Life’s a blast on “Take a Look Around,” which decries hate and ponders man’s existence, but . . .
That song is so much the exception that it sounds as if it was hijacked from another album. The rest of this stickered disc is atrocious. A whopping 122 f-words lead the charge of obscenities. Cocky and uncaring, frontman Fred Durst promotes fast living (drugs, alcohol, women, vandalism, etc.) on “Livin’ It Up.” Judging from other tracks, violence is apparently part of the high life. Cuts speak of “knockin’ faggots unconscious” (“Getcha Groove On”) and berate an authority figure while asserting independence (“My Way”). “Full Nelson” threatens a trash-talking individual and boasts of full-blown anarchy (“We’ve got the torch now/We’ve got the fire to burn this muthaf—er down”). “Boiler” and “It’ll Be Okay” convey hopelessness. On the latter, the singer contemplates suicide following a breakup (“Just want to kill myself for you/I wonder just how sympathetic you’ll be”). “Rollin'” claims, “In high school I dealt only with the classroom sluts.”
Limp Bizkit’s range of emotions on Chocolate Starfish stretches from hedonistic highs to suicidal lows. Obscenities are everywhere. So why did it go platinum in a week? On one cut, Durst calls himself “an idiot, a loser, a microphone abuser” which, sadly, is what’s hot these days.
