Beastie Boys: Classic or Dud?

They were real enthusiastic about Kid Rock before he was famous, so thanks?

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Friday, January 31, 2020 4:06 AM (four hours ago)

agree that this was their most unfortunate endorsement

― Οὖτις, Friday, January 31, 2020 4:08 AM (four hours ago)

Some people who were Beastie Boys at some point:

Mike Diamond
Adam Yauch
Kate Schellenbach
John Berry
Adrock
DJ Double R
The Hurra
Money Mark
Bobo
AWOL
Fredo
Mario C, m/l

Some people who were never Beastie Boys:

icr

(iirc Mike in particular was "you sure about this?" to Ian about running the piece)

ian criese-romaine?

a single dad who went from dorm-room DIY to music biz millionaire, Kid Rock obviously an unalloyed good influence

no idea who icr is

the dude that wrote the Kid Rock article in Grand Royal, in the face of the Beastie Boys complete absence of enthusiasm for Mr Ritchie's music

https://www.beastiemania.com/whois/rogers_ian_c/

my memory is that Mike D was the only Beastie that paid much (if any) attention to the magazine

He's had a few jobs since that fansite bio was written

Just noticed that the e-version of the Beastie Boys Book is $1.99 on Amazon/Apple/etc.

the extended trailer giving me so many feels
v excited for the doc

I bought the ebook for cheap, I can't imagine it will be the same since I got the impression a lot of what was cool was the layout/pix etc but for $2 figured I'm gonna need stuff to read

it's a great read too, tho. i totally swear by the audiobook btw, am gonna listen to the whole thing again someday.

The "Pass the Mic" video came up in my Youtube recommendations yesterday. Listened to it and was blown away by the beat. I've heard the song hundreds of times but I'd never really appreciated it before. Not only does it make excellent use of a Bad Brains sample, the whole arrangement is just masterful. The instrumental alone is thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end.

was blown away by the beat

Mike never sounded bigger on any record. IIRC from the box set notes they rolled a giant tube of cardboard to extend the bass drum to two metres long for that dusty boom.

I'm surprised how underrated Check Your Head seems these days. The whole record has tons of great beats like that.

It’s a little strange how taken for granted it is maybe? It’s kind of in the centre of that 1986-1994 run so you might assume it would be talked about now a little more but I think it’s maybe a case of another good BB album amid a glut of amazing hip hop albums released 90-92

I always thought there were some surprising production similarities to the second Urban Dance Squad record, "Life 'n Perspectives of a Genuine Crossover" (which came out first). Thinking of stuff like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu3bJ1-4aHQ

Or esp. this, which beat them to the Hendrix sample:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv8gsSc4n20

it's really weird to me that I'll Communication seems more well regarded now than Check Your Head

lol Urban Dance Squad that's a name I haven't thought of in a long time

Check Your Head is far better than Ill Communication

yeah to me it's not close

Sabotage effect maybe

Check Your Head was the record that really sold me on them, I thought the 1st was fun snotty party music and I hadn't really figured out Paul's Boutique yet. I took one listen to those hardcore tracks, "Lighten Up," and the hits and I was hooked.

Mike never sounded bigger on any record. IIRC from the box set notes they rolled a giant tube of cardboard to extend the bass drum to two metres long for that dusty boom.

― Dollarmite Is My Name (sic), Sunday, March 15, 2020 9:09 PM (yesterday)

I figured that had to be Mike D on the drums. I'm surprised WhoSampled.com only has one record of those drums being sampled (by Autechre).

when I interviewed them around the book, Mike and Adam were very clear the tube of cardboard was just one of a series of great wacky ideas Yauch would come up with.

CYH>IC for me, but I really, really love the chaotic flow of side one, and the buddhist suite on side four, and the proto-trip-hop of Update, and Futterman's Rule is about as heavy as their funk ever got, and Ricky's Theme is just deliriously lovely. It's Sabotage I never really wanna hear again.

Check your Head was a really big deal for me and my friends - we all loved Paul's Boutique because it got us all into disco and funk and samples and it was hip-hop that referenced the Ramones and Slayer and was everything we ever wanted.

It over three years between those records which was forever when we were 15 and when we read that there was a new Beastie Boys record coming out where they PLAYED THEIR OWN INSTRUMENTS we thought it was the most hilarious and bizzare thing we'd ever heard. It came out right before the LA Riots in my senior year of high school and was the soundtrack for the next few months; I saw them that summer and it was amazing.

Ill Communication was great in its own way but didn't have the impact on my life that the previous one did, and I felt kind of like a snob that all the bandwagon jumpers who ignored Paul's Boutique were getting back into them.

1992 and still no one to vote for!

I have no real idea how old many or most of you are, but as I remember it License to Ill was, of course, a huge smash, but Paul's Boutique was a huge bust. I don't remember that one getting any traction among my friends at all. It was 1989, so I would have been 14 or so, in 8th or 9th grade. By the time Check Your Head was imminent, Paul's Boutique was obscure enough that in early 1991 Spin did a charticle of the most underrated albums of all time, and it was on there with, like, Tusk and Lodger (which I'm sure is what had me listen to it). Check Your Head came out a year after that, and I remember it connecting with kids glomming on to the grunge trend more than it connected with fans of License to Ill, and in that sense it felt a little like a cult album from a new band, not a comeback. It stuck, though, and got traction in a way that Paul's Boutique (which was steadily becoming a hipster totem) hadn't, so that yeah, when Ill Communication came out that seemed like the real, ubiquitous "comeback." Obviously by the time "Odelay" came out people had caught up with "Paul's Boutique."

Beastie Boys fandom tends to break down to a series of waves imo, ie which ever album of the classic run (Licensed to Ill to IC) you heard when you were like 16-18 was the one that pulled you in. So kids who were too young for PB or Check Your Head didn't get on the bus til IC etc. I'm old enough to have been sorta first wave (I won a 7" of Fight for Your Right/Paul Revere during a limbo contest at a bar mitzvah lol) and then heard PB in high shool (but no one else liked it) and then CYH came out my first year of college and was just like a real OH SHIT moment. IC was a victory lap, CYH is def familiar.

CYH is def SUPERIOR I meant to say

CYH and IC have almost as many desultory jams and half-assed funk experiments. I'd say they cancel each other out.

I'd rather listen to Hello Nasty than either of them.

I remember being sorta disappointed with Ill Communication when it came out, was hoping for another left turn and it seemed kind of safe, same recipe but not nearly as exuberant and w/ none of CYH's track-to-track flow

CYH is all-time

That's basically how I saw it, Check Your Head redux

(I won a 7" of Fight for Your Right/Paul Revere during a limbo contest at a bar mitzvah lol)

super lol.

I used to have a dubbed cassette with License to Ill on on side and Invisible Touch on the other.

I rarely play any of them these days, but if I did I would reach for them in chronological order: License first, Boutique second, maybe if very very seldom (functionally never) CYH and Communication next, never for of the rest of them. I think when this thread revived recently I gave Hello Nasty another shot, but I lost interest pretty quickly.

And yeah, I never really liked Ill Communication that much, despite being heavily into Check Your Head. These days I mostly listen to In Sound From Way Out.

CYH is the fun dress-rehearsal, IC is the slightly more slick performance. I like both about equally.

CYH has a ton of great deep cuts, always loved "Live at PJs"

live at PJ's might be apex beasties

A mix that Cut Chemist did to accompany the Beastie Boys Book touring exhibition, name-your-price on Bandcamp.

I'm only seeing the option to get it if I subscribe to his bandcamp releases

Is the documentary tonight?

I'm only seeing the option to get it if I subscribe to his bandcamp releases

you snozzed and lost I guess :(

I guess so!

documentary is the 24th, I believe

Yeah, 24th. But according to Pitchfork it's "no fun" and as subversive as a "bowl of soup" so I guess I can skip it. Kidding aside, genuinely curious if it's that bad or this is Pitchfork killing the two gen X idols (Beastie Boys and Spike Jonze) with one stone thing.

not sure how much stock i put 2020 pfork's judgments of 'fun' or 'subversive'

Was it Sam Pitchfork or Emily Pitchfork who said that?

Hope it streams somewhere other than Apple TV eventually

^^ yeah. I'm not signing up for another streaming service I won't watch otherwise.

just wait until someone you know buys an apple device and scam their account login

You gotta fight for your right, etc., etc.