“Welcome to the Fold” by Filter

Filter put out "Welcome to the Fold" in August 1999 to lead off Title of Record, their second album, and it's a split personality in one song. Richard Patrick screams the verses over a grinding, abrasive riff, then the chorus drops into something calmer and chord-driven, like a man catching his breath between tantrums. Patrick wrote it and produced it with Ben Grosse, who mixed, with Rae DiLeo and Geno Lenardo co-producing; he called it his favorite on the album and reckoned it held three songs in one.

He described it as the sound of a crazed, decadent bachelor with money, a platinum record and nothing left to care about. The title came from a 1998 album by a Cleveland novelty folk-rock band whose singer was a friend of bassist Frank Cavanagh. Spin put it on its list of the 69 best alternative rock songs of 1999.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.