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| "Rockin' the Suburbs" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Ben Folds | ||||
| from the album Rockin' the Suburbs | ||||
| Released | 2001 | |||
| Recorded | 2000 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 4.58 | |||
| Label | Epic | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Ben Folds | |||
| Ben Folds singles chronology | ||||
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"Rockin' the Suburbs" is a song by Ben Folds from the album Rockin' the Suburbs . It entered the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart on August 11, 2001, and peaked at number 28 on September 22, 2001. [1]
Folds said of the inspiration for the song:
"I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain. I was going to write this song about Korn. I don't know, it wasn't as funny when I directed it at somebody. So I thought I would write it not directed to anybody. I mean, I would be happy to tell the guys from Korn that I wrote a song about them, but I think, when people listen to it, it is a better song when it is not directed to anybody." [2]
The song parodies Korn and Rage Against the Machine. Folds stated of the song "I am taking the piss out of the whole scene, especially the followers." [2]
Japanese EP:
The music video for "Rockin' the Suburbs" was directed by friend "Weird Al" Yankovic, who also plays the role of a producer who fixes Folds' "shitty track," directly riffing on one of the song's lyrics. The video features Folds playing multiple members of an angry rock band in a suburban den and in front of a white background.
After the song's bridge, Folds is shown outside in a suburban neighborhood wearing a backwards red New York Yankees cap, the trademark of Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst, while singing the lyrics, "girl give me something I can break", which were a riff on the Limp Bizkit song "Break Stuff". During this portion of the video, Folds engages in "suburban" activities such as skateboarding, jumping in pools and flipping burgers.
At the end of the video, the "band" (all played by Folds again) plays in front of a black background with holes punched in it, a style that deliberately matches the live-action parts of the Korn video for "Freak on a Leash." A subliminal message reading "Korn Sucks" briefly appears.
In 2006, Folds rewrote the song for the animated movie Over the Hedge , with film co-star William Shatner providing vocals during part of the song. Shatner does the voice for Ozzie the Opossum, who encourages his teenage daughter Heather (voice by Avril Lavigne) to play dead in threatening situations.
While this version features entirely new lyrics intended to be more family-friendly than the original, [3] Folds maintains the song’s satirical edge. The rewritten lyrics focus more on the institution of suburbia, and include jabs at homeowner associations, tract housing, consumerism, and developments built on Native American burial grounds.
This version of the song was also featured in the film Marley & Me during the montage of Marley growing up in a year from a small puppy to a big dog for the rest of the movie.
Limp Bizkit is an American nu metal band from Jacksonville, Florida. Its lineup consists of lead vocalist Fred Durst, drummer John Otto, guitarist Wes Borland, turntablist DJ Lethal and bassist Sam Rivers. The band's musical style is marked by Durst's angry vocal delivery and Borland's sonic experimentation. Borland's elaborate visual appearance, which includes face and body paint, masks, and uniforms, also plays a large role in Limp Bizkit's live shows. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, sold 40 million records worldwide, and won several other awards.
Nu metal is a subgenre of alternative metal that combines elements of heavy metal music with elements of other music genres such as hip hop, funk, industrial, and grunge. Nu metal rarely features guitar solos or other displays of musical technique, and emphasizes rhythm with instrumentation that is heavily syncopated. Nu metal guitarists typically use seven-string guitars that are down-tuned to produce a heavier sound. Vocal styles are often rhythmic and influenced by hip hop, and include singing, rapping, screaming and sometimes growling. DJs are occasionally featured to provide instrumentation such as sampling, turntable scratching and electronic background music. Nu metal is one of the key genres of the new wave of American heavy metal.
Korn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, originally formed in 1993 by James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu and David Silveria, who were members of the band L.A.P.D. Their current lineup features Shaffer (guitar), Arvizu (bass), Brian "Head" Welch (guitar), Jonathan Davis (vocals), and Ray Luzier (drums), the last of whom replaced Silveria in 2007. The band is notable for pioneering and popularizing the nu metal genre.
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Rockin' the Suburbs is the first solo album by American singer-songwriter Ben Folds released on September 11, 2001, after Folds disbanded his group Ben Folds Five. Rockin' the Suburbs was recorded in Adelaide, Australia, where Folds was living at the time. Two singles from the album were released, "Rockin' the Suburbs", and "Still Fighting It".
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Ben Folds Five was an American alternative rock trio formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The group comprised Ben Folds, Robert Sledge and Darren Jessee. The group achieved success in the alternative, indie and pop music scenes. Their single "Brick" from the second album, Whatever and Ever Amen (1997), gained airplay on many mainstream radio stations.
Benjamin Scott Folds is an American singer-songwriter from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. After playing in several small independent bands throughout the late 80s and into the early 90s, Folds came to prominence as the eponymous frontman and pianist of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five from 1993 to 2000, and again during their reunion from 2011 to 2013. He has recorded a number of solo albums – the most recent of which, What Matters Most, was released in June 2023. He has also collaborated with musicians such as Regina Spektor, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and yMusic, and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with actor William Shatner and authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman. Since May 2017, he has been the first artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
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Wesley Louden Borland is an American rock musician. He is the guitarist and backing vocalist of the nu metal band Limp Bizkit, the lead vocalist and guitarist of the alternative and industrial rock band Black Light Burns, and the co-founder of the experimental metal band Big Dumb Face.
Rap rock is a music genre that developed from the early to mid-1980s, when hip hop DJs incorporated rock records into their routines and rappers began incorporating original and sampled rock instrumentation into hip hop music. Rap rock is considered to be rock music in which lyrics are rapped, rather than sung. The genre achieved its greatest success in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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Three Dollar Bill, Y'all is the debut studio album by American nu metal band Limp Bizkit, released on July 1, 1997, through Flip and Interscope Records. It established the band's trademark sound with the singles "Counterfeit", which was influenced by hip hop and heavy metal, and "Faith", a cover of the 1987 song of the same name by George Michael. Limp Bizkit's rearrangement of the song incorporated scratching by DJ Lethal and heavier guitar playing by Wes Borland.
"Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)" is a song by the American rap rock band Limp Bizkit from their album Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. It was released as the second and third single simultaneously, along with "My Generation", on September 5, 2000. The song peaked at number 65 on the US Billboard Hot 100, giving the band their highest-charting single in the US, and remained on the chart for 17 weeks. Internationally, "Rollin'" topped the charts in Ireland and the United Kingdom and peaked within the top 10 of the charts in Austria, Finland, Germany, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden.
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