Iowa (album)

Iowa
Studio album by
Publication (s)	August 28, 2001
Label (s)	Roadrunner Records
Format (s)	CD
Genre (s)	Nu metal , death metal
Title (number)	14th
running time	66:23
occupation	Singing: Corey Taylor Rhythm guitar: James Root Lead guitar: Mick Thompson DJ: Sid Wilson Sampling: Craig Jones Percussion, backing vocals: Shawn Crahan Percussion, background vocals: Chris Fehn Bass: Paul Gray Drums: Joey Jordison
production	Slipknot, Ross Robinson
Studio (s)	Sound city and Sound Image in Van Nuys near Los Angeles , California
chronology Slipknot (1999) Iowa Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) (2004)

Iowa is the second official studio album by the US Nu-Metal band Slipknot . It was released on August 28, 2001 by Roadrunner Records and is mainly attributed to Nu Metal . The album is named after the US state of Iowa , where the band comes from.

After the success of their debut album , the expectations of Slipknot were high to produce a good follow-up. For various reasons, the Iowa era was one of the worst in the band's history. It was the first album that the band recorded with James Root , as he only became a member of the band later in the process of recording the debut album Slipknot .

Iowa received various awards from record companies, two songs from the album were nominated for a Grammy and were generally well received by fans and critics. John Mulvey of the English Yahoo described the album as "an absolute triumph of Nu Metal".

Music genre

Iowa varies between several genres. The album is mainly assigned to Nu Metal ; but also contains influences from Death Metal , Thrash Metal , Alternative Metal and Rap Metal . Before the album was released, various band members promised a darker and heavier album than Slipknot. It's more technical in contrast to the raw energy on the previous album; but is considered the heaviest of their six studio albums these days. Iowa also contains some melodic elements for example on Everything Ends and Left Behind; compared to later Slipknot songs like Vermilion pt. 2 and Dead Memories , these are still relatively hard.

The lyric themes on Iowa are relatively somber; These include misanthropy , disgust , solipsism , anger, psychosis and rejection.

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Iowa   DE 4th 09/10/2001 (24 weeks)   AT 8th 09/09/2001 (10 weeks)   CH 13 09/09/2001 (7 weeks)   UK 1 09/08/2001 (3 weeks)   US 3 09/15/2001 (17 weeks)

Singles

Left Behind   UK 24 11/10/2001 (4 weeks) My Plague   UK 43 07/20/2002 (2 weeks)

History of origin

The album was recorded at the Sound City and Sound Image studios in Los Angeles with producer Ross Robinson , who also produced their debut album. In October 2000, drummer Joey Jordison and bassist Paul Gray began working on new material; together they wrote most of the songs for the album. During this time, other band members requested a break due to the band's extensive tour of their previous album Slipknot. Nevertheless, on January 17, 2001, the band began work on their second studio album. Joey Jordison told later that this period was one of the worst in the band's history, partly due to the alcohol addiction of Corey Taylor , the drug addiction of some other band members and management problems and other in-band problems.

James Root , who became a member of the band in 1999, was fully involved in the band recordings for the first time, as he only joined the band during the recording of Slipknot and can therefore only be heard on some of the songs on the album. In an interview with FHM magazine , Corey Taylor revealed that while recording the final song Iowa, he was naked, vomited, and cut his body with glass in order to achieve his desired performance. Taylor explained this procedure as follows:

“That's where the best stuff comes from. You've got to break yourself down before you can build something great. "

“This is where the best material comes from. You have to bring yourself down before you can create something great. "

- Corey Taylor : FHM

While producing in Iowa , producer Ross Robinson broke his back in a dirt bike accident but continued work on the album, "bringing all his suffering to the album."

background

Iowa was supposed to be released on June 19, 2001, but mixing took a longer time than planned; Iowa appeared late, which also affected the tour dates. After the release of their second studio album, Slipknot started the Iowa World Tour, which included an appearance at Ozzfest 2001, a tour with System of a Down and other tours that included Europe and Japan.

Even before the album was released, Slipknot published the song The Heretic Anthem as a single limited to 666 pieces and as a free downloadable track on the website.

Not only the album title and the song Iowa make reference to the home state of the band. The song (515) is named after the Iowa phone code; Slipknot announced that Iowa was "the source of their energy and would help them not lose their creative orientation," which explains the state references.

Track list

1. (515) - 1:00
2. People = Shit - 3:35
3. Disasterpiece - 5:08
4. My Plague - 3:40
5. Everything Ends - 4:14
6. The Heretic Anthem - 4:14
7. Gently - 4:54
8. Left Behind - 4:01
9. The Shape - 3:37
10. I Am Hated - 2:37
11. Skin Ticket - 6:41
12. New Abortion - 3:36
13. Metabolic - 3:59
14. Iowa - 15:03

    Bonus tracks

15. Liberate (live) - 4:25

Achievements and Review

Awards
Canada	platinum
United States	platinum
Australia	gold
UK	gold

Despite its aggressive and hard style, the album reached the top 10 of the charts in nine countries, including Germany, Austria, the USA and the United Kingdom, where it reached number 1 on the charts. The singles Left Behind and My Plague only landed in the charts in the latter two countries. Still, Left Behind was nominated for the 43rd Grammy Award and a year later My Plague was nominated for the 44th Grammy Award . The album received platinum awards in the United States and Canada, and gold awards in the United Kingdom.

Iowa was generally well received by the German media . Michael Edele from Laut.de attested the album an "excellent sound", which in his opinion would not require nine musicians, and awarded three out of five points. In general, the album was felt to be more musical and mature than its predecessor. Above all, the songs People = Shit, My Plague and The Heretic Anthem were praised, the songs "in the middle of the second half" (Vampster), for example The Shape , were received less positively .

The English-speaking media also found the album generally good. The aggressiveness and brutality are often attested; the Rolling Stone praises Iowa's originality. The German magazine Visions had the album in their list of the 66 + 6 best metal albums of the third millennium in spring 2017.

Web links

• Slipknot - "Iowa" (CD review) Review at Laut.de
• Review: Slipknot - Iowa Review at Plattentests.de
• CD-Review: Slipknot - Iowa Review at Metal.de
• Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Iowa review on Rock Hard .de
• Slipknot: Iowa. CD Review Review at Vampster

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Slipknot 10 years after… In: Rocksound. 05/2008, pp. 60-65
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} see reviews
3. ^ John Mulvey: Slipknot Iowa Album Review ( June 13, 2011 memento on the Internet Archive ). In: Yahoo! Music.
4. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
5. ↑ ^{a b} Album notes for More Maximum Slipknot, The unauthorized biography of Slipknot. Chrome Dreams, 2004
6. ↑ Joey Jordison plunges into Slipknot hell. In: Drum! 10/2008, pp. 44-45
7. ↑ Jason Arnopp: Slipknot: Inside the Sickness, Behind the Masks. Ebury, 2001, ISBN 0-09-187933-7 .
8. ↑ Slipknot. In: FHM . 12/2001, pp. 76-80
9. ↑ Joel Mclver: Slipknot: Unmasked (Again). Omnibus, 2003, ISBN 0-7119-9764-0 .
10. ↑ Tommy Udo: Brave Nu World. Cromwell, 2002, ISBN 1-86074-415-X .
11. ↑ Steve Huey: Slipknot Biography allmusic.com. Retrieved July 11, 2009
12. ^ Dick Porter: Rapcore: The Nu-Metal Rap Fusion. Plexus, London 2003, ISBN 0-85965-321-8 .
13. ↑ Michael Hubbard: Slipknot live up Reading's finale . In BBC News . August 26, 2002
14. ^ Maggots, rejoice: Slipknot is back. In: Green Bay Press-Gazette. November 8, 2001
15. ↑ Simon Bartz: Slipknot unmasked !. In: The Japan Times. April 3, 2002
16. ↑ The Joy of 666 . In: NME . May 15, 2001
17. ^ Corey Moss: Slipknot aim for "World Domination" With Iowa . In: MTV.com . August 29, 2001
18. ^ Iowa Album Review. In: College Music Journal. October 1, 2001, p. 13.
19. ^ Iowa Album Review. In: Alternative Press. 07/2001, p. 75.
20. ^ Iowa Album Review. In: Uncut . 11/2001, p. 120.
21. ^ David Fricke: Slipknot (Metal): Iowa ( Memento April 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). In: Rolling Stone . September 17, 2001 ( Internet Archive )
22. ↑ oA: The 66 + 6 best metal albums of the millennium . In: Visions, issue 289, pages 52–66