Artist: KORN
Album: ISSUES (CD)

Release date: 1999
EAN/UPS: 5099749635920
Media type: CD

Issues is the fourth studio album by the band Korn and has sold over 5,000,000 copies worldwide. This album featured four different covers each designed by Korn fans as part of an MTV competition (The winning cover seen at right was designed by Alfredo Carlos; another CD cover for special limited edition of the album features a cartoonish half-caricature for the band).

The first single, "Falling Away from Me", debuted on the hit TV show South Park in an episode titled Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery on October 27, 1999. The band was featured in cartoon form as Scooby Doo-style mystery solvers.

The album includes five short 'interlude' tracks (1, 4, 7, 9 and 14) mixed in with the other regular length songs. Issues is also the first Korn album not to have a hidden track, with only static fading out at the end of the album.

Although the album received rather mixed reviews on the moment of release, in time it has become considered one of Korn's best by many fans. The album debuted at #1 selling 575,000 units in its first week of release in US and has gone triple platinum a month after the release. The album marked a change from nu metal to alternative metal by the band. According to them in the booklet that comes with Greatest Hits, Volume 1 album, they did not want to be part of a popular trend and wanted to do their own thing. Thus there was no hip-hop influence or nu metal elements on this album. The band also admits that with Brendan O'Brien working alongside them, he kept them more focused during recording so far as to not letting them just fool around and party, and that there was a lot less drinking this time around especially in Jonathan's part since he quit drinking a year earlier.

The release of Issues was preceded by the unusual show at New York's historic Apollo Theater and broadcast the concert simultaneously across many radio stations one day prior to release. This performance made Korn only the second white musical group and the first ever rock band to ever perform at The Apollo after the legendary Buddy Holly in the late 1950s. The band has performed Issues album in its entirety, as well a couple of older songs during the encore. This event incorporated NYPD marching drum and bagpipe band conducted by composer and friend of Jonathan Davis, Richard Gibbs.

TRACKLIST:

"Dead" – 1:12
"Falling Away from Me" – 4:30
"Trash" – 3:27
"4 U" – 1:42
"Beg for Me" – 3:53
"Make Me Bad" – 3:55
"It's Gonna Go Away" – 1:30
"Wake Up" – 4:07
"Am I Going Crazy" – 0:59
"Hey Daddy" – 3:44
"Somebody Someone" – 3:47
"No Way" – 4:08
"Let's Get This Party Started" – 3:41
"Wish You Could Be Me" – 1:07
"Counting" – 3:37
"Dirty" - 7:50

LINE-UP:

Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu - Bass, Programming
Jonathan Davis - Vocals, Bagpipes ("Dead"), Drums ("Dead", Trash", "4 U", "It's Gonna Go Away", "Am I Going Crazy", "Wish You Could Be Me", "Dirty"), Programming
James "Munky" Shaffer - Guitar
David Silveria - Drums
Brian "Head" Welch - Guitar