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Slipknot is the self-titled debut studio album of Slipknot, released on June 29, 1999 by Roadrunner Records.

The album brought the band massive popularity from the outset, peaking at #51 on the Billboard 200 chart and eventually being certified double platinum in the United States. It spawned two singles, "Wait and Bleed" and "Spit It Out", which still rank among the band's most popular songs to this day.

The album is also well-known for the legal trouble it got the band into due to the tracks "Frail Limb Nursery" and "Purity", which (respectively) heavily sampled and referenced a story from the website Crime Scene. The website presents fictional stories as real crime cases; there were originally no disclaimers designating the stories as fiction, leading many including lead vocalist Corey Taylor to believe that they were true. The ensuing allegations of copyright infringement resulted in the most common reissue and all official vinyl releases replacing both tracks with "Me Inside". "Purity" was eventually restored on the 10th anniversary CD version and digital releases of the album in its original location (with “Me Inside” included as a bonus track instead), whereas "Frail Limb Nursery" is only found on the original CD release.


Tracklist:

  1. "742617000027" (0:36)
  2. "(sic)" (3:20)
  3. "Eyeless" (3:56)
  4. "Wait and Bleed" (2:27)
  5. "Surfacing" (3:38)
  6. "Spit It Out" (2:39)
  7. "Tattered and Torn" (2:54)
  8. "Frail Limb Nursery" (0:45) (absent from reissues)
  9. "Purity" (4:14)(absent from most reissues, replaced with "Me Inside" (2:39) )
  10. "Liberate" (3:06)
  11. "Prosthetics" (4:58)
  12. "No Life" (2:47)
  13. "Diluted" (3:23)
  14. "Only One" (2:26)
  15. "Scissors" (8:23)note 
  16. "Mudslide" (3:06) (hidden track)
  17. "Eeyore" (2:48) (hidden track)

Personnel

  • Corey Taylor - vocals
  • Mick Thomson - guitars
  • Shawn "Clown" Crahan - percussion, backing vocals
  • Craig "133 MHz" Jones - samples, media
  • James "Jim" Root - guitars on "Purity".
  • Josh Brainard - guitars on all tracks except "Purity"
  • Chris Fehn - percussion, backing vocals (credited but does not perform), vomiting on "Mudslide".
  • Greg "Cuddles" Welts - percussion on "Spit It Out" and demo tracks.
  • Paul Gray - bass, backing vocals
  • Joey Jordison - drums, mixing
  • Sid Wilson - turntables


I’ve felt the tropes rise up in me...

  • Animated Music Video: One of two videos for "Wait and Bleed" (the other being a Performance Video) is this, using Stop Motion.
  • Album Intro Track: "742617000027", which leads into "(sic)".
  • Based on a True Story: "Frail Limb Nursery" and "Purity" or so Taylor thought. The story turned out to be a hoax.
  • Broken Record: "742617000027" consists of, aside from the noise, a sample of a woman saying "The whole thing, I think it's sick." from a documentary on Charles Manson repeated over and over again at different pitches and speeds.
  • Careful with That Axe: Used throughout, notably in "Purity" and "Eeyore".
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Most of the album, with "Wait and Bleed" and "Scissors" being the major exceptions, but special mention goes to "Surfacing".
    "Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for!"
  • Deranged Animation: The Stop Motion animated video for "Wait and Bleed".
  • Epic Instrumental Opener: The vocals on "Prosthetics" start at 1:32. The vocals on "Scissors" start at 1:43.
  • Epic Rocking: "Scissors" is over eight minutes long, minus the silence and hidden tracks.
  • Evil Laugh: Near the end of "(sic)" and later during “Tattered and Torn”.
  • Fading into the Next Song: "Tattered and Torn" fades into "Frail Limb Nursery", even on releases which replace it and "Purity" with "Me Inside".
  • "I Am" Song: "Eeyore":
    "I AM THE GREAT BIG MOUTH!"
  • Hidden Track: "Mudslide" starts after about five minutes of silence after "Scissors" ends and leads directly into "Eeyore".
  • Longest Song Goes Last: Ignoring the hidden tracks, "Scissors" is the final song with a runtime of 8 minutes and 23 seconds. Including the silence, "Mudslide" and "Eeyore", the track containing "Scissors" lasts for 19 minutes and 18 seconds.
  • Mondegreen: The repeated sample on "742617000027" is of a woman saying "The whole thing, I think it's sick," though it's also commonly heard as "I hope your husband gets sick."
  • Mood Whiplash: "Scissors", one of the heaviest songs on the album (if not Slipknot's entire discography), is followed after several minutes of silence by "Mudslide", a track that features a recording of the band reacting to a scat film.
  • Nu Metal: Plays this trope straighter than later albums, with very frequent use of turntabling courtesy of Sid and several songs and bonus tracks featuring rapped vocals.
  • Obsession Song: "Prosthetics".
  • Performance Video: One of the videos for "Wait and Bleed" (the other being an Animated Music Video) and the performance scenes of the "Spit It Out" video both use footage from live concerts.
  • Rap Metal: "Spit It Out”, "No Life" and “Only One”. Also applies to some of the bonus tracks, such as "Snap".
  • Sampling: This is the Slipknot album with the largest amount of known samples. Some individual examples include:
    • Carlito's line "Here comes the pain!" from Carlito's Way, featured in "(sic)".
    • The outro to Slayer's "South of Heaven", which was edited and sampled as the intro of "Only One".
  • Shout-Out: Much of the "Spit It Out" music video consists of the band members reenacting scenes from The Shining.
  • Stop Motion: The animated video for “Wait and Bleed” uses this.
  • Surprisingly Gentle Song: Downplayed with "Wait and Bleed", "Spit It Out" and “Purity” - while all three songs are still very heavy, they are this trope in comparison to other tracks on this album.
  • Studio Chatter: The Hidden Track "Mudslide" is nothing but this, involving the band reacting to the eponymous scat film. Hilarity Ensues.

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