Results May Vary
LIMP BIZKIT
Flip/Interscope
All right. We all know that the pivotal point between loving and hating Jacksonville's original rap-metal losers-made-good resides in the person of one Fred Durst. It is utterly impossible to separate Limp Bizkit's musical output from the industry mogul/anti-pop culture icon/poor needy bastard/bottomless well of contradictory behavior that is Durst; he's too visible, too intent on remaining so, and too obviously the reason why people either relate to or loathe the band.
But let's try, anyway.
To those of you who see him as the voice of a bored and disaffected suburban generation with no idea how it got that way, the ultimate contemporary example of making one's dreams come true: Put it aside. To those of you who think he's a symbol of everything that's wrong with modern youth culture, a fragile, talentless blowhard who got where he is on the strength of mall-gangsta posturing and rudimentary hucksterism: Leave it be for now. Let's make at least a token effort to judge the music comprising the band's fourth full-length disc on its own merits.
What we've got here is a nu-metal outfit attempting to transcend the genre's limitations, with largely mediocre results. Obviously, the band is at its most comfortable working the familiar quiet verse/crashing chorus scenario, with a few scratches and processed guitar textures thrown in. And while mellower departures such as "Underneath the Gun," "The Only One," "Let Me Down" and the like are admirable, they're often uninspired.
In fact, musically speaking, a few interesting riffs (most notably in brief opener "Re-entry" and obvious Jane's Addiction cop "Underneath the Gun") and high-profile guests (Snoop, Korn guitarist Brian "Head" Welch) aside, Results May Vary is immediately tight, familiar and uninteresting.
Which leads us back to Durst. After all, nobody ever says his band is "OK, I guess," which might actually describe it if it had a less polarizing frontman. But then again, it's not the first outfit to rise or fall on the perceptions regarding its frontman/mouthpiece/visionary.
From a technical standpoint, he raps with rhythm and sings on key. That's not enough, however, and Durst's high-breaking voice always was and continues to be utterly devoid of charisma or emotion beyond cliched aggression and poorly feigned hurt. Further, his lyrics are, seriously, insipid to the point of wince-inducement. He careens between telling people to fuck off and begging them to understand him. ("The Only One," with its theme of putting off sex in favor of finding some deeper common ground, is particularly amusing, given his penchant for using the media as a dating service.) Every song contains lines not just weak but laughable, from "I stare into space/ and hope we're not alone/ am I searching for something/ that's better than home" to "heartbreak is a headache/ like a toothache or an earthquake." The songs are evocative of nothing other than Durst's personal pique.
We won't even go into the phoned-in cover of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes."
For better or worse, Limp Bizkit is tethered to the opinions generated by its leader. A listen to any of their albums, though, reveals Durst not as a genius with unfortunate extra-musical tendencies, but as a marginally talented "idea man" who should probably be behind a tight group rather than in front of them. Results May Vary is the best Bizkit release to date. That doesn't mean that it's good, however — it's just a little more stylistically daring, and a little less bad, than its predecessors. And the vocals and lyrics don't help. 
—Scott Harrell
The Very Best of War
WAR
Avenue/Rhino
Before there was the term world-beat, there was WAR. Launched in the late '60s, the band scored an array of earthy hits in the '70s that combined funky R&B with Latin influences from their native Compton, Calif. Along the way, an innate African-ness permeated WAR's music. Maybe it was in the group's rough-hewn vocal harmonies and fondness for call-and-response; perhaps it was the way Lee Oskar's harmonica and the other horns collided as much as harmonized; maybe it was the sheer depth of the groove, marked by the band's liberal use of hand percussion — somehow it combined to evoke Africa. The multi-ethnic band scored with such socially conscious songs as "The World is a Ghetto," "Slippin' Into Darkness" and "Get Down," as well as more lighthearted fare like "Cisco Kid," "Low Rider" and "All Day Music." Sometimes they combined the two, as on the playful "Why Can't We Be Friends," with its utopian message. Most of this double-disc collection's best material is frontloaded onto Disc 1. As WAR reached the mid '70s, their music lost some of its visceral, organic quality. Sometimes, the band seemed content to build a song with little more than a groove and a riff ("Heartbeat"). In other spots, the ensemble brushed too closely to schmaltz and a few songs go the disco route.
Yet even later in the game, WAR was capable of some gems, as in the gorgeous "Summer" ('76) and sultry instrumental "River Niger" ('77). The Very Best of War, while it has a few miscues, is the best compendium yet of this terrific American original. —Eric Snider
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2003.