(THIS) POLL REVERE(S) — ILM Artist Poll #19 — Beastie Boys VOTING THREAD

I know what you're saying – CYH is their first attempt at self-production – but CYH sounds perfunctory and half-assed in places, a band that can't play dropping rudimentary ideas as they lose interest.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 8, 2012 9:05 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe that's the CW, i dunno, but i couldn't disagree more. i think CYH sounds like a band with something to prove lighting up and fucking proving it. it's engaged, experimental, endlessly entertaining, risky as hell, and scattershot brilliant. it doesn't matter to me that they "can't play", because they do play, and well. they find ways to make their limitations work, and while their musicianship may be in doubt, the vibe never falters. i probably heard CYH a hundred times between 1992 and 1994, and i never got sick of it.

"perfunctory and half-assed" in places is probably a fair description of ill communication though. good record, but it restates the same ideas with less commitment & success.

it doesn't matter to me that they "can't play", because they do play, and well. they find ways to make their limitations work

This is true of the songs I like; on the next album too.

the only one who "can't play" was Adrock, who wisely stays out of the way for the most part.

yeah, i put that in quotes cuz i don't really know. i've heard that complaint before, but the playing on CYH sounds pretty tight to me. not flashy, but capable and in the pocket.

johnny fever, any idea how many you plan to roll out?

Dunno yet, but hoping to do 50 depending on voter turnout.

Breakdown of my ballot:

Check Your Head – 7
Hello Nasty – 4
Ill Communication – 4
Paul’s Boutique – 3
Licensed To Ill – 2

I cut some things I really, really love. Sorry, Mark on the Bus - I probably could have exchanged you for one of the Hello Nasty tracks. Sorry, Egg Raid on Mojo - there was only room for one hardcore song on here, at least it wasn't something by Dead Fuckin' Last. Sorry like 1/2 of Licensed to Ill...I don't really have an excuse.

Sorry like 1/2 of Licensed to Ill

yeah, i'm fighting the urge to just list all the tracks on LTI and call it a ballot

LTI's weird because it didn't win for me in terms of individual tracks, but it came in second place on my albums ballot.

All of LTI's tracks are in one way or another 'favorites'...for me it was more "HOW favorite are you, mr Track"?

Professor, what's another name for a favorite track?

Well, I think it's BOOTY

that's what it is

My shortlist for Hello Nasty was at least 6 or 7 songs...love how well that album has stood up over the years.

Yeah, I really liked Hello Nasty. I don't think I've given it a try since about the year 2000.

You oughta!

listening to "I Don't Know" and "Super Disco Breakin" now.

see also Unite, Negotiation Limerick, Putting Shame in Your Game, Three MC's, I Don't Know...so much of it is really good

I still remember a lot of lines from these tracks, similar to PB or LTI...the writing strikes me as really fresh and sharp
but I may be overselling so I will shut up now lol

no I love it -- a poll I created a couple years ago got underwhelming results (deadline problems, I think).

It's my third favorite after the first two albums.

voted

me too

surprisingly easy, toughest thing to rank was the videos tbh

turns out i really love all of mike d's silly shit

No Sleep Til Brooklyn -- classic for being CLASSIC, or dud for a decade's worth of rap metal?

(I know, Rock Box was first, but Beasties still seem most culpable.)

KLASSIK

all classic, not even 33% dod

Oh I know, it'll be on my ballot. It's just, hearing it now it's hard to shake the knowledge of what's to come.

i can't understand complaints* about PB (*please don't try to explain them to me.) i love it from start to finish. then again i feel the same about CYH and hello nasty.

b-b-but i'm prepared to elaborate

re: the Paul's Boutique backlash, it's really interesting to see how the Beasties' longterm fanbase slowly formed and rallied around that album in the 90s via RIAA certifications

1986-87: Licensed To Ill goes platinum 4 times over
1989: Paul's Boutique just goes gold
1990-1991: no new album sales certifications for either
1992: Check Your Head goes platinum
1994: Ill Communication goes platinum
1995: Paul's Boutique finally goes platinum
1998-1999: Hello Nasty goes triple platinum and every earlier album racks up at least another million sales, including Paul's Boutique

Weird. I don't guess I ever realized Hello Nasty was the one that pushed them into the stratosphere. They were much more omnipresent in pop culture between CYH and IC. I'd just assumed each of those albums went multiplatinum nearly immediately.

(I do remember Paul's Boutique sort of tarnishing them for a couple years, though.)

actually, i skimmed over the fact that Ill Communication went 2x plat in 1996, but still

1996-98 was also of course the era when Odelay came out and people started talking about the Dust Bros. and Paul's Boutique a lot, and there were a ton of white rap/rock acts suddenly all over alternative radio that the Beasties kind of became the de facto elder statesmen of it. it felt like they really became more central to that audience then than in the first half of the '90s when they had this kind of awkward tertiary role in the Lollapalooza era.

The Beasties had found their moment in the late nineties. Hello Nasty felt bigger than IC even if you didn't know its sales figures.

I don't guess I ever realized Hello Nasty was the one that pushed them into the stratosphere. They were much more omnipresent in pop culture between CYH and IC.

I know these things are hard to quantify -- I didn't have MTV in the nineties so their video presence escaped me. I did however listen to college and top 40 radio and "Intergalactic"'s #28 or whatever chart position (their first top 40 hit since "Hey Ladies") sold them short. It was truly massive -- the song of the summer.

As much as I heard "Sabotage" and "Get It Together" on college radio "Intergalactic" really crossed over -- and during that strange late nineties interzone when singles were getting phased out. That's probably what stopped it from charting higher.

BB were also a quintessential MTV band, "Sabotage" and a lot of their other best known songs felt way bigger because of their videos than their chart/radio numbers would indicate

I remember Hello Nasty getting a lot of spins at parties, like, the whole album almost --- whereas PB, CYH, and IC it was always certain tracks. I dunno if that was just because as a group we totally were feeling that excitment of a Beasties album release that we could all finally share as a group, and we latched harder to it than ever out of sheer enthusiasm, but it was fun. The prev albums definitely felt *cooler*, and they always had that cache, but Hello Nasty was just a straight up and down fun album, start to finish.

1996-98 was also of course the era when Odelay came out and people started talking about the Dust Bros. and Paul's Boutique a lot, and there were a ton of white rap/rock acts suddenly all over alternative radio that the Beasties kind of became the de facto elder statesmen of it.

otm

Ill Communication came out in 1994 and it was four years before Hello Nasty. In that period, 11 year olds became 15 year olds (like myself) and overground "Alternative" culture widened from a guitar rock only thing to encompass Beck, Portishead, Astralwerks electronica, Daft Punk and of course Radiohead release OK Computer in 1997. The CD era was in full swing and I think people were just ready for an album like Hello Nasty to conquer the world. Depending on when you came up, you have different touchstones for the Beasties but for me and my high school buddies HN is the album.

yeah after 4 years there was a lot of pent up demand for new beasties material from several successive waves of new fans in '98. I was on a beastie boys listserv just prior to hello nasty, that thing fucking exploded when the album dropped.

weird that so many see nasty as a (or the!) key beasties album, cuz as a license-era fan, it definitely felt like an afterthought, the first indication that their career might be winding down. i don't think i knew anybody who rated it alongside the first three. what i get for being old...

I was twelve when LTI dropped and while I loved it I wasn't fan enough to buy PB until CYH. I was ready for HN.

Hello Nasty was so ubiquitous that someone gave it to me as a birthday present. Not even a close friend, just somebody who came to a party and was like "Oh, I got you that new Beastie Boys album," just assuming I'd want it, because who wouldn't?

I was 21, it was just a convergence of good friends, good timing, right place...and we worshipped IC, just to be clear. It wasn't that HN was better, it was just...right?

and it really felt like the right album at the right time: the evolution of thinking in alterna-culture that some dude metnioned, late nineties prosperity, good times.

Beasties worship was at its highest point right around that time too, I would suggest.

I became a fan of the beasties after seeing "she's on it" on a public access rap video show in '85, and thought hello nasty was a nice return to dance party form after the doped up headbob of CYH and IC (both of which I liked but never loved)

Yeah, exactly. You had the convergence of people who'd grown up with them in the rap-rock years and the older contingent (like me) who'd evolved from seeing them as kind of a funny novelty thing to appreciating them as a musical force. And Hello Nasty plugged them back into 808 hip-hop at a moment when that was ready to come back around.

thought hello nasty was a nice return to dance party form after the doped up headbob of CYH and IC (both of which I liked but never loved)

yeah, it's funny that i've wound up with so much long-term affection for check your head, cuz it's not like i was seriously into it at the time, didn't buy a copy until years later. i LOVED license to ill in college and dug paul's boutique okay, but i'd kind of moved onto other things by the time CYH came out. was all srs about noise and fucked up punk/metal/drone shit like melvins, boredoms, skullflower, high rise & c. a bunch of my sketchy metal & weedhead friends however were just fucking crazy about that album, played it all the fucking time for months on end.

i liked check your head and i didn't, resisted as best i could, but it eventually just got drilled into my skull. unlike a lot of stuff that i endured by virtue of proximity during that era, i've got no lingering resentment. stockholm syndrome, i guess. i have to admit, though, that CYH probably does bear a lot of responsiblity for the infatuation w rap-rock that consumed so much of the 90s - much more so than "no sleep til brooklyn". the beasties were a one-band judgement night soundtrack for a while there...

licensed, that is

^that's all otm

hello nasty sounded like a return to the street/futuristic after the grungy/organic previous 2 albs - lotsa active MPC/SP12/808 crazyquilt and a dedicated front-and-center DJ, I dunno it scratched an itch

fwiw my track ballot breakdown went like this

pre-Licensed to Ill - 2
Licensed to Ill - 4
Paul's Boutique - 6
Check Your Head - 2
Ill Communication - 2
Hello Nasty - 4