The Limpest Bizkit

Somebody must have stolen Fred Durst's lunch money a lot of times when he was younger.

The biggest irony of the Limp Bizkit frontman, also America's favorite rip-hop bad-boy and neo-metal mogul, is that he's not even the woman-hating, gay-bashing, super-macho meathead that you hope for in a pariah.

Sure, he's the icon of the masochistic debacle that was Woodstock '99, and undoubtedly a proponent of the "show your tits" ethos that has helped scores of women get their first tastes of violation and sexual assault at his shows.

But between DJ Lethal's thick beats and the band's propulsively rote metal riffs, there's nothing more to Limp Bizkit than the juvenile whine of a dumb, hat-to-the-back strip-mall bully. He may have slept with Christina Aguilera, but Durst's insipid approach is 100 percent dickless. While lampoonable bigots like Eminem can at least couch their hatred in the most creatively vile terms, Durst hides little other than whimpers behind his screams. Strip away the yelling and the macho posturing and the profanity, and this is what he has to say: "My life is through / just want to kill myself for you / so tell me why you say goodbye? / and tell me why you're f----n' up my whole life? / So, I'm on my way, I leave today / if I get away it'll be ok." Kill himself? No wonder the Limp pimp is forced to ask "Why is everybody always pickin' on me?"

Despite their attacks on "faggots" and Durst's exhortations for critics to "kiss my chocolate starfish," Limp Bizkit's biggest problem still isn't their lyrical content or their credibility gap. Musically, they're one-hit wünderkinds reworking their own tired ideas. For all its petty misogyny, "Nookie" showed flashes of brilliance as it romped stiff-shouldered through Durst's emotional ghetto. And pugnaciously ill as it was, the song's hoarse refrain of "stick it up your yeah!" helped propel the band beyond buzz-bin hype. But on Chocolate Starfish's leadoff, "Hot Dog," Limp can't do any better than drop 46 instances of the f-word and cop two Nine Inch Nails choruses. And while the song appropriates their title, the primordial three-chord thump of "My Generation" proves that The Who wouldn't be caught dead in Bizkitville. Durst may be the Hollywood hobnobber of the moment, but when it comes to generational politics, he-and his music-better speak for themselves.

But even on this, their weakest effort in a weak catalog, Limp do have their upsides. There's no denying the adrenaline surge that comes with the slightly-delayed gratification of "Full Nelson," or the unhinged bravado of Durst saying "I'm just a crazy motherf----r / livin' it up / not giving a f--- / livin' life in the fast lane" on "My Way." And the "urban assault vehicle" mix of "Rollin'," a collaboration with rap predictables DMX, Method Man, Redman and producer Swizz Beatz, is no less compelling than its collaborators' own efforts. This band draws macho badasses to its shows for a reason-the Bizkits know how to make you "get the f--- up," decency be damned.

Still, between the countless lyrical thievery from Guns N' Roses to Frank Sinatra and the incessant aggression toward nothing, it's hard to respect anything this band tries to do. Limp Bizkit never claimed to be critics' darlings-and indeed, their huge fan base shows that they're every bit a band of the people-but that doesn't give them license to have gotten so far on so little. Chocolate Starfish is little more than the pitched whine of the angry Abercrombie white male, an emblem of prep-teens in search of a riot, of the reckless hedonism of mallrats running rampant in a world where American Beauty is as breathtakingly ironic as a suburban white rapper with nothing to say calling a song "My Generation."

And to these angry white males, (especially Durst, who notes that he doesn't smoke marijuana and has seen Fight Club 28 times), teeming with animosity and insecurity, perhaps the most we can ask is this: