PacManY2J's Full Review: Significant Other [PA] by Limp Bizkit
This is my entry in HawgWyld's Manly Write Off. Nookie? Breaking stuff? Ken Shamrock references? What could be more manly?
I can tell I'm gonna get a lot of flack for this one.
I've spent many days lambasting Fred Durst both in print and over the airwaves. And with good reason. The man has very little talent. He's only smart enough to realize that lots of swears = lots of kids buying your record. Their Chocolate Starfish... album was an abomination, and I have a feeling the next one will be even worse without guitarist Wes Borland. But I have to finally come clean - I kind of like Significant Other.
I'm not a huge fan of the first album, Three Dollar Bill Y'all. There's some good tracks, but on the whole, it blurs together into a sea of loud-for-the-sake-of-loud. Significant Other is both a blessing and a curse, as it moves far away from that old sound but begins steering the band toward the awful sound of Chocolate Starfish.... You see, deep down, Fred Durst has always wanted to be a rapper. He used to be in a group called 2 White, doing rap that made Vanilla Ice look like Public Enemy. With this album, they moved closer toward rap, making a better sound for themselves, but that sound would turn brutally bad by the third album. I doubt things will get better now that Wes has left to make music that will be much better than Limp Bizkit but nowhere near as popular.
Immediately the band introduces us to the new sound with Just Like This. Powered by a strong beat and a putcha-hands-up chorus, this song is not great but it's definitly fun. Many early fans hated this new, fun sound, but I think it was a step in the right direction that was later taken too far. Durst has little to no vocal talent, but he works with what he has and pulls it off with help from the rest of the band.
Next up is one of their biggest hits, Nookie. It has a powerful chorus with, unfortunately, a dumb line: "You can take that cookie/ And stick it up your..." I can't believe they couldn't find any better rhyme for the title of the song. Damn. Nevertheless, it's a strong track that serves as an anthem to any guy who found out the hard way what it's like to do it all for the you-know-what.
Another great anthem is Break Stuff, the perfect song to crank full-blast when you're p*ssed at the world. Borland's guitar work keeps the song heavy all the way through as Durst tells it like it is: "It's just one of those days/ When you don't wanna wake up/ Everything is f*cked/ Everybody sucks." Not very poetic, but honest. Besides, who wants poetry when you want to bash someone's face in?
The album's most blatant venture into hip hop comes with N 2 Gether Now, featuring Method Man rapping with Durst. This song has a hell of a beat. Durst's voice works pretty well here but is overshadowed my Method Man's. The "Shut the f*ck up" hook is pretty mindless but catchy.
Show Me What You Got is a pretty lousy track that gives props to the cities they've played. They should listen to the Bloodhound Gang's Going Nowhere Slow to see how it's done.
Their attempts at slow songs are hit and miss. Re-arranged is good and catchy with some thoughtful lyrics. Others are ok, but they get better when they return to heavy rapping (and make reference to Ultimate Fighting champion Ken Shamrock). As for the other heavy tunes, ranging from decent to blah, they're rap-metal done before rap-metal was overdone. They throw in some different styles to keep the songs from sounding alike, as so many albums in the genre tend to do. A guest appearance from Jon Davis and Scott Weiland is one way they achieve that.
The album's most shocking track is No Sex, in which Durst (with backing vocals from Aaron Lewis) laments about going "too fast way too soon" with a girl. It's strange to hear a rock star saying he feels disgusted about not getting to know someone before sleeping with her: "How can I respect myself?/ You couldn't respect yourself?.../ Realize that I'm worth more than that." It's mostly slow until the chorus where Durst belts out "Shoulda left my pants on last time/ But instead you had to let me dive right in." Again, not poetic but honest and, might I add, ballsy.
Overall, Significant Other is no classic. It may have gotten a genre in full swing, but are we really better off for 6,289,301 rap-metallers emerging from 1999-(insert far future year here)? Nevertheless, this is an enjoyable album when you're in the mood for cranking something up and letting your mind go blank. And isn't that what being a man is all about?
Great Music to Play While: Breaking stuff in the name of Nookie
It only looks easy. Not every band sells 1.5 million copies of their debut record, and shares stages with the hottest acts in the world while amassing...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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