My Way – Limp Bizkit

An appreciation of the Bizkit boys

A lot of people think that the Red Hot Chili Peppers consist of three of the greatest musicians that ever lived, and Anthony Kiedis. As in, he doesn’t live up to the rest of the members of the band. I disagree. I don’t think the Chili’s could ever exist in the capacity that they do without Anthony’s vocals and personality. Technically speaking, yes, he is probably outclassed in terms of ability or “talent” by his bandmates, but it just wouldn’t work any other way. The Chili’s are all-timers for me. Limp Bizkit, however, are not. I feel the same way about Fred Durst as a lot of people do about Kiedis. But for everything that he is, Limp Bizkit could not exist without him. It took me until their recent semi-resurgence to really “get” Fred. While the Limp Bizkit of the past may or may not have been, the current Limp Bizkit is very self-aware and totally understands their current audience. With tours named “Loserville” featuring Corey Feldman as an opener, and their most recent album being called Limp Bizkit Still Sucks, I’m not shitting on Fred in any way; in fact, I would actually love to hang out with him. Like I mentioned, the boys of the Bizkit are extremely self-aware.

What is Limp Bizkit? Numetal would be the best answer here, I think. That’s enough to draw some heat alone, but their mixture of hip hop/rap production elements can be really interesting. I think Fred is best known for, better or worse, as a metal rapper, and he’s not going to win any awards for being a great rapper or a great singer. But he’s not really “bad” at rapping, and he can still carry a tune, so it works out pretty well for what it is. It doesn’t matter how weird something is, as long as you’re really good at it, someone out there will appreciate it. Limp Bizkit as a unit is really damn good at what they do. (Primus having top 10 albums is a great example of this)

Their recent album that I mentioned, Still Sucks, seems to be an acceptance of their own aging and the aging of their fans, with songs like “Out of Style” and “Dad Vibes” (Dad Vibes is catchy as hell), but I decided to go back to their earlier work, the often academically dissected and perhaps best discussed over a nice bottle of red, chocolate starfish and the hotdog flavored water. (no caps) I hate everything about that name and the album cover makes me uncomfortable, which of course is the point. “My Way,” however heavy the chorus, this song is considerably more mellow than their other stuff. I love the instrumentation on this song, especially the way the bass and guitar start out. It just feels like something that belongs in an early 2000s action movie. Not quite a Michael Bay featuring Linkin Park budget movie but close. That era seemed to have so many songs that feature a mixture of delay and chorus effects on clean(ish) notes in the build-up to the chorus. I’m not complaining though! I really love the sound, especially the jumpy way the bass comes in soon after. Lyrically, this one isn’t as classy as Sinatra‘s “My Way,” think wife beaters and backwards flat bills rather than suits and fedoras, but it’s really not as aggressive as the other work (Break Stuff, Nookie) and it seems like there’s a real feeling of wanting to break free from something behind Fred’s vocals. One of his best performances.

I also wanted to give a shoutout to Wes Borland; often overshadowed by Fred Durst being himself, Wes is a hell of a metal guitar player. I think you have to give his creativity credit, especially in the context of the style of music they make. I also love how weird he is. Fred has recently adopted a “dad vibes” gimmick look (seen in the first pic, far right), but Wes has always gone all out with his looks during shows. Maybe it’s a persona thing, maybe not, but I think it’s pretty fun considering everybody else in the band just wears street clothes and doesn’t hide their faces.

Link to song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIrDpvl0Xvk

Link to live (great Wes look) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahW0ikDTj8U

Link to Wes’s looks – https://hellorayo.co.uk/kerrang/entertainment/music/limp-bizkit-wes-borland-costumes-makeup/