The internet can be a cold and unforgiving place. For every platitudinous ‘Be kind’ thrown into the void, there are ten absolute bastards ready to leap into any and every online interaction and attempt to squeeze every last scintilla of joy from the discourse. Not us, you understand, but it happens.
This somewhat awkward preamble is our way of prefacing 3 minutes and 53 seconds of rather unedifying ‘singing’ from one of the most recognisable frontmen in rock. To be fair here, stripped away of all instrumentation, any number of our favourite anthems would be rendered a bit... flaccid, but even so, Fred Durst vocals on Limp Bizkit’s 1997 cover of George Michael’s Faith are quite something. And by ‘quite something’, in this instance, we mean ‘bloody terrible’.
Before we all get too carried away with snark however, we should point out that most isolated vocal tracks do singers’ reputations no favours. We should also acknowledge that the Bizkit’s George Michael cover was a hit at both modern and mainstream rock radio stations in America and the song played a significant role in helping Limp Bizkit’s debut album Three Dollar Bill, Y'all rack up a cool two million sale in the US alone. So who’s laughing now, eh?
Well, still us actually, but we seriously doubt that Freddie D will be losing any sleep over this affectionate mockery, given that he wasn’t overly phased when George Michael himself moaned about the cover.
Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland recently stated that the Bizkit have over 35 songs written for the follow-up to 2011’s Gold Cobra album, and are waiting on their ‘perfectionist’ frontman to record his vocals. The band will play two UK shows in July 2022.
