Erm, sorry mate - whose generation?

Fred Durst apparently thinks that by wearing his hat backwards, crouching down and making silly hand gestures, and saying “fuck” a lot, he can become the spokesman for a generation of angry kids. What he has failed to realise is that the “angry” kids are listening to Incubus and the Deftones, while LB’s audience is made up of the same people who find Eminem and Kid Rock entertaining. Kids who listen to hip hop because it is “offensive” (i.e. they say the words “fuck”, “bitch” and “nigga” a lot). Kids who learn a new swear word/sexual term, then repeat it ad nauseum until they discover another one.

And these kids request it endlessly on MTV2. I’m sorry, but I fail to see the point of playing a song on TV if half of it is bleeped/blanked out. Every time I’ve seen it, the vaguely catchy chorus is ruined by little bits of silence covering the swear words. Or, worse still, playing “fuck” backwards. Is it too hard to write a song without every other word being “fuck”? Of course it is, because most of the appeal of this crap comes from the swearing. Because it’s offensive. And kids like offensive.

Musically, it’s exactly what you’d expect. A couple of tuneless hip hop verses, a slightly catchy but ultimately meaningless chorus, and not much else. Lyrically it’s puerile, and the sentiment of the chorus is totally misplaced. It simply piles on all the cliches which make hip hop popular. It’s laziness, cynical exploitation of little kids who should know better. Buy something meaningful instead.