Various Artists: Family Values Tour '98 : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Last fall's Family Values Tour made bad taste safe again for heavy metal by borrowing some of pro wrestling's garish showmanship: Can't you just picture Goldberg trying to stuff the Rock down that giant toilet Limp Bizkit used during their set? As a primer on the bands, this CD souvenir gets the job done. Bizkit's ale-swigging version of "Faith" is goofy funk-core at its finest; Ice Cube teaches the white folk how to represent with a medley of his best thug-life anthems ("Straight Outta Compton" and "Fuck tha Police"); and Korn close things out with a raging slab of post-Y2K metallurgy. But though bone-snapping guitars provided the adrenalin kick, it was the over-the-top visuals that transformed the Family Values Tour into extreme theater - which is why this live CD comes up just a little short of satisfactory. (RS 812)

MARC WEINGARTEN