Lol ok…? I hate nu metal, but I understand which bands seemed to do the heavy lifting. I only liked Deftones. Korn and Slipknot were cool. Soulfly was great if you clumped them in the mix.

The bands that laid the groundwork for nu metal to exist were sepultura, quicksand, korn and deftones.

While nu metal became a thing corporations could sell then I would include slipknot, soad, deftones, korn, lincoln park, staind as the leaders. Limp bizkit killed it. Everyone else were b tier. Only s tier was deftones because they actually put effort in creating what they wanted and not what was part of the shitrock formula.