Korn are, of course, the Godfathers of nu metal. Their 1994 self-titled debut album was a game-changing masterpiece that went on to define the sound of heavy music in the second half of the 90s. But, commercially speaking, it was a slow burn. It took a couple of years before Korn started making inroads into mainstream charts, specifically on their second studio album, 1996’s Life is Peachy, which peaked at number three on the US Billboard 200.
Its success was helped by a song that took classic nu metal crunch, a fictional piece of smutty lore behind the name of one of the world's biggest sportswear brands, plenty of bad language and a video that featured the members of Korn as corpses dressed in lingerie. Hardly the best recipe for crossover success, but A.D.I.D.A.S. still became their highest charting single of the 90s.
Although Korn had only peaked at number 72 and number 181 in the US and UK album charts respectively, it had still sold over 800,000 copies by the time Korn were approaching the release of their new album. Despite this, they were in no mood to compromise to the mainstream.
“We got this far without radio stations and MTV,” vocalist Jonathan Davis told Kerrang! prior to Life is Peachy’s release in 1996. “We really don’t give a fuck. Record companies just want to make a quick buck and then go ‘Next band please.’ If we let people get their meathooks into us, it’d spoil a good thing.”
Initially the band wanted the song K**t to be the first single from the album, which was maybe taking things a little too far. So No Place to Hide was instead released as a compromise.
But Korn were not willing to back down after that. Their next single would be a song which Davis claimed was about “How much of a pervert my ass is, and how I daydream about what a stud I am. But when it comes down to it, I’m a fucking pussy and I’m in there jacking it off.”
The song in question was A.D.I.D.A.S., taking its name from the sportswear brand that the band had become synonymous with during their short career.
“It was about smashing down walls and embracing all kinds of different music styles and musical cultures. It was about going against everything that metal was supposed to be,” Davis told Kerrang! of the band’s adoption of Adidas gear, in stark contrast to the black t-shirts, denim and leather metal had built its legacy on.
For the song, they brought back a popular backronym for the label that had been around since the 1970s. The story was that Adidas stood for 'All Day I Dream About Sex'. It was, apparently, a coded message for sniggering teens. Not true, of course - Adidas was named after the company’s German founder, Adi Dassler - but Korn weren’t going to let the truth get in the way of a great name for a song.
As if the NSFW lyrical content, pounding rhythms and snaking, grinding guitars of the song wasn’t enough to mark it out as a very unlikely hit, the song's promotional video would surely hammer the final nail into the coffin of commercial success.
In it, the band are made up as corpses, having been involved in a car accident, and are zipped up in body bags and taken to the morgue, where it is revealed that Davis is wearing women's underwear.
“It was pretty freaky getting zipped up in the body bag,” guitarist James 'Munky' Shaffer told Vevo. “It’s like, 'Okay, how many other times is this ever going to happen?'”
Some of the band took it in their stride.
“The worst thing,” guitarist Brian 'Head' Welch added, "was drinking and then having to stay in the car, because we had to piss so much.”
A.D.I.D.A.S. was released as a single on March 4 1997. Against all rationale, it found its way to number 22 on the UK singles chart. It would be Korn’s biggest UK hit of the 90s and a position they wouldn’t top until Here To Stay peaked at number 12 in 2002.
Unfortunately, the Bakersfield boys have had a bumpy relationship with the song ever since: Davis called it “a dumb song...very immature and juvenile” in a 2024 interview with Adidas, and when Welch returned to the band in 2013, it was one of the songs that he requested they never play live.
The latter request stemmed from an incident a decade before where Welch saw his then five-year-old daughter singing the song. He stated in the book Plugged in Parenting: “I'm sitting there watching her sing 'All day I dream about sex'. That's not right. I don't care if she didn't know what she was singing...it's not right for her to sing that song. It's like I was stealing her childhood or something."
Regardless, it remains a huge turning point in Korn’s career (and Welch would seemingly relent, as the song made it back into Korn's set eventually). Although 1998’s Follow the Leader would push the band to far greater commercial heights, there’s an argument to be made that A.D.I.D.A.S. was their first real experience of crossing over. Sex really does sell, then. Even for metal bands.
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