Limp Bizkit, a Florida quintet
(vocalist Fred Durst, turntablist DJ Lethal, drummer John Otto,
bassist Sam Rivers, and guitarist Wes Borland) that took off from
the brutal Rage Against The Machine sound,
were revealed by a cover of George Michael's Faith, a musician
and a song that could not have been more misleading.
Limp Bizkit was, instead, a quintessential band from (urban) hell.
Most songs on Three Dollar Bill Yall (Interscope, 1997)
are driven by Durst's furnace of angst and anger and adorned with
Lethal's beats, scratches and samples.
The rhythm section and the guitar concoct a furious blend of
funk, rap, heavy metal and hard rock. The results are the
seismic rant of Pollution and monster riffs of
Counterfeit. Durst's psychodramas (e.g., Stuck)
are plotted in a chaotic industrial soundscape.
The agitated dynamics of emotional discharges like
Nobody Loves Me follow a logic that
is borrowed half from Led Zeppelin's blues and half from Foetus' symphonies.
Durst's persona dominates the show, swinging from the nursery rhyme of
Stalemate to the terrible agony of Stink Finger.
The album ends with the
16-minute overdose of Everything, a stark contrast to the
preacher who started off the record. There is no salvation for these
urban kids.
DJ Lethal's sound effects and hip-hop beats enhance
Significant Other (Interscope, 1999), that ranks among the milestones
of the genre.
The hip-hop beats with a the metal edge of Just Like This were
not particularly relevant, but the petulant synthesizer and the female
counterpart were typical of the "significant others" (musically speaking)
that characterized the best moments of the band.
Nookie
(the transitions from a standard rap-metal progression to a playful singalong)
and Break Stuff (a rigmarole of escalating tension)
successfully coupled strength and depth.
9 Teen 90 Nine articulates the cliches of the genre in a language
that is both versatile and ironic.
Trust disposes with irony and melody, and resorts to electronic noise and dadaistic rhythms.
They all boast the mandatory heavy riffs and rabid screams, but they all use
them merely as icons of the genre, basically the pronouns (not the verbs) in
a sentence.
As fashionable at the time, the seismic intensity of the songs was complemented
by a few moments of the opposite kind.
Thus the subdued ballads Re-Arranged and No Sex
showcased human emotions, not just animal instincts, and even more original is the high drama of Nobody Like You.
Lesson Learned even ventured into an oneiric rhythm-less atmosphere.
The album eskews monotony through all sorts of devices, be it the
danceable grooves of I'm Broke or the chamber hip-hop of N 2 Gether Now.
By the time
Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water (Interscope, 2000)
was released, a lot of things had changed.
Fred Durst, movie director and record-label executive, was either too self-conscious or too marketing-savvy.
The band's formulaic rap-metal sounded more like a recipe for radio hits than a musical genre (Take A Look Around, Hot Dog).
On the first album and especially on Significant Other the Bizkit's melange of monster guitar riffs, schizoid turntable scratches, manic heart-stopping drumming, and angry-white-kids' rants embodied the spirit of their generation, but all that was left now was a comedy of errors/stereotypes.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Massimo
Mascia)
I Limp Bizkit sono un
quintetto di Los Angeles (il vocalist Fred Durst, DJ Lethal ai piatti,
John Otto alla batteria, Sam Rivers al basso e Wes Borland alla
chitarra) che prendono avvio dalle sonorità brutali dei Rage
Against The Machine. Si misero in luce con una cover di Faith,
di George Michael, canzone e musicista quanto più insoliti
possibile. I Limp Bizkit sono la quintessenza della band dell'inferno
(urbano).
La maggioranza dei pezzi di Three Dollar Bill Y'all (Interscope,
1997) è alimentata dalla fornace di rabbia ed angoscia di Durst e
condita dai loop, scratch e campionamenti di Lethal, mentre sezione
ritmica e chitarra allestiscono una furiosa miscela di funk, rap, heavy
metal e hard rock. I risultati sono l'invettiva sismica di Pollution
e i mostruosi riff di Counterfeit. I psicodrammi di Durst (ad
es. Stuck) vengono concepiti in un caotico paesaggio sonoro
industriale. Le inquiete dinamiche di scarichi emotivi quali Nobody
Loves Me seguono una logica presa in prestito per metà dal
blues dei Led Zeppelin, e dalle sinfonie di Foetus per l'altra
metà. Il personaggio Durst spadroneggia sullo spettacolo,
oscillando fra la filastrocca di Stalemate e la terribile agonia
di Stink Finger. L'album termina con l'overdose di 16 minuti Everything,
un crudo contrasto al predicatore che dà inizio al disco. Per questi ragazzi di città non
esiste salvezza .
Gli effetti sonori e i loop hip-hop di
Lethal affinano Significant Other (Interscope, 1999), disco che
si colloca fra i capolavori di questo genere. Pezzi come Nookie e Break
Stuff possiedono profondità ed energia mentre Re-Arranged
diventa una vetrina per emozioni umane, e non soltanto per animali
infetti da rabbia.
Al tempo della pubblicazione di Chocolate
Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water (Interscope, 2000) sono
cambiate parecchie cose. Fred Durst, diventato regista cinematografico e
dirigente di un'etichetta musicale, è ormai o troppo impacciato
o troppo smaliziato. La formula rap-metal del gruppo suona più
come ricetta per successi radio piuttosto che genere musicale (Take
A Look Around, Hot Dog). Mentre sul primo album, ma
soprattutto su Significant Other, il melange Bizkit di
agghiaccianti riff chitarristici, schizoidi scratch dei piatti,
maniacale tambureggiare da infarto e sfuriate da giovani bianchi
incazzati incarnava lo stato d'animo della propria generazione, tutto
ciò che ora resta è una commedia degli errori/stereotipi.
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