McNulty’s Retro Reviews: Limp Bizkit – Significant Other
Well ain’t that some BULLSH*T! Here’s a band who released one perfectly good rap/metal hybrid as their debut album, then immediately turned into garbage with their sophomore release. Limp Bizkit had a one-album streak before becoming the laughing stock of the metal community. Join me as we travel back to 1999 where I’m a senior in high school who experiences the shock of losing one of his favorite bands in one fell swoop.
Oh no: It is June of the final year before we enter a new millennium. Folks are scrambling around like crappy decapitated chickens, afraid that in six months they will loose all of their data and planes will drop out of the sky. [The] Cost of new house is $131,750.00, Average Income per year $40,810.00, Average Monthly Rent $645.00, [and] Cost of a gallon of Gas is $1.22. Oh, and Limp Bizkit released a big pile of crap called Significant Other.
I suspected something was up the moment I spun this CD for the first time, for I did not have the benefit of hearing any of the singles beforehand. The intro is laughably bad, featuring spoopy keyboards and a foreboding spoken intro which reads “you wanted the worst, you got the worst: the one, the only… Limp Bizkit.” The first real song “Just Liek This” starts out pretty neato, with some of that lovely drumming by John Otto (easily the strongest link in the chain). I mean, people have talked a lot of trash about this band but I don’t think a single word of it has been regarding their loose and funky drums. One song of mediocrity and it’s followed/ruined by this:
(Adios riffs, we barely knew ye.)
Gone is anything resembling heavy metal and in its place is a lame white dude trying to rap [legitimately] about sex on top of riff-less … uh… DJ stuff. There’s plenty of record scratching, “beats”, and the sound of the needle running over some vinyl. The repetitive and immature hooks accompany some equally repetitive, BDubz-esque nu-metal guitar slop. “Like a chump…hey…like a chump…hey…” repeated ad nauseam. These dudes found a way to encapsulate the absolute worst aspects scattered about their great debut Three Dollar Bill Y’All, and write an entire album of songs featuring them. I guess if you liked their cover of George Michael’s “Faith”, you might be in hog heaven with Significant Other. Is the grease your favorite ingredient in a Hot Pocket? If so, you’ll just love this record. People who prefer The Matrix Reloaded over The Matrix will eat this up.
(Fred I happen to be psychic, and rapping is not in your future.)
“Nookie” is very bad. “Break Stuff” is somehow worse. This pattern continues up to the 20 minute mark, when we get to one decent song called “Nobody Like You.” Track 7 comes and gives us a short respite from the garbage with their attempt at re-creating the beauty of “Stalemate” from their excellent debut (just without one of the key components: good riffs). They do bring in two rather talented vocalists in attempts to salvage it: Jonathan Davis of KoRn and Scott Weiland of STP, so that’s pretty cool. In fact, it would turn out that the best parts of the album can’t even be credited to Limp Bizkit, because the only other decent song is “N 2 Gether Now” which is basically a Method Man song. “No Sex” is insultingly bad, mainly after hearing Fred Durst sing the line “Should have left my pants on this time, instead you let me dive right in.”
*Shudders*
After all is said and done, I suppose I should thank Limp Bizkit for learning me an important lesson when it comes to music: every band will disappoint eventually. You see, dear readers, Opeth‘s Pale Communion wasn’t the first album to pull a fast one on us; back in 1999 a young Jimmy McNulty experienced musical heartbreak for the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. System of a Down ended their career with Toxicity in 2001. In Flames had their sh*t-the-bed moment and it was called Reroute to Remain (2002). I could – and will – go on…
Gojira – Magma
Mastodon – The Hunter
Hilary Duff – Breathe In Breathe Out
Deicide – Incineratehymn
Metallica – Plz Don’t Step On Snek
Between the Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic
Queen – A Night at the Opera
To summarize, Limp Bizkit’s sophomore release is devoid of good riffs, aggression, any and all creativity; instead it’s just a tacky and shallow cash-grab designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It’s like Five Finger Death Punch before they were a thing. Bro’s all around the world, who had probably never heard of great bands like Iron Maiden were Judas Priest, were blasting this CD in their Honda Civics. There are probably about six minutes of decent material on here, but the rest gets flushed down the filthiest toilet ov hell. Significant Other gets one half of a Mars Polar Lander out of five:
Here’s one bit of good news: Limp Bizkit would go on to release stinker after stinker until eventually stumbling upon something decent in the form an EP in 2005, but that’s an article for another day…
