re: Watched the Woodstock 99 documentary on HBOMax today…

I think Korn got the critical support because they seem like they have something to say other than the horny, macho testosterone of Limp Bizkit (not that we don’t need horny, macho testosterone from time to time).

Where bands like Korn started to lose me is that their themes of existential dread and suffering seem to be the only thing they had to say.

You have to wonder, “Has Jonathan Davis ever woken up and had himself a good day?”

Watching this and 25 minutes in they're going racial with DMX. I know these people were alive in 90s so they know better. The N word wasn't near as taboo and it was thrown around freely, especially in music.

WTF was the crowd supposed to respond to DMX? The guy was putting on a killer show and had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Of course the response to DMX call was going to be N-bombs, that's the song.

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There's also a massive difference between a song encouraging people to break shite because they've had a bad day and a song criticizing the military industrial complex. Not entirely defending RATM because their "aggressive" music certainly added fuel to the fire, but if that segment of the documentary is accurate, the fire had already been ignited by Durst and Limp Bizkit. I'm fully aware as well that that may have been intentional by the filmmakers.

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Even at the time, Limp Bizkit was just considered blind rage compared to the more established "heaviness" of RATM and Metallica. By the time 1999 was around, Metallica was considered pretty radio friendly for over a decade.

From a general crowd control POV things had calmed down considerably even between Limp Bizkit and Metallica a few hours later.

While the Limp Bizkit set was wild (and people did "break stuff" during that set), to say that people got embolded by Fred Durst being a moron, and then proceeded to go back to their tents, go to sleep, and then wreck the place completely 24 hours later is a stretch.

Not to mention, the Sunday riots kickstarted with the fires at the East stage Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.

Here are the last 4 bands of the East stage that day:

Elvis Costello/Jewel/Creed/Red Hot Chili Peppers

Running at the exact same time, these were the bands on the West Stage

Sevendust/Ice Cube/Godsmack/Megadeath

It was over a mile between stages and the set change times were only 15minutes, so most people just kinda hung out near one that had a few bands in a row that they liked. Now, which stage do you think the Limp Bizkit/RATM/Metallica fans would have spent most of their time at that Sunday evening if offered the following options?

Elvis Costello vs. Sevendust
Jewel vs. Ice Cube
Creed vs. Godsmack
RHCP vs. Megadeath.

Yeah....those dudes that were ripping planks off the tower during Limp Bizkit that, were more than likely a mile away when the fires started.

1969, girls walk around naked it was the sexual revolution, feminism, girl power, my body.

1999, girls walk around naked it's Girls, Gone, Wild, exploitation, this is wrong.

This is ridiculous. Those girls were feeling free and liberated just like the girls in 1969.

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So, you contention that Freak On A Leash is an amped-up thrasher similar, they are not that deep? Because my point is that critics appreciated the wider diversity of themes in Korn’s whole repertoire, not just their hit singles.

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My contention is that Korn's music isn't deep at all. When they weren't singing "misogynistic" shite like Freak and A.D.I.D.A.S., they were singing angry, angsty emo stuff. It doesn't have any more artistic merit or lyrical value than Limp Bizkit. So critics liked them, so what?

I'm at the Limp portion of the doc now. Wow, so many questions about what is making young white males angry. Well, it's been happening for a while and is still happening. Too many young males raised by single moms being told that they can't act, or act out, like boys. Can't sit still in school, problem kid, here's some Ridalin. Don't act like that, be nice, be a good boy.

At some point when a young male hits that age where they leave home and they're in their late teens to early 20s all that repression just explodes out of them.

Again, were any of these people doing this doc coming of age in the 90s?

And earlier they're passing Nirvana off as some deep thinking, inner peace band. They were one of the original bands to tap into the F you, there is no hope, I'm ready to explode feeling percolating under the surface.

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What the hell is wrong with you GenX/early Millennials?

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I hope you know we all pack chainsaws. And we’ll skin your arse raw.

I'm just finishing this up but could not believe what I just heard one of them idiots say. Woodstock 99 was the umbilical cord to the 90s full of dark energy and angst that has been cut compared to where we are today in 2021.

Holy crap! Did these people just ignore 2020 and the cities burning last summer, the CHAZ zone, the riots. The angst and rage from 1999 is still with us and probably worse today.

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The documentary only spent like 5 minutes discussing the music scene at that time but it should’ve been talked about more. It was pretty much Disney pop music being played on MTV with Britney and boy bands taking over

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They really need to do more in depth relook at 90's music and trends. There are a few things about 90's music that just get more interesting over time.

I turned 21 in 1998. By that time, 70's and 80's nights were very common periodic occurrences at a few select local bars and clubs. If you did not go specifically to those places/events on those nights, you did not hear a song from that era. Presumably, the 90's should have had the same fate....and it hasn't.

If you walked into a bar in most cities, even in a crowd of people born in the late 90's, and threw on the now 30-year old "Smells Like Teen Spirit", it would NOT garner the "WTF, who let the old guy in here, is this a joke?" look like walking into a bar in 1998 and playing any song from 1978.

The backbones of 90's music for some reason (from Grunge, to even including Nu Metal and Disney Pop), never fell far enough out of the way to go retro. There was never a 5 year period between then and now where a mass of population just ever rejected the music enough to allow it to fade away completely and come back as some sort of themed special event.

That's one of the reason I think any "Woodstock 99 killed the music" narrative rings hollow. Those songs didn't suddenly just drop off a cliff in popularity in 2000 or 2001.