Follow The Leader (Korn Album) - Composition

Composition

Follow the Leader is seventy minutes and eight seconds long. Allmusic said, "They write songs, but those wind up not being nearly as memorable as their lurching metallic hip-hop grind." Entertainment Weekly commented that Follow the Leader was Korn's "gimmick", while saying the album had "steely riffs" and "stomping beats". Tower Records said the album "combines streamlined metal with ominous industrial touches and an undercurrent of hip-hop rhythm," and also said it was an "urban nightmare". The album is considered to be nu metal, but also spans other genres such as alternative metal and heavy metal.

The album features 25 tracks, 12 of which last five seconds of silence, making the first 60 seconds of the album all silent. Follow the Leader follows the lyrical style that vocalist Jonathan Davis, who was established on their demo album Neidermeyer's Mind. Journal Now said that Korn "shaped rap, metal and punk into a sonic maelstrom that is brutal, aggressive - and reasonably musical". The Daily News said that "the band shovels chunky beats into an already complex sound..." Michael Mehle of Rocky Mountain News said, "For the uninitiated, the classic Korn sound comes rumbling out of the speakers on the first cut: It's On! grinds fuzzy guitars, thunderous beats and shouts of gut-wrenching rage into an anthem for the alienated", and gave other positive remarks. Charlotte Observer said the album was dark, but humble. A Zeeland high school assistant principal said in an interview for a Michigan newspaper that the music is "indecent, vulgar, obscene and intends to be insulting". She said this after giving a student a one-day suspension for wearing a shirt with Korn on it.