Follow the Leader (Korn album)

By January 1998, Korn returned to the studio to record Follow the Leader. Even though Korn was impressed by the work Ross Robinson had done on their previous albums, they decided to work with producer Steve Thompson and engineer Toby Wright. Robinson did, however, work with singer Jonathan Davis as a vocal coach for the album. According to Wright, Robinson went to extreme lengths to agitate Davis in the vocal booth, including punching him in the back repeatedly. Korn implemented a live streaming department on their website in March 1998, called Korn TV, which aired the After-School Special series. Using RealMedia software, fans could access it every Thursday from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm Eastern time. Korn's After-School Special featured guest appearances such as Sugar Ray, Limp Bizkit, Deftones, Steve Vai, 311, and the Pharcyde. The band was shown making the record on Korn TV. Korn exposed themselves making the album to let their fans see what they were doing in the studio and behind the scenes. The songs for the album were written and copyrighted in 1997, with the exception of "Children of the Korn", "All in the Family" and "Cameltosis", which are copyrighted from 1998. Mid-way through the album's production, Korn fired Thompson and Wright became the album's producer. "We weren't seeing eye-to-eye on things and bumped heads a lot. He's an awesome producer, but we thought it'd be better if he went", Davis told Kerrang!. Photography and illustration The artwork for Follow the Leader was done by Todd McFarlane Entertainment, with McFarlane and fellow Image Comics artists Greg Capullo (penciller) and Brian Haberlin (colorist) doing the album cover, and designer Brent Ashe handling the graphics work. According to drummer David Silveria, the band got interested in McFarlane after hearing that "Todd had actually referred to us as 'the Doors of the 90's, leading to them recording a song for Spawn, a film based on a comic book by McFarlane, and eventually approaching the artist to make an album cover for them. The cover art depicts a child hopscotching toward the edge of a cliff and a gathering of kids waiting to follow, a concept that began with bassist Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu and sketched by a friend of Davis before being submitted to McFarlane. It marked the third straight Korn cover featuring children in a disturbing context, which Davis explained by saying that "Children are always scared when they're all happy and stuff. They're the most beautiful thing in the world, but when you see it in our artwork, the way we've placed it, it's just kinda fuckin' weird." == Release and promotion ==

is featured on the track "Children of the Korn". Korn embarked on a promotional tour for the upcoming album across North America, which began on August 17, 1998, at Tower Records in Los Angeles and ended in early September. Named Korn Kampaign, it was inspired by the styles of political campaigns and press conferences, but instead, these were aimed at fans. Follow the Leader was released on August 18, 1998, through Immortal/Epic. Follow the Leader is recognized as Korn's mainstream breakthrough, and the album that launched nu metal into the mainstream. In the fall of 1998, Korn started the Family Values Tour. According to Arvizu, the tour name was due to "so many of their friends who were like family to us played in bands". holding radio contest winners. The idea of the Korn Kage came originally from Arvizu. Korn maintained a generally low ticket price, usually no more than thirty dollars. Korn toured with the band Limp Bizkit, as well as Ice Cube, Orgy, Incubus, and Rammstein. The tour was considered to be a major success, and promoted Follow the Leader to sales that were considered to have "skyrocketed". However, unlike all their other tours, they opted not to play in Europe for this cycle. The album was also promoted through Concrete Marketing's Concrete Corner program with Jim Rose of Jim Rose Circus as the pitchman. The promotion saw 100,000 copies of a compilation CD featuring tracks of breakthrough artists approved by Korn, as well as a previously unreleased Korn track, being shrink-wrapped to the album at participating stores and given away for free with each purchase of the album. Band artists (at the time) featured on this CD included Kid Rock, Orgy, Powerman 5000 and Limp Bizkit. The album had five singles issued: "All in the Family", "Got the Life", "Freak on a Leash", "Children of the Korn", and "B.B.K." In January 1999, Korn participated in the Australian tour of the Big Day Out festival. To continue promoting Follow the Leader, Korn launched a co-headlining US tour with Rob Zombie and Videodrone as the opening act that began on February 26, 1999, through mid-April. The tour was decided between Korn and Zombie as a reconciliation after a dispute due to the latter's non-participation in the Family Values Tour 1998. The tour was named Rock Is Dead and converged with the dates of Marilyn Manson's tour of the same name. In addition, a larger Korn Kage was included onstage, and the tour featured Davis beginning to wear a kilt in live performances. During this tour, Korn's members switched places to perform "Earache My Eye"; guitarists James "Munky" Shaffer and Brian "Head" Welch swapped sides while Davis played the drums and Silveria the bass, and Arvizu took the microphone to sing. Korn and Zombie's Rock Is Dead Tour was a commercial and critical success. == 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." The album features 25 tracks, 12 of which last five seconds of silence, making the first 1 minute of the album all silent. The concept of the song "Justin" was about a boy with the same name dying of intestinal cancer. His last wish was to meet the members of Korn. 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. The 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 Korn shirt. == Critical reception ==

Follow the Leader received generally positive reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called it "an effective follow-up to their first two alt-metal landmarks." Entertainment Weekly reviewer Jim Farber called it "a big load of dumb fun" and "also incredibly perverse, going to almost laughable lengths to mess with metal cliché", concluding that if "hardly innovative enough to rival the classics of metal, at least Korn's LP gives this once-stagnant style kernels of something new". In a negative review, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice said that, although Korn "deny they're metal", they "nevertheless demonstrate that the essence of metal ... is self-obliterating volume and self-aggrandizing display." Legacy Appearances in other media In 2000, a bedroom poster of the album was shown in the tenth episode of Nickelodeon sitcom The Amanda Show. That year, "Freak on a Leash" appeared in an episode of the MTV animated series Daria, titled "Mart of Darkness". In 2007, "Freak on a Leash" was used in an episode of The Simpsons titled "Stop, or My Dog Will Shoot!". The following year, the song appeared in the video game Guitar Hero World Tour. The song also appeared on the soundtrack for the 2025 video game Madden NFL 26. In 2017, "Got the Life" was featured in episode 7 of the CNN documentary miniseries The Nineties, with the episode focusing on the music of the 1990s. Accolades ==Commercial performance==

Follow the Leader peaked at number one on four U.S. charts, including the Billboard 200, and peaked at number five in the United Kingdom. The album received a 5× platinum certification in the United States, Follow the Leader also received a gold certification in the Netherlands and was awarded multi-platinum certification for shipments in excess of five million copies, by the RIAA on March 15, 2002. and received a gold certification in Australia. The album's next charting single, "Freak on a Leash", released in February 1999, peaked at number six on the Alternative Songs chart, as well as number six on the Bubbling Under Hot 100, and like "Got the Life", received a gold certification in Australia. "Freak on a Leash" was nominated for nine MTV Video Music Awards, and won for the Best Rock Video award, as well as Best Editing. == Track listing ==

All songs written by Korn except "Earache My Eye" written by Tommy Chong, Gaye Delorme and Richard Marin. All guest appearances feature an extra writing credit by the guest. ;Notes == Personnel ==

;Korn • Jonathan Davis – lead vocals, bagpipes • Head – guitar • Munky – guitar, talk box on "Freak on a Leash" and "Dead Bodies Everywhere"{{Cite video|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UA9ZGR48Zg&t=704s|title=Rig Rundown - Korn • Fieldy – bass, vocals on "Earache My Eye" • David Silveria – drums ;Additional vocalists • Fred Durst – on "All in the Family" • Tre Hardson – on "Cameltosis" • Ice Cube – on "Children of the Korn" • Cheech Marin – on "Earache My Eye" ;Production staff • Todd McFarlane and Greg Capullo – artwork • Brian Haberlin – artwork (coloring) • Joseph Cultice – photography • Tommy D. Daugherty – programming • John Ewing Jr. – engineer, assistant engineer • Ross Robinson – vocal coaching • Stephen Marcussen – mastering • Brendan O'Brien – mixing • Steve Thompson – producer • Don C. Tyler – digital editing • Justin Z. Walden – additional drums, programming • Toby Wright – producer, engineer == Charts ==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==

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