The 56-year-old Bozzio is sitting in for KORN drummer David Silveria, who announced in December that he was taking a "temporary hiatus" from the group for at least one studio album and tour. KORN is currently working with veteran rock drummer Terry Bozzio on its eighth studio album. Robert Smith)Ĭheck out the cover artwork at this location.
AMY LEE KORN UNPLUGGED FULL
Tune in online at MTV.com to see the full "Unplugged" performance beginning February 10 and on-air beginning February 17.Ġ9. The album version of the performance will also include KORN's cover of "Creep" by RADIOHEAD. The performance, which was recorded Decemat MTV's Times Square (New York City) studios, includes an additional guest appearance from Robert Smith of THE CURE on a cover of the CURE classic "In Between Days". The track comes off KORN's "MTV Unplugged" CD, which has had its release date pushed back to March 6 from the previously announced February 20. The clip is scheduled to receive its official premiere today (Thursday, January 25) on MTV's "TRL". But it has to be on less utterly ridiculous terms than this.KORN's video for the "unplugged" version of "Freak on a Leash", featuring a guest appearance by Amy Lee of EVANESCENCE, has been posted online at. And I’m sorry, but it just isn’t “Freak on a Leash” without the “ DA-BOOOMM BAH BAH UHHHHMMMM NA NA EMA!!!” scatting part in the song’s break–it’s like taking the “bananas” part out of “ Hollaback Girl.” What’s the point?ĭon’t get me wrong, I’m all for an Unplugged revival–or a KoRn revival, for that matter. And while she does provide some nice harmonizing on parts, and the orchestration is pretty nice, there’s really just no getting around that chorus–“ SOMETHING TAKES A PART OF ME! / YOU AND I WERE MEANT TO BE! / A CHEAP FUCK FOR ME TO LAY! / SOMETHING TAKES A PART OF ME!”–even Davis and Lee seem to realize this, respectfully going mute and turning away from the mic on the “cheap fuck” part. It is absolutely not the kind of song where you want to draw more attention to the lyrics than necessary–in fact, it’s the exact sort of song where you want to distract from them as much as possible, which is what the band did on the original version, piling on the distortion, production tricks and generally incomprehensible singing from Jonathan Davis, as well as slapping on an eye-catching (and heavily acclaimed, at the time anwyay) music video to help out matters.īut so confident is the band in the strength of this song in its bare-bones form that they even thought it wise to bring on fellow nu-metaller Amy Lee of Evanescense to help out with vocals (and make it seem more like an actual song, I guess). But to strip away all the shouting, the crunchy guitars and basically all the songs’ power to reveal the great songwriting underneath…I think ill-advised is the word I’m looking for here.Įspecially for the song they chose to be the first single, the Follow the Leader MTV mega-hit “ Freak on a Leash.” Not to say that “ Blind,” “ A.D.I.D.A.S.” or “ Got the Life” would’ve done much better, but “Freak on a Leash” is just…well, it’s a very, very stupid song. Now, to be fair KoRn are very arguably a great band–especially for their place and time–and certainly, they have at least two or three songs that will go down as stone metal classics. The reason KoRn is doing an Unplugged is probably for the same reason as about half the artists who have done one–they want to prove that under all the distortion, under all the screaming and under all the heavy, heavy production, there are just some really good songs, maaaan (sorry, last time, I promise). While it’s understandable that the band should need a jolt to their system (or their fans’) to help re-ingratiate themselves into the sphere of commercially and artistically relevant rock bands, one which they left a good long while ago, KoRn going Unplugged makes about as much sense as DJ Shadow Unplugged, or Dragonforce Unplugged–the Plugging In is more or less the whole point. Surprising, however, barely begins to cover the reuniting of the MTV Unplugged format with its fellow 90s MTV relic, nu-metal forerunners KoRn. And occasionally, yeah, there were some worthwhile surprises.
Not that it was usually particularly revelatory–I dunno if hearing an unplugged version of Stone Temple Pilots’ “ Big Empty” is really gonna give you a greater appreciation for the non-acoustic one–but it was the one show on MTV that was always about the music, maaan–no visual pyrotechnics, no annoying VJs weighing in with their opinion, just a band/artist and their best songs. I’ve missed the MTV Unplugged format since it more or less fizzled out at the end of the 90s, Jay-Z and Lauryn Hill aside.