Terribly Unimportant Albums - which Rock!

[Galactus]

Thorn is right about Korn, they are important...as is unfortunatly Limp Bizkit, so ponder on how much it actually means for a moment. Beck however is still not very important. Now as surely you will stammer at the thought of Limp Bizkit being more important then Beck and probably only slightly less important then Korn let's take this as the absolute example that important is not the same as better or even good.

[Thorngrub]

Limp Bizkit is not important. I should know -- I saw them when they first opened for korn.

That is all Limp Bizkit ever was - - an opening act for korn. Because a wild & outta control contingency of dumb fucks that attended korn shows back in the day embraced bizkit's dumbjock shtick, does not make them important, even though we all know that it escalated their band to the point of granting them their fucking 15 minutes of fame.

But make no mistake about it- as "big" as LB got, it was exactly that: their 15 min.

So I'm sorry, as much fun as I had at many Limp Bizkit shows opening for Korn, there is no way you'll convince me they were ever in any way "important". KOrn never really even needed an opener. The only band I can think of that got their start as a korn opening band who went on to become important was INCUBUS.

[rockysigman]

Beck is the most influenced artist out there, but I don't know that he's influential. I also am not sure if he's really important, but I do think he's certainly more important that Limp Bizkit. Limp Bizkit is only important if mainstream success over a string of horrible albums is automatically important. They have no other real lasting impact, as they were not really the first to do what they did, nor were they the best, and I think their music and their impact will be almost completely forgotten within about 5 more years.

And I agree with Ken on Uncle Tupelo. Wilco is a much, much better band, but in the grand scheme of things, Uncle Tupelo is the more important band.

[Galactus]

Dude, no matter how much you don't want to admit it LB lead that movement. Korn took the reigns and brought a degree of legitmacy to it but make no mistake Limp Bizkit is the band that brought it to the fore.

[rockysigman]

It depends what you're referring to as the movement then, ded. Because if you're just talking about rap/metal hybrid, then both Korn and Limp Bizkit came way after Rage Against the Machine and yes, 311.

[Galactus]

Like Ken said if you remove LB from the music landscape it changes considerably (albeit possibly for the better) but I don't think the same can said about Beck. Have no doubt that I still consider LB one of the worst best ever commited to record.

[Fuzznuts]

thorny said:

Limp Bizkit is not important. I should know -- I saw them when they first opened for korn.

That is all Limp Bizkit ever was - - an opening act for korn. Because a wild & outta control contingency of dumb fucks that attended korn shows back in the day embraced bizkit's dumbjock shtick, does not make them important, even though we all know that it escalated their band to the point of granting them their fucking 15 minutes of fame.

But make no mistake about it- as "big" as LB got, it was exactly that: their 15 min.

So I'm sorry, as much fun as I had at many Limp Bizkit shows opening for Korn, there is no way you'll convince me they were ever in any way "important". KOrn never really even needed an opener. The only band I can think of that got their start as a korn opening band who went on to become important was INCUBUS.

Incubus? Beg pardon?

[Galactus]

rockysigman said:

It depends what you're referring to as the movement then, ded. Because if you're just talking about rap/metal hybrid, then both Korn and Limp Bizkit came way after Rage Against the Machine and yes, 311.

Yes, but it wasn't a movement then. It wasn't a genre. RATM, 311, FNM and Anthrax are all credible forebearers (quite honestly better then anything that came after) but when rap-metal, nu metal whatever you want to call it broke into the mainstream Limp Bizkit was the band at the front of the line.

[rockysigman]

Just realized I could have easily gone further back to RHCP or Beastie Boys actually.

Yes, Limp Bizkit was the most popular band in the movement for a time...but I think as far as real impact (devotion of their fan base as well as long term influence), Korn is more important. A lot more. I don't like them at all really, but I really can't dispute the longevity and breadth of their impact when compared to Limp Bizkit who were a popular joke, and then suddenly an unpopular joke, and then nothing.

[rockysigman]

So long as we're talking Bizkit, why not revisit my favorite album review of all time. This is the All Music Guide review of Results May Vary, and the writer wrote some positive reviews of their earlier albums:

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
It took a long, long time for Limp Bizkit to get their follow-up to Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water into the stores. First, guitarist Wes Borland, generally regarded as the band's musical force, up and left the band, and it took a long, long time to find a replacement guitarist. After a national talent search performed at Guitar Center stores, where candidates had to sign contracts that gave up their rights to anything original they played at their audition, Limp Bizkit settled on former Snot guitarist Mike Smith and recorded an album. Then scrapped it. Then they recorded another album. Then scrapped it. They were going through album titles, too — it was called Bipolar then, charmingly, Panty Sniffer. Finally, all the sessions and the turmoil was whittled down into one very long, very bad album called Results May Vary. Part of its weakness stems from two perennial Limp Bizkit problems: for a metal band they sound, well, limp, and in Fred Durst they have the worst frontman in the history of rock. These two things plagued even their hits, but Borland at least gave the band some ideas. Without him, the band is left to flounder, and Durst, who already dominated the band's personality, not only has to provide the bravado, but he has to give it direction — which is likely why it took so long for this mess to get released. Durst doesn't come up with any new musical ideas, apart from slight hints of Staind and emo on the ballads, but the album doesn't suffer from recycled musical ideas, since they were already doing that on Chocolate Starfish. No, it suffers from an utter lack of form and direction, from the riffs to the rhythms, and a surplus of stolen ideas. "The Only One" cops the opening of Steve Miller's "Take the Money and Run," "Gimme the Mic" plagiarizes the Beastie Boys' "Pass the Mic" down to rhyming "y'all" with "y'all" (but Durst adds a whole lotta "motherf*ckers"), while "Phenomenon" borrows from several rap songs, highlighted by Durst getting lyrics wrong. And this points out the biggest problem of Results May Vary — Durst is running amuck, flattening down the production into a grey sludge, then writing inane lyrics that are shocking in their banality.

Since Durst has ingratiated himself with Hollywood, inexplicably getting Thora Birch to concede to being berated to in the video for "Eat You Alive" and French kissing Halle Berry in the video for "Behind Blue Eyes," maybe he's not such a bad guy in person, but on record he's a mean, vindictive, hateful idiot, spewing undirected bile at undeserving targets. Here, a prominent target seems to be Britney Spears, who unceremoniously dumped the dude after an affair that lasted less than a week, since she wasn't all that thrilled that he revealed her pubic hair grooming on the Howard Stern show (what a guy!). Now, he's hurt and ranting about how she broke his heart, unaware of his own culpability in the affair. But that's par for the course for Durst, who stumbles through life without realizing the consequences of his actions, then whines about how nobody understands him. Here, he complains about being picked on in high school, not realizing that his blustering aggression makes him a bully (and that's not even accounting for how he unwittingly incited violence and destruction at Woodstock '99). Then, he complains several times about radio and MTV playing the same old bands, willfully ignoring that he's whored himself out to MTV numerous times and that his band received their radio breakthrough by paying to get their songs played. He invokes icons callously — "ease your pain/like a melody from Kurt Cobain" — most notably on a boneheaded cover of the Who's "Behind Blue Eyes," turning it into a Staind song with a Speak & Spell on the bridge ("B-I-Z-K-I-T. Say it") and adding insult to injury by misspelling Pete Townshend's name in the credits. And this isn't even counting the embarrassing Apple plug in the liner notes, or the Fight Club reference in the artwork, the obviousness of which suggests that Durst would be one of the brainwashed legions chanting "his name is Robert Paulson" instead of thinking for himself. Like before, some of this could have been palatable if the music had a fraction of his anger (no matter how misguided it is) or had some energy to it instead of just being murky emoting. But since the music has no melody, hooks, or energy, all attention is focused on the clown jumping up and down and screaming in front, and long before the record is over, you're left wondering, how the hell did he ever get to put this mess out?




I fucking love that.

[Galactus]

I agree, my first post said LB was less important then Korn but important to the movement nonetheless. When Nu Metal was at it's peak Korn was #1 and LB was #2. Now that the genre has receded back into the general metal fold there is no doubt that Korn remains more relevent.

[rockysigman]

I forget what we were just talking about.

[Kensterberg]

LMAO at that Limp Bizkit review! I've never heard a note of that album, but I'm sure that it's spot-on.

BTW, I'll second all of DED's recent posts on KoRn/LB.

Bet ThoRny never thought he'd see a concensus here that his favorite band qualify as "important" to rock and roll history.

[Kensterberg]

rockysigman said:

Beck is the most influenced artist out there, but I don't know that he's influential. I also am not sure if he's really important, but I do think he's certainly more important that Limp Bizkit. Limp Bizkit is only important if mainstream success over a string of horrible albums is automatically important. They have no other real lasting impact, as they were not really the first to do what they did, nor were they the best, and I think their music and their impact will be almost completely forgotten within about 5 more years.

And I agree with Ken on Uncle Tupelo. Wilco is a much, much better band, but in the grand scheme of things, Uncle Tupelo is the more important band.

I love the first and last parts of this post. Especially where Rocky agrees with me about Uncle Tupelo.

I think that LB were probably more important to the rise of "nu-metal" (or whatever the fuck you want to call it) than Rocky does, but DED really nailed it when he said that this is the perfect textbook display of the truism that "important" does not equal "good."

[Kensterberg]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention ... that LB cover of "Behind Blue Eyes" is one of the very worst in rock. I'd rather hear William Shatner perform Mr. Tambourine Man than that shit.

Hell, I'd rather hear ThoRny cover KoRn than listen to Durst murder one of Townshend's finest creations.