Plenty of the band's album covers are pretty unsettling.
The self-titled album has a photograph that, while completely harmless in context, manages to set the album's overall mood at first glance. A little girl is sitting on a swingset, looking unnerved as she looks up at a man who we only see the shadow of. The man has some sort of strange, pincer-like hand or is holding something bladed. The shadow of Korn's logo lines up to that of the girl in a manner that makes it look as if she's being hanged from it. The implications of child abduction are made even more clear with the back cover, which shows the swing sets empty and swaying. The whole thing is edited to look somewhat desaturated and faded, for a creepy vintage feel. Understandably, the girl in the photo wasn't allowed to see the album cover until she was in 8th grade. All of this is made even more disturbing by the album's general theme of lost innocence, which was largely inspired from Jonathan Davis' own childhood.
Life Is Peachy gets a cover of similar nature to the self-titled: a nearly colorless photo of a pale young boy looking into a mirror and adjusting his tie as a taller, shadowy figure looms behind him in the reflection.
Follow the Leader has a girl hopscotching her way off a cliff. She doesn't end up doing it in the video for "Freak On a Leash" (which is set within the cover's context), instead catching a bullet that almost hits her, but still.
Issues gets two of them:
The standard cover features a doll resembling one used for voodoo, laying slumped on the ground with one button-eye lost and stuffing torn from its stomach.
One of the alternate covers shows a child laying in bed looking scared and hiding, with the silhouette of an adult standing in the doorway, likely tying into the domestic abuse depicted in the music video of "Falling Away From Me".
See You on the Other Side's cover (pictured above) is another painting (this time by David Stoupakis) of an albino schoolboy, looking similar to the one in the Life Is Peachy photo, who's surrounded by a pair of demented, nightmarish people with animal's heads. The horse-headed person is holding the disembodied head of the boy's teddy bear, while the rabbit-headed one is placing a crown onto the boy's head. The internal illustrations welcome us to several more animal-headed beings, including the heads of a goat, a sheep, a frog, a cat and a pig.
The untitled album's drawn illustrations (including the ones outside of the cover) are full of surrealistic, gnarly beings with a decayed texture, starting with the cover's Eldritch Abomination with a bird-like head (whom we get to see the full body of in one of the internal artworks, and its appearance down there is no less disturbing) and demented-looking dolls.
The standard cover of Korn III: Remember Who You Are continues the tradition of the first two album covers portraying child endangerment. This time, we see an old man sitting in his car and staring at a teenage girl who looks at him with confusion. And in one of the images inside, the girl is now sitting on the car's backseat...
The Serenity of Suffering has a boy with Creepy Blue Eyes holding a freakish, twisted version of the doll from Issues's standard cover, who stands around a theme park with a similarly disturbing aesthetic.
The Nothing features a humanoid figure made of wires being suspended upon a white backdrop.
Requiem has a close-up monochrome grey 3D model of a hand gripping an infant's head.
Honestly, Jonathan's scatting in general is this. Think of an animal with a serious case of rabies making this ungodly sound.
"Daddy" is not only agreed to be the darkest song in Korn's discography (which is saying a lot), it may be one of the most disturbing songs ever recorded. It has parental worries written all over it, especially because it's about Jonathan Davis's own rape survival story - which his parents did not believe at the time. If the unsettling lyrics don't get to you, Davis's primal, genuine mental breakdown at the end will. His Big "WHY?!" at the end is one of the most chilling things ever committed to tape for a music album, and proof of just how psychologically damaging sexual abuse can be, made worse with his screams of frustration at how much it affected him, saying things like "I FUCKING HATE YOU!" and "YOU FUCKING RUINED MY LIFE, I WANTED TO DIE!". The final moments are just him weeping openly as the band fades out.
Even before the breakdown, the song is very unsettling. Beginning with a haunting acapella melody from Jonathan. Hearing his voice alone, with no instruments, singing about how he must release all of his pent-up emotions makes for a chilling introduction to the song. Then a straight-up ominous bassline kicks in and discordant guitars that sound like something out of the score of a horror movie. During the verses, Jonathan sings from the point of view of the predator, crooning things like "little chiiiild…looking so pretty…" in the creepiest way possible. The choruses switch the perspective back to Jonathan as he shouts about how hurt he is by the experience and how his parents didn't believe him when he tried to open up to them about it. The sheer agony in his voice when he screams "IT HURT" is heart-shattering.
The demo version, if anything, is even worse, as not only it's lo-fi (the same part that makes Black Metal scary), but the vocals are higher pitched and at some point sound even demonic (even adding Death Metal-style vocals) and the guitar riffs themselves sound darker and grimer, in part thanks to the demo's rawer nature.
Right before "Daddy" comes "Helmet in the Bush". A very dark and seedy industrial track about methamphetamine-induced paranoia and terror. Highlights include Jonathan's pained "please God, don’t let me die tonight" and the viciously growled variant of those same lyrics at the end of the song. Essentially, "Helmet in the Bush" is the calm before the storm (which is "Daddy"), but it's a very unsettling "calm."
"Ball Tongue" is a song that keeps shifting from intense to just creepy. It has a heavy start with its opening riff. The little noises made before the verses sound like glitched out screams, and the ghostly wailing in the verses doesn't help. Then the chorus hits, and you hear the words "BALL TONGUE!" screamed intensely, with some of the heaviest gibberish scatting Jonathan may have ever done.
Life Is Peachy:
Life Is Peachy begins and ends with "Twist", the latter being an acapella version. It's an entire track of John's scatting.
"Kill You" also gives off horrific vibes. It's about Jonathan's verbally and physically abusive stepmother, and he lets all those years of bitterness and psychosis out in gruesome fashion. It's practically a death threat set to music, what with Davis just shivering and Laughing Mad by the end.
Life Is Peachy is one of Korn's eeriest albums in general. Songs like "Lost", "No Place to Hide", and "Swallow" all have a very bleak and morbid sound. "Mr. Rogers" is one of the darkest examples, with its menacing intro full of creepy whispers, sudden loud guitars that come in like a jumpscare, and lyrics about Jonathan feeling betrayed by the titular children’s show host for making him too trusting of people. The way Jonathan roars "MY CHILDHOOD IS GONE because I loved you..." is both frightening and tragic.
The music video for "A.D.I.D.A.S", in which the band members are killed in a car crash and taken to a dirty morgue in body bags that have them thrash around wildly. To put it short, it's not pretty. Special mention goes to the eyes of the members. Brrr...
Follow the Leader ends with "My Gift To You", a murder fantasy of Davis about his then-girlfriend. The titular "gift" is strangulation, and taking her out of this world. As he wryly noted in an interview, said girlfriend learned the hard way: never ask Jonathan Davis to write a love song.
"Pretty" is right next to "Daddy" in the category of Korn's darkest music. Some fans even believe the lyrical content alone makes it even worse than Daddy. This song tells of a horrific experience that Jonathan had as a teenager working in a morgue. He witnessed the corpse of a baby that was sexually abused and murdered by her father. When interviewed about the song, Jonathan stated that this sight was "most heinous thing I've ever seen" and that he still had nightmares about it. In terms of sound, the main riff is very menacing and fits well with the subject of seeing something so horrifying that it has been burned into your memory, as if the riff itself is saying "Oh God…". During the verses, the instrumental is both ominous and sleek. Towards the end, Jonathan can be heard crying while hitting the last vocal note.
Another song inspired by Jonathan's time as a mortician's assistant is the chillingly titled "Dead Bodies Everywhere". This track begins with a foreboding, lone bass thump, followed by a creepy music box tune that slowly builds before erupting into ferocious guitar riffs and groovy basslines. The lyrics are about how Jonathan's dad did everything he could to get Jonathan away from pursuing a music career, which lead to him becoming a mortician's assistant at a young age and being scarred from the horrific sights.
Issues:
Issues' lead single "Falling Away From Me" is characterized by creepy guitar leads that sound more like the score to a horror movie than actual riffs, and lyrics about Domestic Abuse. While the South Parkepisode that the single premiered in is hilarious, it being a Halloween episode fits rather well with the track's haunting atmosphere.
"It's Gonna Go Away" has an hypnotic, yet extremely dark sound. One can question the song title if it adds comfort to the listener after a horrific event or make them feel straight up hopeless.
Perhaps the creepiest of Issues' various interludes is "Am I Going Crazy?", a song about someone developing agoraphobia. A minimal, distorted, ambience plays while Jonathan croons about the person's increasing paranoia, with the last line being "I'm so scared…". Within the stereo-based mix, the track plays regularly in one ear while playing in reverse in the other, adding an almost ghostly feel to the song.
Following that interlude is "Hey Daddy" (not to be confused with the aforementioned "Daddy" from the self-titled), a song about a schizophrenic struggling with their disorder and crying out for help as voices in their head torment them, but also feeling as if they can't live without them.
The lyrics during the bridge are particularly disturbing:
They tell me this thing inside of me Wants to get out All it does is scream and shout I'm trying not to let them out They tell me to hurt myself They tell me to hurt myself They tell me to hurt myself But I'm not gonna listen
Untouchables:
"Thoughtless" is about a kid being bullied and tormented who fantasizes about revenge. Jonathan has stated that the lyrics were inspired by the Columbine shooters. We have sweet lines such as "I wanna kill and rape you the way you raped me" and "All my friends are gone, they died".
The ending of "Coming Undone"'s music video, in which the background shatters in pieces and leaves nothing but a white background, with the band being slowly erased from existence.
The Nothing:
The Nothing is one of their darkest and most tragic albums in a catalogue full of them. For starters, Jonathan used the album's recording as therapy after the losses of his wife and his mother. You can hear him having breakdowns throughout and saying some of his most miserable and hopeless lyrics. Particular instances include the following:
"This Loss" features the line "happiness is a club I will never be in".
"Idiosyncrasy" has a bridge where Jonathan repeatedly sings "GOD IS MAKING FUN OF ME! HE'S LAUGHING UP THERE, I CAN SEE!" with increasing intensity, sounding like he's both furious and bursting into tears.
Probably the most dark and despair-filled example is the outro, "Surrender To Failure". Over a creepy industrial instrumental track, Jonathan laments over his wife's overdose, blaming himself and thinking he could've done more to prevent it from happening. The way he croons "I failed" (while crying) at the end is very haunting and heartbreaking.
Other:
Their cover of "Kidnap The Sandy Claws", while still fun and jaunty, makes the song even more terrifying, with Lock, Shock and Barrel sounding like they really DO want to murder Santa!
, if anything, is even worse, as not only it's lo-fi (the same part that makes Black Metal scary), but the vocals are higher pitched and at some point sound even demonic (even adding Death Metal-style vocals) and the guitar riffs themselves sound darker and grimer, in part thanks to the demo's rawer nature.