What would you do for the nookie - GREAT Limp Biskit review
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2004 10:56 pm
I saw this on the internet and loved it. I know it's long, but please indulge me and read it. You'll be glad you did. The last paragraph is particularly brilliant...and ACCURATE!
Limp Bizkit Civil War
What would you do for the Nookie?
By Steve Ritchey
Readers (and editors) of The Student Underground, I apologize to you. This was intended to be a review of Matmos’ new, Civil War (Matador), record, however it is not. I know that you are all progressive, intelligent, hip, sexy folks and would have been down to read all about those electro-indie, experimental, Harvard visiting artists. But I do not want to pander to you people, you’re all too smart for that. You have heard it all before, sonic collages, Bjork, blips, avant-garde and you don’t need to hear it again (until next month). I will, just in case you were wondering about it, sum up their album for you real quick like. It’s fucking wonderful, another feat in conceptual electronic music. No surgery sounds like the last time around, but lots of medieval instruments (hurdy-gurdies and rabbit pelts getting banged on everywhere), complex, fun, a total blast. Go out and buy it.
Now to the point. This is a review of Limp Bizkit’s new album, Results May Vary. Now you may say to me, "Steve, you fucking asshole. Why do you waste our time (not to mention your own) with these idiots? What do you think this is, Rolling Stone?" To that I will say first off, The Student Underground has far too few tits and ass photo spreads to be Rolling Stone (when will we do our Olsen Twins cover?... we’re all waitin’). More importantly I am writing about them Bizkit boyz, because, let’s not kid ourselves, they are a hell of a lot more culturally relevant than the fellas in Matmos ever will be (Harvard be damned). Denying the existence of Limp Bizkit is like denying that one G.W. Bush is the president of these here United States (your bumper stickers be damned). You may not like it but they are here and now and in one way or another affect the world in which you live in ways Matmos would never want to.
So with that said, I have decided to confront this ugly avenue of pop-music culture head on and have obtained and listened to a copy of Results May Vary. I’ll admit that once Results was all downloaded (I’m going to jail), burnt up, and in the player, I didn’t know what to do with it. I had been getting stoned and listening to Cat Power records all day and I wasn’t quite ready for the cock-wielding onslaught that was to come. On "Microphone Fiend" Limp singer Fred Durst threatens to "penetrate deep in your eardrum," and demands that you "Turn it up motherfucker/ Turn it up motherfucker/ And step into a world ya neva seen." A world I neva seen is right. I realized that this was very foreign aural territory for me, and that I should go into this project with some guidance from the experts. I found these experts on the Information Super-Highway. More specifically I found customer review pages of Amazon.com and the official Limp Bizkit message board (www.limpbizkit.com you can find lots of scary teenage depravity here- a cultural experience unpleasant but intriguing- also lots of lewd 69 jokes with mouthwash and dairy product punch lines-eww).
At Amazon, which seems to be a slightly more objective forum than the aforementioned message board, the reviews of, Results, were in fact varied (Thank you. Thank you. I’ll be here all week). One particularly insightful critic listed only as "Music Fan" from Deshler, Ohio seemed to sum up the general Bizkit buyer reaction at Amazon pretty well, stating, "I still like these guys a lot. However, I can’t help but feel this is their weakest yet. Mainly because while I listened to it I noticed I wasn’t headbanging as much as I have in the past to their music." In the considerably less genteel (but more passionate) setting of the Bizkit Board, another fan listed as "Catskinner," posted, "The album is great. They’re back! The Band has done a great job…Fuck all those who waste their time shit talking Fred and the band…What more could you ask for."
This last post moved me in a certain way. Why should I waste my time "shit talking Fred and the band." Catskinner makes a really good point, I don’t care about Limp Bizkit (and you don’t either I assume), it is a waste of time, but I will give you the several sentence rundown on the record just in case you do care.
The Limps are doing the same old metal/rap-metal raging-for-the-machine (not a wording error) pre-packaged rebellion type shtick. The highlights of the record are the hilarious sensitive (dare I say emo…dare I say pussy) moments we get with Mr. Durst. "Almost Over" talks about the trials of being Fred ("I was locked in a cage as a little boy…sing a lot of blues as an older man…people piss on my game as an older man… learned how to love as an older man"), and on "Build a Bridge" (a bridge of "memories" and "pain" no less) a now more mature Fred no longer screams about "Nookie" but begs, "Wait for me…please wait for me," without following the statement with "bitch." The only fairly tolerable moment of Results comes in the form of a seXXXy Snoop Dogg cameo on the G-Funky "Green Light."
What can I say for myself, why did I bother subjecting myself to this trip and why have I subjected you to nearly one thousand words (thus far) about it. I have done this because as a music fan (who fancies himself as one with discerning and impeccable tastes if he doesn’t say so himself), it is sometimes necessary to keep the world in check and make sure that what I perceive as square is still square… to go behind enemy lines and see what they are feedin’ the kids these days. Corporate record labels are trying to turn our children, little brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews and what have you into an army of tiny boring, hateful, angry, intolerant, republican, zombie-consumer-jerks. They have been working harder than ever to do this in since the mid-nineties. At least kids used to have a shot at hearing decent tunes on the radio or TV occasionally, but this is no more. It is up to us, the folks who are punk and hip and with it, to be on to what the Bizkits and their cohorts are up to at all times. The only way to save this country, never mind rock and roll, is to put decent records in the hands of every child of this nation. If you know someone under the age of sixteen, go buy them a Velvet Underground record, a Ramones record, Lightning Bolt, John Coltrane, anything, save us from becoming a nation of robot squares. This my friends is why I call your attention to the new Limp Bizkit record. They are the reason why young people don’t vote and there are streets crammed with SUVs. Limp Bizkit is working for the companies that fight to keep us bored and stuck in front of MTV while they sponsor wars in our names. Keep on rockin’ and rollin’ and digging the Matmos, but I urge you: never turn your back on those top forty motherfuckers or we’re all dead.
Limp Bizkit Civil War
What would you do for the Nookie?
By Steve Ritchey
Readers (and editors) of The Student Underground, I apologize to you. This was intended to be a review of Matmos’ new, Civil War (Matador), record, however it is not. I know that you are all progressive, intelligent, hip, sexy folks and would have been down to read all about those electro-indie, experimental, Harvard visiting artists. But I do not want to pander to you people, you’re all too smart for that. You have heard it all before, sonic collages, Bjork, blips, avant-garde and you don’t need to hear it again (until next month). I will, just in case you were wondering about it, sum up their album for you real quick like. It’s fucking wonderful, another feat in conceptual electronic music. No surgery sounds like the last time around, but lots of medieval instruments (hurdy-gurdies and rabbit pelts getting banged on everywhere), complex, fun, a total blast. Go out and buy it.
Now to the point. This is a review of Limp Bizkit’s new album, Results May Vary. Now you may say to me, "Steve, you fucking asshole. Why do you waste our time (not to mention your own) with these idiots? What do you think this is, Rolling Stone?" To that I will say first off, The Student Underground has far too few tits and ass photo spreads to be Rolling Stone (when will we do our Olsen Twins cover?... we’re all waitin’). More importantly I am writing about them Bizkit boyz, because, let’s not kid ourselves, they are a hell of a lot more culturally relevant than the fellas in Matmos ever will be (Harvard be damned). Denying the existence of Limp Bizkit is like denying that one G.W. Bush is the president of these here United States (your bumper stickers be damned). You may not like it but they are here and now and in one way or another affect the world in which you live in ways Matmos would never want to.
So with that said, I have decided to confront this ugly avenue of pop-music culture head on and have obtained and listened to a copy of Results May Vary. I’ll admit that once Results was all downloaded (I’m going to jail), burnt up, and in the player, I didn’t know what to do with it. I had been getting stoned and listening to Cat Power records all day and I wasn’t quite ready for the cock-wielding onslaught that was to come. On "Microphone Fiend" Limp singer Fred Durst threatens to "penetrate deep in your eardrum," and demands that you "Turn it up motherfucker/ Turn it up motherfucker/ And step into a world ya neva seen." A world I neva seen is right. I realized that this was very foreign aural territory for me, and that I should go into this project with some guidance from the experts. I found these experts on the Information Super-Highway. More specifically I found customer review pages of Amazon.com and the official Limp Bizkit message board (www.limpbizkit.com you can find lots of scary teenage depravity here- a cultural experience unpleasant but intriguing- also lots of lewd 69 jokes with mouthwash and dairy product punch lines-eww).
At Amazon, which seems to be a slightly more objective forum than the aforementioned message board, the reviews of, Results, were in fact varied (Thank you. Thank you. I’ll be here all week). One particularly insightful critic listed only as "Music Fan" from Deshler, Ohio seemed to sum up the general Bizkit buyer reaction at Amazon pretty well, stating, "I still like these guys a lot. However, I can’t help but feel this is their weakest yet. Mainly because while I listened to it I noticed I wasn’t headbanging as much as I have in the past to their music." In the considerably less genteel (but more passionate) setting of the Bizkit Board, another fan listed as "Catskinner," posted, "The album is great. They’re back! The Band has done a great job…Fuck all those who waste their time shit talking Fred and the band…What more could you ask for."
This last post moved me in a certain way. Why should I waste my time "shit talking Fred and the band." Catskinner makes a really good point, I don’t care about Limp Bizkit (and you don’t either I assume), it is a waste of time, but I will give you the several sentence rundown on the record just in case you do care.
The Limps are doing the same old metal/rap-metal raging-for-the-machine (not a wording error) pre-packaged rebellion type shtick. The highlights of the record are the hilarious sensitive (dare I say emo…dare I say pussy) moments we get with Mr. Durst. "Almost Over" talks about the trials of being Fred ("I was locked in a cage as a little boy…sing a lot of blues as an older man…people piss on my game as an older man… learned how to love as an older man"), and on "Build a Bridge" (a bridge of "memories" and "pain" no less) a now more mature Fred no longer screams about "Nookie" but begs, "Wait for me…please wait for me," without following the statement with "bitch." The only fairly tolerable moment of Results comes in the form of a seXXXy Snoop Dogg cameo on the G-Funky "Green Light."
What can I say for myself, why did I bother subjecting myself to this trip and why have I subjected you to nearly one thousand words (thus far) about it. I have done this because as a music fan (who fancies himself as one with discerning and impeccable tastes if he doesn’t say so himself), it is sometimes necessary to keep the world in check and make sure that what I perceive as square is still square… to go behind enemy lines and see what they are feedin’ the kids these days. Corporate record labels are trying to turn our children, little brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews and what have you into an army of tiny boring, hateful, angry, intolerant, republican, zombie-consumer-jerks. They have been working harder than ever to do this in since the mid-nineties. At least kids used to have a shot at hearing decent tunes on the radio or TV occasionally, but this is no more. It is up to us, the folks who are punk and hip and with it, to be on to what the Bizkits and their cohorts are up to at all times. The only way to save this country, never mind rock and roll, is to put decent records in the hands of every child of this nation. If you know someone under the age of sixteen, go buy them a Velvet Underground record, a Ramones record, Lightning Bolt, John Coltrane, anything, save us from becoming a nation of robot squares. This my friends is why I call your attention to the new Limp Bizkit record. They are the reason why young people don’t vote and there are streets crammed with SUVs. Limp Bizkit is working for the companies that fight to keep us bored and stuck in front of MTV while they sponsor wars in our names. Keep on rockin’ and rollin’ and digging the Matmos, but I urge you: never turn your back on those top forty motherfuckers or we’re all dead.