Korn have intellectualized their splenic new-metal as they've declined commercially. But their ninth disc jettisons layered samples and pointy-headed craft for a live-band blitz, mutating the bleakest aspects of rap, rock, funk and industrial into a molten attack. "I'm such a stupid fuck/Listening to my head and not my gut," Jonathan Davis chides on "Let the Guilt Go," typifying the album's aggro-Zen attitude. New drummer Ray Luzier contributes some disco swing. But the draw is Davis, who spits scarred-teen scat like a guy whose parents just signed him up for military school. Not easy when you're pushing 40.

“Let My Love Open the Door”

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."