White Pony is not just Deftones' best album — it is one of the most important rock records of the past 30 years. Released on 20 June 2000 via Maverick Records, it arrived at the peak of the nu metal era and immediately rendered most of its contemporaries obsolete. It won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance and has only grown in stature in the decades since.
Background & Recording
After the commercial breakthrough of Around the Fur, Deftones entered the studio with producer Terry Date and a clear ambition: to make something that couldn't be categorised. The result drew on shoegaze, electronic music, dream pop, and alternative rock as much as metal, creating a sonic palette unlike anything else in heavy music at the time.
Vocalist Chino Moreno pushed his voice into new territory — whispering, soaring, and screaming within the same song. Guitarist Stephen Carpenter refined his down-tuned, atmospheric approach, while the rhythm section of Chi Cheng and Abe Cunningham provided the groove that kept the album grounded. The result was a record that felt simultaneously heavy and weightless.
Tracklist
- Feiticeira
- Digital Bath
- Elite
- RX Queen
- Street Carp
- Teenager
- Knife Prty
- Korea
- Passenger (feat. Maynard James Keenan)
- Change (In the House of Flies)
- Pink Maggit
Key Tracks
Change (In the House of Flies) is the album's emotional centrepiece — a slow-burning, hypnotic track that became one of Deftones' signature songs and has found a new generation of fans through TikTok and streaming. Digital Bath is a masterclass in tension and release, its quiet verses exploding into one of the heaviest choruses on the record. Passenger, featuring Tool's Maynard James Keenan, is a brooding, atmospheric collaboration that remains one of the great rock duets of its era.
Elite won the Grammy for Best Metal Performance — a remarkable achievement for a track that barely resembles conventional metal.
Legacy
White Pony is the record that proved heavy music could be art. It sits comfortably alongside the great alternative rock albums of its era — Radiohead's Kid A, Bjork's Homogenic — as a work that expanded what its genre could be. For a generation of musicians, it remains the benchmark. For fans, it is simply untouchable.
A 20th anniversary deluxe edition, Black Stallion, was released in 2020, featuring remixes by artists including Clams Casino, Squarepusher, and Robert Smith of The Cure — a testament to the album's extraordinary cross-genre influence.
Shop Deftones Merch
Officially licensed Deftones merchandise is available now at Wonderhaul — for fans of White Pony and every era beyond.