The White Zombie Edition

On Rob Zombie, earworms, and the post-Kurt, pre-Bizkit era.

Colin here. I often get songs stuck in my head that were repeated to me over and over on MTV during high school. One is "More Human Than Human" by White Zombie, which I remember for being a catchy yet abrasive track that took a weird genre and somehow made it famous. Recently, as the song's slide guitar riffs, 95' heaviness, and Rob Zombie's unmistakable growl (yeahhhh) once again found their way into my mental playlist, I was curious to understand the song a bit more. I had a sense that it might have been culturally interesting, even beyond my teenage memories.

Why is this interesting?

Simply put, the song was a sign of things to come. A blend of industrial metal and horror that would go on to influence decades of music, film, and visual art. Released in 1995 on the album "Astro-Creep: 2000," it marked White Zombie's breakthrough, and got a metric ton of MTV airplay.

To place it in context, grunge was on the decline following Kurt's death, nu-metal like Limp Bizkit hadn't yet taken over the airwaves, and media outlets (MTV programmers, magazines like Alternative Press) were receptive to more out-there sounds. With "More Human Than Human," White Zombie made something that was simultaneously accessible (it had a great hook that you could remember) and also deeply weird; a Frankenstein's monster of samples, electronic programming, metal riffs, and B-movie horror aesthetics.

The song's title itself, borrowed from the sci-fi classic "Blade Runner," captured the cyborg fusion of man and machine that White Zombie's sound embodied.

When you zoom out a bit, you can see some of the things it possibly influenced: There are elements of Prodigy, Filter, some of the heavy Nine Inch Nails guitar riffs (bolstered by heavy synths). Bands like Fear Factory and later Rammstein took elements of this horror-industrial fusion and pushed it in new directions. Even artists outside of metal, from Marilyn Manson's shock rock to more distant and less logical corners of electronic music, owe a debt to White Zombie.

What's also interesting is how "More Human Than Human" managed to be commercially successful without compromise. The song went to #7 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart despite its weirdness—or perhaps because of it? (CJN)