Disturbed

Before that fateful day in 1996 when he responded to a singer-wanted ad placed by a Chicago rock band, David Draiman was on the path to becoming a rabbi.

Within a few years of passing that audition, though, he was leading a different kind of congregation—the five million metalheads who bought The Sickness, the 2000 debut album from his band, Disturbed.

Announced by the “oh-wah-ah-ah-ah” heard ‘round the world, the album’s breakout single, “Down With the Sickness,” injected nu-metal’s industrial-strength crunch with old-school hard-rock attitude, expanding the genre’s capacity for outsized angst while forsaking its hip-hop/electronic affinities for pure pummel.