Music Schmusic: Worst Decade Ever Pt. 3  

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Ok, partner. You know what time it is.

Limp Bizkit – Rollin’ (2000)


The 2000s saw the rise of Nu Metal, also known as rapcore, also known as atonal shit that sodomizes your ears. Its troubadours were a bunch of doughy white guys from Florida, known as Limp Bizkit.

It’s hard to find a song that exudes more utter contempt for its listeners than “Rollin,’” the second single off Limp’s 2000 release – come on, do I really have to write this? Fuck my life – “Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.” (Chocolate Starfish, by the way, is used interchangeably throughout various songs on the album as both a euphemism for the anus, and a nickname for lead yeller Fred Durst. I’m sure this is not a coincidence.) This song sounds like it wants to kick your ass, but the tough-guy exterior and ‘roid rage induced threats can’t hide the fact that it’s basically the Hokey Pokey:

"Move in now move out/Hands up now hands down/Back up back up/
Tell me what you're gonna do now/Keep rollin' rollin' rollin' rollin’"

Fred Durst makes DJ Casper look like Jackson Browne. One listen to “Rollin’” and suddenly Ice Cube’s “You Can Do It (Put Your Back Into It)” sounds divinely inspired.

Ok, I’m going to say something you’ll probably never see on this site again: This is a waste of my time. “Rollin’” is not only one of the worst songs of the 2000s, it’s a strong competitor for the worst thing of the 2000s. Fuck, the video for this was filmed in the fall of 2000 at the World Trade Center, and that’s still the worst day in the history of Lower Manhattan. To fully articulate what a chode Fred Durst is, and the sheer inanity of a song with lyrics like “One two three time zoom to the 6/Jonesin’ for you picks of the Limp Bizkit mix” would only be transcribing the rage already boiling over in the mind of any conscience person unfortunate enough to hear “Rollin.’”

Here’s my suggestion. Play the video again, but this time mute it. Without the song raping your soul, you realize that watching Durst dance around like an Adderall-fueled spider monkey is fucking hilarious. I mean the guy does a jig, he steals disco moves from “Saturday Night Fever” and he throws a punch like a 5-year-old girl. It’s kind of what I imagine the Humpty Hump would look like, if it were being performed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

But we can’t discount the song entirely, or we’d miss Durst’s lyrical gem “shut the fuck up and back the fuck up while I fuck this track up.” Couldn’t have written it better myself.

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