Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's death in 1994 would signal the beginning of the decline of alternative rock (and grunge in particular) as the driving force in modern American rock music, paving the way for nu metal to gain ground with the public.
Linkin Park is the best selling nu metal act with an excess of 45 million copies sold of their first three full-length albums (Hybrid Theory, Meteora, and Minutes to Midnight). Producer Ross Robinson was labelled by some as "The Godfather of Nu Metal" due to his producing of several notable nu metal albums, the first of which - Korn's eponymous first album KoЯn - has been noted as the very first nu metal album. And then the follow-up Life Is Peachy, which would become one of the defining albums of the genre, along with subsequent groundbreaking release Follow the Leader. Ross later denounced the nu metal movement for becoming complacent and the newer bands for not expanding on the style
Korn's signature sound came from an attempt to emulate chords used by Mr. Bungle's guitar player, which they referred to as "the moveable Bungle chord". They have also cited Mike Patton's other band Faith No More in Kerrang's The Greatest Videos of All Time in 2006, saying that Korn was influenced by them because they did something unusual with a metal band. Nu metal bands also typically claim influence by more conventional metal acts, particularly Black Sabbath.
