Mudvayne represent a pinnacle of musicality in the last decade, considering the dearth of this quality in their contemporaries in the "nu-metal" field, although they effectively break clear of this mis-labelling via their original and emotionally challenging/intense crafting of music. I remember when I first heard Mudvayne thinking how much they were a breath of fresh air in a vapid, washed out scene, and made me want to pick up my guitar again... or a bass!! Great that they dropped the make-up, it only served to reinforce what some narrow minded people might think of them and ultimately distracted from their music which is, to say the least, brilliant. I have yet to hear another band so successfully fuse a highly technical deep metal approach with such solid song crafting ability. Tempting to call them progressive...

Based on the little information I have about Mudvayne they seem like the whiniest band on the nu-metal scene.

When they came out they were just your usual 3rd/4th wave alternative metal group, same as Slipknot and their ilk (and still are), but they wore complete facial make-up (i.e. black and white stripes down the whole head with a little "trolli" ponytail on the top). They started complaining in interviews about the makeup vowing never to wear it again even though, realistically speaking, the makeup was the one thing that differentiated them from the rest of the nu-metal scene at that time. It was just too hard for them to be comfortable while wearing it.

A friend of mine purchased a Mudvayne DVD showcasing a tour of theirs or a behind the scenes look at the lifestyles of the band members in which they were complaining about the heavy workload they faced touring constantly for their label and also talking about how it had been a year or two since they'd even seen their families. Of course, they forgot to consider for a moment that they were the ones that decided to play nu-metal at the peak of it's popularity (any metal band that expects to go anywhere relies almost exclusively on touring anyways) and they were also the ones that decided to go ahead and sign a contract (which I'm sure they read) to a big work-horse metal label to help get their stuff out there for the fans to buy. The repercussions, I suppose, were just too much for them to bear. My friend felt sorry for them, but in my opinion they just complain way too much (something many nu-metal bands seem to do), and always about the decisions they've made knowing exactly where those decisions would eventually lead them. They've even been moderately successful in the U.S. which is more than most can say.