Corey Taylor - Style and Influence

Style and Influence

The first two Slipknot albums with Taylor's vocals, Slipknot and Iowa, both contain gratuitous explicit content. Many critics claimed Taylor relied on the profanity, which is why Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is profanity free, (with the exception of the word "Bitch" on the song Duality), and did not warrant the explicit label. Compared with the previous vocalist for Slipknot, Anders Colsefni, Taylor has a vocal style that was characterized by drummer Joey Jordison as "really good melodic singing". Taylor's vocal style, which contains at times melodic singing, growling, screaming, shouting, and rapping, led him to place at number 86 on the Hit Parader’s Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time.

Taylor's two major projects have contrasting temperaments. Slipknot is considered to be heavy metal, nu metal and alternative metal, and expresses moods such as depression, hostility, anger, and rebellion. Stone Sour is classified as hard rock, alternative metal, heavy metal, and post-grunge, expressing moods of bleakness and somberness as well as anger and rebellion. Taylor cites Mötley Crüe, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Dokken, Misfits, Black Sabbath, Black Flag, Slayer, Def Leppard, Sex Pistols, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Cheap Trick, Pearl Jam, The Damned, The Cramps, Journey, Bob Dylan and Korn as influences.