

Still, who could have predicted that a new generation of teens, eager to find a voice to differentiate themselves from their elder siblings, would choose to resurrect the seemingly moribund genre of heavy metal? Only 10 years ago, "grunge" bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam overthrew the then-reigning czars of heavy metal, consigning guitar licks and hair spray to the dustbin of history - or so it seemed.

But metal is percolating into Casey Kasem's weekly rundown once again. Geoff Mayfield, director of charts at Billboard magazine, says that, alongside the usual rap and pop, nu-metal acts like Linkin Park, Drowning Pool, and Staind are among the top 20 best-selling acts this week. In fact, the latter's album, "Break the Cycle," has sold 12.5 million copies in just 11 weeks.

One reason heavy metal is shifting more units: savvy marketing. This year, some nu-metal bands have released pop singles (like Alien Ant Farm's version of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal"), ballads (Crazy Town's "Butterfly"), and acoustic songs (Staind's "In a Little While") to radio. Result: a wider audience, particularly among girls.

"It's a mellow song by a band whose body of work is much heavier, but girls only find that out after they've dropped 17 bucks to hear the song they like," says Sandy Chouchani of Youth Intelligence, a New York-based trend-research company.

To understand the multimillion sales by bands like Tool, Korn, and Mudvayne, one has to understand nu-metal's grass-roots appeal. So, how does this stuff play in Peoria?

Actually, Mudvayne are from Peoria. The Illinois town is just one of many Midwest cities where this new wave of American heavy metal seems to have started. In part, nu-metal's heartland origins are a reaction to the rap scene of the East and West Coasts. It was gangsta rap and hip-hop's rebellious sensibilities that attracted white teens looking for an alternative to grunge in the mid-'90s.

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