Korn are one of the most prolific bands of their generation. Since their genre-defining 1994 debut, the Bakersfield, California, nu-metal troupe have never taken longer than three years to drop an album, and most of the ones up through 2005's See You on the Other Side clock in near the hour mark, meaning they have a ton of material behind them.
Every LP has a cluster of well-regarded fan favorites, but with such a dense archive to comb through, there are many fantastic tracks that don't get the shine they deserve. Below, are the 10 most criminally underrated songs in Korn's discography.
"Fake"
You really can't go wrong with any of the songs on Korn's 1994 self-titled debut, but since most of the hits like "Blind," "Clown" and "Ball Tongue" are sequenced in the front half, and the album's hefty runtime crosses the hour mark, there are moments in the back end that certainly get overlooked. "Fake" has many of them, like that 10-second part three-quarters of the way through where it sounds like they're teasing a deathcore breakdown, the hard-ass riff that explodes from the start, and the song's simple, hypnotic refrain. It's just a banger-ass Korn track.
"Mr. Rogers"
There's no shortage of disturbing subject matter in Korn's discography, and "Mr. Rogers" doesn't get its proper due when we talk about Davis' most tortured psychological venting. The Life is Peachy centerpiece is about how its titular PBS icon — a beacon of neighborly love and warm vibes — actually caused Davis immeasurable harm as a child. "Fred, you told me everybody was my neighbor/They took advantage of me, you let them take their turns hitting me/I wish I would have never watched you," he raps with genuine anguish. Yeesh.
"My Gift to You"
Follow the Leader is Korn's biggest album, but the seven-minute "My Gift to You" frequently gets overshadowed by the album's hits. First off, this song has one of the band's most stunning entrances: earthquake-inducing doom riffs plodding forward while funereal bagpipes caterwaul above. And lyrically, Davis wrote it as a twisted — and supposedly consensual — love song to his then-wife, who he claimed to share a "weird death fetish" with. In it, he has sex with her before choking her death. "I did it totally like, I love her so much, I want to take her out of this world," Davis said. "We're kinda fuckin' freaky. She got it."
"Wake Up"
After the drug-and-booze-fueled recording sessions for Follow the Leader nearly killed Davis, the frontman thankfully got clean prior to its 1999 follow-up, Issues, and remains sober today. Even though Davis was no longer high, tensions within the band were — so he wrote "Wake Up" as an open letter to his brothers to "please just let it go" and "take the stage and remember what we play for." His lyrics are rarely this direct or this positive, but the song's raging chorus ("Wake the fuck up!") and weird verse instrumentation also make it an under-sung gem.
"Hating"
Korn's 2002 opus, Untouchables, is notoriously one of the most expensive albums of all time (costing a whopping $4 million) and Davis once called it the "heavy-metal Aja," referring to Steely Dan's 1977 high-water mark for pristine rock production. Not every song on the album has the ritzy bells and whistles of a bling-era rap record, but the utterly massive-sounding "Hating" is like a version of Korn that could fill the halls of a gold-plated mansion. Beyond the sheer breadth of the mix, it boasts one of Davis' most triumphant choruses and a blazing guitar lead that almost sounds like trumpet blasts welcoming the presence of rock royalty. It's fucking dope.
"Alive"
Save for a few standouts, Take a Look in the Mirror was the band's first less-than-great LP. Davis even dubbed it his least-favorite Korn album, citing the poor production quality (he and his bandmates self-produced it) compared to the cinematic Untouchables. "Right Now" and "Ya'll Want a Single" are the consensus high points on this one, but the side-B cut "Alive" deserves to be heralded, as well. The track is actually a re-worked take on a song from the band's 1993 demo, so it has an old-school Korn quality that's otherwise missing from the tracks that surround it.
"Liar"
Korn's 2005 LP, See You on the Other Side — their first without guitarist Brian "Head" Welch," who eventually rejoined the band in 2013 — is not a strong album overall. The experimentation with du-jour electronic effects and radio-friendly melodies sounded like a band who were unsure of their identity after losing a core member, and despite the amazing highs ("Twisted Transistor" and "Coming Undone"), it's one of their least cohesive records to date. That said, the song "Liar" is a damn good Korn track, with a dirty, aggro guitar tone and stabbing drum pattern that the rest of the album could've used more of.
"Starting Over"
Korn's 2007 untitled album is one of the biggest outliers in their catalog. Made in between OG drummer David Silveria's departure and the arrival of Ray Luzier, the band were operating as a three-piece — Davis, Munky and Fieldy — and hiring session workers and co-songwriters to flesh out their sound. "Starting Over" wasn't a single, but it's one of the most effective tracks on the LP, harnessing the powers of Nine Inch Nails' Atticus Ross to add eerie keyboard textures and stockier, less groovy rhythms that are way more industrial than nu-metal. The album doesn't always hit Korn's sweet spot, but this track is a fresh and fascinating experiment.
"Pop a Pill"
Although reuniting with Korn and Life is Peach producer Ross Robinson was an interesting prospect, Korn III: Remember Who You Are turned out to be one of the band's weakest records, making "Pop a Pill" a diamond in the rough. The album's third track has an insanely catchy, down-tuned lead riff that places Fieldy's clacky bassline at the front of the mix, creating a cool rigid texture. Plus, "Pop a Pill"'s See You on the Other Side-era hook benefits from Robinson's raw production.
"This Loss"
Written in the wake of Jonathan Davis' estranged wife dying of an accidental overdose, Korn's 2019 album, The Nothing, is possibly their darkest work yet. The pain is palpable throughout, but especially on its penultimate track, "This Loss," in which Davis grapples with a lifetime of cursed misfortunes ("Everything I ever loved is always taken back from me"). The most poignant moment arrives during an operatic bridge where Davis defiantly sings like he's channeling Freddie Mercury — but then quickly snaps back into a gnarly growl, as if the darkness physically pulls him under once again.
