Tennessean musician and comedian Nick Lutsko has clearly discovered a comedic goldmine. He recently followed up on his intriguing rendition of an Ivanka Trump confession session as a Lana Del Rey song (sung by Amber Coffman) with “Edgy, Sexy ‘n’ Cool” by ‘Swiftbizkit’. Lutsko does a mean Fred Durst impression, taking listeners back in time to the late 1990s, when Limp Bizkit’s brand of brash, in-your-face nu metal was at the peak of its popularity, ‘challenging’ family values and stirring up controversy.
The comedic irony, of course, lies in how Lutsko emulates Durst’s angsty rap style to deliver lyrics based on Swift’s self-presentation as a neurotic and slightly awkward girl next door in interviews with Vogue, Jimmy Kimmel, Barbara Walters, Graham Norton, CBS This Morning’s Gayle King, Ellen Degeneres, Alan Carr, and Jimmy Fallon. Swifties might read the song as a validation of her various criticisms of how she has been portrayed by the media (‘Oh my god you’re irritated/ That I’m just being myself’), while others might simply delight in imagining Swift being ‘raw’, ‘real’ and explicitly angsty on her songs, instead of relying on her gifts for catchy melodies and tongue-in-cheek commentary to make a hit song.
Swiftbizkit will surely grab your attention, as ‘she/he’ delivers obnoxious exclamations (What?, Uh!, Stop!), a list of various cat breeds, and revelations of psychopathy. The song’s highlight splices together Swift’s reaction to Kimmel’s (staged) viral video of twerking young woman who ends up with her yoga pants on fire and a trademarked phrase from “Shake It Off”: “Society is sick!/ We’re all sick! So I wrote this sick beat!”
