THE SONGS THAT DEFINED A GENRATION
IT’S AS SIMPLE as that. No other band in metal over the past two decades have inspired the love and dedication from their fans like Slipknot. Sure, the masks and boiler suits gave them a cool look. The chaos and controversy that has gone hand in hand with their career has kept them newsworthy. But when all is said and done, it’s the songs that matter – and what an arsenal of songs they have.
We tasked ourselves with picking the 20 very best Slipknot tunes ever committed to tape. From the ferocious early days of that debut to the expansive and fascinating left-turns of We Are Not Your Kind, every era is represented and yes, some great cuts had to be left by the wayside. It wasn’t easy, but we got there – so let’s get to it.
CUSTER
(.5: The Gray Chapter, 2014)
‘Cut, cut, cut me up and fuck, fuck, fuck me up.’ And so was born the most obvious ‘This is going to be fucking massive live’ hook of Slipknot’s fifth studio album. While The Gray Chapter may not rank right on top of most Slipknot fans’ lists, it was a record loaded with emotional resonance. Plus, in all honesty, the simple fact that it had been made at all deserved celebration after a turbulent few years for The Nine. It also produced plenty of big moments, and none bigger than this stomping, sweary and inexplicably fun anthem. It earned Slipknot a Grammy nomination, though they would ultimately lose out to Ghost. Which, by Grammy standards, isn’t too big an injustice, all things considered.
TATTERED & TORN
(Slipknot, 1999)
Tattered & Torn might just be the most twisted and visceral song on the first Slipknot album. Driven along by shrill, shrieking sonics, Corey’s guttural roars and pained, spokenword segments, and a gruelling, rumbling riff, it still makes for a nasty and uncomfortable listen two decades later – so much so that abrasive punkrap duo Ho99o9 even sampled it for 2018 track Mega City Nine. It also marked a special moment in Slipknot history: the introduction of the masks. “The masks originally came about when we were rehearsing one day and we played Tattered & Torn,” remarked Joey years later. “Shawn put on this old clown mask he had, as a joke. I stopped and I was like, ‘Dude, you really have something there.’”
THE DEVIL IN I
(.5: The Gray Chapter)
The tragic death of Paul Gray left fans uncertain about Slipknot’s future. Then came the acrimonious exit of Joey Jordison, another central cog in the machine and one of the band’s foremost personalities. It was enough to end most bands. But Slipknot aren’t most bands. They rallied and, following the promising heaviness of taster single The Negative One, unleashed what has become a hallmark Slipknot banger, full of drama, defiance and a colossal, stuttering riff that hooks straight into your brain. The video didn’t just give maggots a look at the new masks, it allowed them to cleverly and prematurely unmask new bassist V-Man. Needless to say, the band were unimpressed at their fans’ super-sleuthing.
SNUFF
(All Hope Is Gone, 2008)
lipknot. Acoustic love song. Slipknot. Acoustic love song. Wait, sorry, let’s try that one more time. Nope, it’s still blowing our minds, even a decade on. Whichever way you cut it, that combination of words seems too improbable to relate to anything to have actually been brought into the real world. If you’d told any self-respecting maggot in 1999 that the band who gave the world would eventually give us , they would have laughed in your face before returning to, the Iowans produced their most intimate moment yet with what Corey Taylor called “the slow one”: a sumptuous, delicate ballad about heartbreak and moving on. this was not.
