Counterfeit

This song is historically significant for two reasons: 1) It was Limp Bizkit's first single. 2) They paid to get it on the air. Primed by Korn, the band came on the scene when the fusion of rap and hip-hop was building momentum. "Counterfeit" didn't have any chart impact, but the Three Dollar Bill Y'all album would go on to sell over 2 million copies, with the band's cover of George Michael's "Faith" being their breakthrough single. Since the band was unknown, radio stations had no interest in playing "Counterfeit." To get it heard, their record company paid KUFO, a radio station in Portland, Oregon, $5000 to play it 50 times. The deal was legal because the station ran a disclaimer before the song saying that it was paid for by Flip/Interscope Records. The airplay on KUFO helped launch the career of Limp Bizkit, whose second album, Significant Other, sold over 7 million copies.

The song is about how people try to be "cool" and be something they are not. When Limp Bizkit started out, rock bands that wore tight clothes and had long hair gave LB a hard time because they were trying to be "black" and were not like the rest of rock music world. When Limp Bizkit became more well known, other rock bands began to copy their style - wearing baggy pants, acting ghetto and rapping in their songs. Fred Durst thought, "Okay, when we were nothing you hated us, and now that we're popular you just have to start acting like us even though you use to hate us. That's not right."