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

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

for your consideration:

Stand Together
Lighten Up
Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun

The guitar(?) sound on Stand Together is fucking rad and abrasive, almost Albini-esque. Also, MCA was ON FUCKING FIRE in that one.

it is like the secret weapon track on CYH, total grower.

gtr at coda of looking down the barrel of a gun is alltime

yeah, i skipped "stand together" in my CYH shout-out, but it's gunning hard for a place in my 20

and "looking down the barrel of a gun" is a lock (different album tho)

looking down the barrel is all-time

Songs I always skip:

Shadrach

something terribly wrong with this picture

the brash truncation of that mountain sample speaks volumes

xp

Then, by the time Check Your Head came out, I was playing punk in my own garage bands and at least starting to hang around with stoners although not yet actually smoking pot. And it's just a mega album for that kind of aesthetic.

― how's life, Tuesday, May 8, 2012 4:19 AM (17 hours ago)

otm about this though (or was in 92)

CYH sounds like a skatepark, HN sounds like a disco

CYH still my favourite.

wait... skip Shadrach?

SAY WHAT NOW

so many great lines in shadrach, it's like the end of blues brothers but with rhymes instead of cars

oh
tee
em

also awesome dancefloor track, was a staple at all the houseparties I went to in college

vocal sample plus that bass line

I mean...

Riddle me this brother can you handle it
Your style to my style you can't hold a candle to it
Equinox symmetry and the balance is right
Smokin' and drinkin' on a Tuesday night
It's not how you play the game it's how you win it
I cheat and steal and sin and I'm a cynic
For those about to rock we salute you
The dirty thoughts for dirty minds we contribute to
I once was lost but now I'm found
The music washes over and you're one with the sound
Well who shall inherit the earth the meek shall
And yo, I think I'm starting to peak now Al
And the man upstairs I hope that he cares
If I had a penny for my thoughts I'd be a millionaire
We're just 3 M.C.'s and we're on the go
SHADRACH MESACH ABEDNAGO

Only 24 hours in a day
Only 12 notes well a man can play
Music for all and not just one people
And now we're gonna bust with the Putney Swope sequel
More Adidas sneakers that a plumber got pliers
Got more suits than Jacoby & Meyers
If not for my vices my bugged out desires
My year would be good just like Goodyear's tires
So I'm out pickin' pockets at the Atlantic Antic
And nobody wants to hear you cause your rhymes are Anne frantic
I mix business with pleasure way too much
I mean wine and women and song and such
I don't get blue I gotta mean red streak
You don't pay the band, your friends, and that's weak
Get even like Steven like pulling a Rambo
SHADRACH MESACH ABEDNAGO

Steal from the rich and I'm out robbing banks
Givin' to the poor and I always give thanks
Because I got more stories that J.D.'s got Salinger
I hold the title and you are the challenger
I've got money like Charles Dickens
Got the girlies in the Coupe like the Colonel's got the chickens
Always go out dapper like the Harry S. Truman
I'm madder than Mad's Alfred E. Newman

*Never gonna let them say that I don't love you*

Well, my noggin is hoggin' all kinds of thoughts
Adam Yoggin is Yauch and he's rockin of course
Smoke the holy chalice got my own religion
Rally round the stage and check the funky dope musicians
Like Jerry Lee Swaggert or Jerry Lee Falwell
You love Mario Andretti cause he always drives his car well
Vicious circle of reality since the day you were born
And we love the hot butter on what the popcorn
Sippin on wine and mackin
Rockin on the stage with all the hands clappin
Ride the wave of fate it don't ride me
*Being very proud to be an M.C.*
And the man upstairs I hope that he cares
If I had a penny for my thoughts I'd be a millionaire
Amps and crossovers under my rear hood
The bass is bumpin from the back of my Fleetwood
They tell us what to do hell no
SHADRACH MESACH ABEDNAGO

yes

shit yeah, my favorite lyrics on PB

now let's talk about how wrong it is to skip the sound of science

so many great lines in shadrach, it's like the end of blues brothers but with rhymes instead of cars

This analogy is so OTFM

^ yeah, i was kind of jealous of that one

And nobody wants to hear you cause your rhymes are Anne frantic

A+++++++++

now let's talk about how wrong it is to skip the sound of science

lol, yeah, descending order of nonsense

SOUND OF SCIENCE RULES

em eye cee kay to the dee, you come to see me and you pay a fee
do what i do professionally, to tell the truth i am exactly what i want to be

^ has stuck in my head for decades, dunno why

can I point out that in the sound of science they sample KRS-one, a toy that makes farm animal noises, and the f'kn beatles

Ponce De Leon constantly on
The fountain of youth not Robotron

the dregs of the earth and the eggs that I eat
got pegs through my hands and one through my feet

^ one of my favorite rhymes in rap history

I mean how much weed did he have to smoke to formulate such an elegant construction

COS I'VE BEEN DROPPING THE NEW SCIENCE AND IVE BEEN KICKING THE NEW KUH-NOWLEDGE
AN MC TO A DEGREE THAT YOU CANT GET IN COLLEGE

otm

otoh:

went berserk and worked and exploded
she woke up in the morning and her face was coated

the cornucopia of life's flavors

dregs & eggs is all-time tho