Is Fred Durst a prophet speaking to our generation about the horrors of living during the decline of the American empire? Did Limp Bizkit presage such events as the pandemic, the collapse of the middle class, and irreversible climate change with a single song that is less than three minutes long and kicks fucking ass and is called “Break Stuff”?
Looking at life today it’s never been more true that everything is fucked. Fascism is on the rise along with hate crimes, bigoted legislature, and that guy from Staind.
As the stock market moves according to that “he said she said bullshit” the rich get richer while the poor are left with a fat lip. The conditions of the working class can cause depression and aggression. Rising rents and stagnant wages have us all feeling like a freight train.
When Nu-Metal poet laureate Frederick Durst wrote the line “no human contact and if you interact your life is on contract” we all should have started planning for a global pandemic. For those of us who contracted Covid the sentiment “I feel like shit, my suggestion is to keep your distance cause right now I’m dangerous” could not ring truer. “Six feet apart” would have been better marketed as “your best bet is to stay away, motherfucker!”
Of course, Limp Bizkit’s prescience wasn’t limited to the career-defining pop-music pinnacle that is “Break Stuff.” A further dive into their lyrics reveals such grim predictions as “hate is all the world has ever seen lately.” If only we heeded their warning.
Today we’re all familiar with “ACAB,” but it was Durst who wrote “fucked up cop with a fucked up badge” at the turn of the Millennium, long before the recent mainstream exposure of the police abolition movement, in “Hot Dog,” his epic treatise on modern life. It is indeed the most important diagnostic of a flawed society since Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. We must act now to change our course before that grim night comes when the world breaks our proverbial face.