Korn — Untitled: The Album Korn Refused to Name

The Album Korn Refused to Name — the Vault Deep Dive on Korn — Untitled (2007).

The Story

In 2007 Korn did something almost no platinum band dares: they shipped an album with no name on the cover at all. Jonathan Davis put it plainly — why not let the fans call it whatever they want to call it. The record has no boundaries, he said, so it got no title. It landed July 31, 2007 on Virgin, the band's eighth studio album, and it arrived at the strangest moment in their history — the lineup fractured, the nu-metal wave receding, and nothing whatsoever about their next move obvious to anyone, including the band itself.

The Sound

This is Korn at their most experimental — murkier and more atmospheric than anything they had cut before, the familiar seven-string crunch set against organ, synthesizer, and toying, off-balance arrangements that drag the choruses somewhere unexpected. The critics split straight down the middle when it landed, and that argument never really ended. Where one side heard a band wounded and diminished, the other heard the most cohesive left turn in the entire catalog. Either way, the point stands: it sounds like nothing else this band ever made.

The Sessions

The album was cut without an official drummer in the band — David Silveria was gone, Ray Luzier had not yet arrived, and the remaining trio built the record around hired hands and pure studio instinct. Atticus Ross produced, steering the band deeper into texture and electronics than they had ever gone, with Zac Baird's keyboards threaded through nearly every track. A famous pop production trio actually started these sessions and walked away early — and what survived their exit is the stranger, braver record.

The Legacy

Time has been far kinder to this album than 2007 was. For collectors it became the sleeper of the catalog — the transitional record between two eras of the band, the experiment that never got a proper vinyl moment for a decade and a half. When the reissue finally came, it came absurdly small, sold only through the band's own webstore, and vanished almost immediately. Scarcity found the record that fame overlooked — and the fans who named it for themselves never let it go.

Why This Copy

This is the 2023 Korn webstore exclusive, limited to one thousand copies worldwide — a glow-in-the-dark gatefold jacket wrapped around coke-bottle clear vinyl, remastered across two LPs, carrying the bonus tracks Sing Sorrow and Overture or Obituary. Ours is factory sealed, sharp-edged and clean-cornered, exactly as it left the pressing plant. One thousand of these exist on the entire planet, and most were opened. This is one of them, still shut.

What the pressing tells us

The part most listings skip. This is how we grade and how you can tell copies apart:

• 2023 Korn webstore exclusive — limited to 1,000 copies worldwide
• Glow-in-the-dark gatefold jacket · coke-bottle clear vinyl · 2-LP remaster
• Bonus tracks: Sing Sorrow · Overture or Obituary
• Factory sealed — barcode 5054197487330

Session file

• Produced by Atticus Ross, who pushed the band toward texture, electronics and atmosphere
• Recorded with no official drummer — between David Silveria's exit and Ray Luzier's arrival
• Zac Baird's keyboards, organ and synthesizer run through nearly the whole record
• A famous pop production trio began the sessions and departed before the record took shape
• Released July 31, 2007 on Virgin — deliberately untitled, at Jonathan Davis's insistence

Who played on it

• Jonathan Davis — Vocals
• James "Munky" Shaffer — Guitar
• Fieldy — Bass

Vault Trivia

1. The untitled album debuted higher on the Billboard 200 than any Korn record in five years. Where did it land?

1. Number 8
2. Number 4
3. Number 2
4. Number 1

Reveal the answer

Number 2 — Number 2 — on 123,000 first-week copies, the band's best debut since Untouchables.

2. One of the hired drummers on this record earned his reputation behind which legendary bandleader?

1. Miles Davis
2. Frank Zappa
3. James Brown
4. Captain Beefheart

Reveal the answer

Frank Zappa — Frank Zappa — Terry Bozzio, who plays on eight of the album's tracks.

3. The second session drummer was borrowed from which long-running punk institution?

1. NOFX
2. Descendents
3. Bad Religion
4. Pennywise

Reveal the answer

Bad Religion — Bad Religion — Brooks Wackerman, who cut four tracks of his own.

4. The pop production trio that started these sessions is best known for co-writing which smash hit?

1. Toxic
2. Complicated
3. Since U Been Gone
4. Hollaback Girl

Reveal the answer

Complicated — Avril Lavigne's Complicated — The Matrix began the album before Atticus Ross took over.

5. Which song was the album's lead single?

1. Hold On
2. Kiss
3. Haze
4. Evolution

Reveal the answer

Evolution — Evolution — followed by Hold On, Kiss and Haze.

The vault opens again tomorrow — catch the next Deep Dive.

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