The albums Corey Taylor wanted to be remembered for: “Proud”
“It’s all music, as long as you’re feeling something,” Corey Taylor once said. He’d been explaining whether metal was a legitimate genre when he added, “Saying that Ornette Coleman couldn’t make jazz the way that he wanted to is not the same as saying it’s not jazz.”
Like many legends of metal, Taylor doesn’t write with the aim of creating the next best metal record. Most of the time, he doesn’t think about writing a metal record at all. Which is a common theme among many of his peers, who rarely think about the fact that they’re even a part of the genre until an interviewer starts asking them what it actually means. Or worse, whether it’s an even legitimate musical genre.
The answer always varies from person to person, but there’s usually a common consensus that reverts to the same line about simply making music that feels authentic. It’s why Ozzy Osbourne shunned the label altogether, preferring comparisons to rock and hard rock over what people have come to expect from metal. Being a part of the metal community is one thing, but defining its characteristics as a genre is a common battle.
But it says more about Taylor’s thoughts on the whole conversation that his focus remains on his personal relationship with his own music. “I just look and go ‘what am I trying to say? And what type of song would I like to use to do it?’” Taylor once said, and when you consider how personal most of Slipknot’s best songs actually are, any suspicions of metal being merely loud, aggressive noise go out of the window.
Because there’s another thing, too: most metal legends grew up and shaped their sound on people from rock and punk. Taylor specifically said the two tricks he keeps up his sleeve are The Clash and Cheap Trick, even though those influences might not be obvious, he’d be “nothing” without them. This is also what gives metal its element of surprise, especially for those expecting something else, only to be in awe when it goes in a completely different direction.
It all comes down to one thing: the fact that people often don’t realise just how much hard rock and metal is about constantly pushing boundaries. Some of the best metal is music you probably wouldn’t even consider as such. But it’s also a broad spectrum that makes it hard to choose Taylor’s best material, even though he claims to have the answer.
Discussing this with Louder, he said: “I’m pretty proud of everything I’ve done but if I had to do it, I’d say the first Slipknot album and Audio Secrecy. They’re both ends of the spectrum of what I do. The first Slipknot album is all chaos; the Stone Sour album is a baring of the soul.”
Two opposing mindsets for the musician, both records prove the value of both ends of Taylor’s vision, and how, no matter what, they always meet with a common theme in the middle. As he once put it, on why Stone Sour remains fresh, “For me, I love that I’m balancing the same kind of selflessness and bravery with the music of the songs, with almost a refreshing maturity when it comes to the lyrics that I write.”
