Korn - Life Is Peachy [Hardwood]

Korn's self-titled debut had barely started selling when the band went back to Indigo Ranch in Malibu with producer Ross Robinson to make the follow-up. Life Is Peachy arrived on October 15, 1996, debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 with more than 100,000 copies sold in its first week, and made it clear that the Bakersfield five were no longer an underground secret.

It is a rawer, stranger record than the debut. "Twist" opens the album with Jonathan Davis scatting in near-gibberish over a wall of downtuned seven-string guitar, and from there Head and Munky's riffs, Fieldy's slapped bass and David Silveria's hip-hop drumming lurch between menace and bounce. "No Place to Hide" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance, "A.D.I.D.A.S." became a mosh-pit singalong, and "Good God" rounded out the singles. The band also tear through War's "Lowrider" and Ice Cube's "Wicked," the latter with Chino Moreno of Deftones trading verses with Davis.

Life Is Peachy went double platinum by the end of the decade and, alongside the debut, laid down the blueprint for everything nu metal would become: personal, abrasive lyrics, rhythm-first riffing and an open debt to hip-hop. Thirty years on it remains the sound of a band at its most unfiltered.

This 30th anniversary edition is a Vinyl Voice exclusive pressed on hardwood color vinyl, and closes side B with a previously unreleased acapella version of "Twist."