Limp Bizkit, a Florida quintet (vocalist Fred Durst, turntablist DJ Lethal, drummer John Otto, bassist Sam Rivers, and guitarist Wes Borland) that took off from the brutal Rage Against The Machine sound, were revealed by a cover of George Michael's Faith, a musician and a song that could not have been more misleading. Limp Bizkit was, instead, a quintessential band from (urban) hell.
Most songs on Three Dollar Bill Yall (Interscope, 1997) are driven by Durst's furnace of angst and anger and adorned with Lethal's beats, scratches and samples. The rhythm section and the guitar concoct a furious blend of funk, rap, heavy metal and hard rock. The results are the seismic rant of Pollution and monster riffs of Counterfeit. Durst's psychodramas (e.g., Stuck) are plotted in a chaotic industrial soundscape. The agitated dynamics of emotional discharges like Nobody Loves Me follow a logic that is borrowed half from Led Zeppelin's blues and half from Foetus' symphonies. Durst's persona dominates the show, swinging from the nursery rhyme of Stalemate to the terrible agony of Stink Finger. The album ends with the 16-minute overdose of Everything, a stark contrast to the preacher who started off the record. There is no salvation for these urban kids.

DJ Lethal's sound effects and hip-hop beats enhance Significant Other (Interscope, 1999), that ranks among the milestones of the genre. The hip-hop beats with a the metal edge of Just Like This were not particularly relevant, but the petulant synthesizer and the female counterpart were typical of the "significant others" (musically speaking) that characterized the best moments of the band. Nookie (the transitions from a standard rap-metal progression to a playful singalong) and Break Stuff (a rigmarole of escalating tension) successfully coupled strength and depth. 9 Teen 90 Nine articulates the cliches of the genre in a language that is both versatile and ironic. Trust disposes with irony and melody, and resorts to electronic noise and dadaistic rhythms. They all boast the mandatory heavy riffs and rabid screams, but they all use them merely as icons of the genre, basically the pronouns (not the verbs) in a sentence.
As fashionable at the time, the seismic intensity of the songs was complemented by a few moments of the opposite kind. Thus the subdued ballads Re-Arranged and No Sex showcased human emotions, not just animal instincts, and even more original is the high drama of Nobody Like You. Lesson Learned even ventured into an oneiric rhythm-less atmosphere.
The album eskews monotony through all sorts of devices, be it the danceable grooves of I'm Broke or the chamber hip-hop of N 2 Gether Now.

By the time Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water (Interscope, 2000) was released, a lot of things had changed. Fred Durst, movie director and record-label executive, was either too self-conscious or too marketing-savvy. The band's formulaic rap-metal sounded more like a recipe for radio hits than a musical genre (Take A Look Around, Hot Dog). On the first album and especially on Significant Other the Bizkit's melange of monster guitar riffs, schizoid turntable scratches, manic heart-stopping drumming, and angry-white-kids' rants embodied the spirit of their generation, but all that was left now was a comedy of errors/stereotypes.

Rollin (2001) became an international hit of funk-metal.

Results May Vary (2003), without Borland, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005), with Borland, continued a steady and rapid artistic decline, all the way down to Gold Cobra (2011).