The common narrative around Slipknot is that, on their first album cycle alone, they did everything any band could ever want to do. Off the back of their riotous debut, The Nine became figureheads of the nu metal takeover, instantly graduated to headliner status because no one wanted them as a support act, and went platinum in the US within a year. However, there was one honour that long eluded the eighteen-legged wrecking machine, even after Iowa reached number one in the UK: they couldn’t win a Grammy.
This wasn’t from lack of trying on the powers-that-be’s part. Slipknot were nominated for the Recording Academy’s small shiny gramophones almost from the off. Megahit Wait And Bleed was shortlisted for one in 2001, but got pipped to the post by Deftones’ Elite. Similar fates befell Iowa singles Left Behind and My Plague in 2002 and ’03, respectively. The industry body then tried even harder to give Iowa’s greatest some gold in 2005, nominating Duality and Vermilion in two different categories simultaneously, and that fell short too!
