Beastie Boys: Classic or Dud?

and I know I know by that point they were trying to do a million things - reggae, hardcore, jazz-funk, indie rock, whatever - and rapping just became one of many things they did, but their attention to the craft of it suffered, and as that was always one of the things that really drew me to them, it was disappointing and my attention wandered

don't get me wrong I'm not knockin' em, they went where their interests guided them and that's cool, I will always love them

The fact that they were trying to do a million things on Hello Nasty at least kept it interesting. When they decided to go to strictly hip hop with To the 5 Boroughs is probably where their lazy rhyme style ended up hurting them more.

^^ agree 100%

they definitely just started jamming on ideas based on things they liked by the mid-90s

as a teen during the mid/late 90s it was cool to listen to them as a sort of amalgamation of things you should get into, lots of musical ideas that, like the rhymes, were a grab bag of cultural references

agree on Nasty/Boroughs. Loved Hot Sauce Committee, it was a nice surprise to get another Hello Nasty type trip

I finally got around in the past year to watching the long, goofy celebrity cameo-filled video from that last album and it's in this weird technological gap where it exists online but only in a low resolution grainy version.

like there's this entire media shift that they didn't bridge as the project ended and MCA died :(

Hello Nasty was the last album I bought. Liked it initially and then less and less each listen. The production style/textures/equipment had no life to it.

That's one of the crazy things about BB to me, that they never really updated their rap style from their old school roots, yet managed to make it feel adequately fresh (for at least 12+ years) by re-contextualizing it with their music/production, which was always curious and evolving.

they definitely never before or after seemed to really try to write rhymes on the same level they did on Paul's Boutique

the peak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtEVKO9_ZDY

I only just noticed that they recycle (but reverse) the "We're from Manhattan, you're from Secaucus" put down from "Rock Hard" in "The New Style."

I did once enjoy Ad-Rock doing his shtick whilst ordering lunch on line in front of me, but yeah.

I'm sure I've posted about it before, but my favorite BB story was when I went to see a history of hip-hop exhibit at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. My friend and I were freaking out that one of the only other people in there that day/time was Yauch. It must have been around sukkot, because outside the museum were all these Lubavitch Jews in wait, ready to hand out a lulav and etrog (palm frond and citrus fruit) and corner you about your beliefs. My friend and I think, aw man, we're as Jewish as they look, there's so way we can get through the gauntlet. So we prepare ourselves, but they zoom right past us and straight to Yauch. So thanks for taking the heat, Yauch.

My second favorite was seeing them right when "Check Your Head" came out, in '92, at close to the nadir of their coolness (but right before they became cooler than everybody else) at the Troc in Philly, with fIREHOSE and Basehead opening. That show ruuuuuuuuuuuled. They came out and did PE's "Sophisticated Bitch" with fIREHOSE.

oh fuck yeah, fIREHOSE used to totally rip it up on that tune, I saw them do it in maybe 1989

I was so pissed that I couldn't get anyone to drive me up to see that bill in Oakland - I think the Butthole Surfers were on it as well?

Hello Nasty is one of the few late 90's full CD runtime grab bag albums actually worth listening to from front to back

fIREHOSE used to totally rip it up on that tune, I saw them do it in maybe 1989

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIqxMYLEB84

As far as covers go that whole '92 live EP was pretty hip: PE, Buttholes, Wire, BOC, Superchunk. Really couldn't go wrong whichever way you went for further research after that.

Everybody rappin like it’s a documentary
Actin like life is a big documentary

imo the fact they left that flub in the final take instead of recording another take is pretty indicative of their ethos
it’s funny

Have they ever said what the real rhyme was supposed to be?

commercial/rehearsal iirc

I like the flubbed version better, it just sounds cool the way he repeats it. It's like he's too cool to rhyme.

tbh it’s pretty obvious what it’s supposed to be and I laugh and go “really, what!” when it’s
been a while since I’ve heard it

so it's like a screening with live commentary... or something?

the impression i got is, they asked spike to film one of the talk/q&as they did promoting the book, and then it spiralled from a straight 'concert movie' into an actual documentary, but with the talk/q&a still as the spine of the piece. but i don't know for sure, I just know I wanna watch it.

it took 26 years, but Spike Jonze finally has a Beastie Boys feature film. bless 'em all

all his prior efforts have been... sabotaged?

🥁

“Sure Shot” sure sounds good in this coffee shop.

something that really stuck with me from the book is how much it made it clear (and this is not a knock on them) that they were fans first and musicians second. Their enthusiasm as music nerds was what really put them over - they were like really goofy curators/gatekeepers that just could not WAIT to hip their core audience (suburban white kids) to all this super-cool stuff they were into. I dunno if that sort of role is even possible anymore in this day and age, their certainly aren't very many other bands that made a career out of it the way they did.

Absolutely. The book has such a joyous sense of fandom to it and underlines the fact that all those references were done in a genuine spirit of generosity to it. Getting into the Beasties in the late 90s totally changed my life and gave me a life-raft from all the nu-metal my mates were into.

listened to a long interview with mario caldato recently where he mentioned that several times as a compliment - that they were bad-to-mediocre musicians but that they loved to play, both for its own sake and as a way of exploring/taking apart the music they were into

Everybody rappin like it’s a documentary
Actin like life is a big documentary

just wanted to acknowledge this

which interview was that? (I feel like I saw him pop up on a podcast recently, but didn't listen to it)

I always loved the story of "Sabotage" - just one of the guys banging on a single chord, thinking it was the coolest shit ever, and turning it into a hit single

I like the story about how the working title for "Sabotage" was "Chris Rock", because when they were first working it out in the studio, their friend Chris ran in and went "this is the shit!!!! This shit rocks!!!!"

Jordan it was on YouTube, one of those Red Bull music academy things from a few years ago. I never heard him talk before, he seems like a really sweet guy.

Hello Nasty is a near-great album, my favorite after PB and LTI. The ideal 1998 album: like ...Endtroducing, Odelay, Dots and Loops, it embraces the most luminous part of late '90s capital-fueled musical tourism, yet HN, in its rhymes and attitudes, is also a throwback. In the Jay-Z era the Run-DMC approach was quaint AND refreshing. To work it depended on star power and good will; the Beasties had the former and projected the latter.

Not everything works, but the sinuousness of the first nine or ten tracks is impressive in itself, a helluva lot more than Ill Communication's boho mysticism.

The late summer of 1998 was seven or weight weeks of "Intergalactic" on at every bar I hit; to segue to "Doo Wop (That Thing)" was nice.

That star power and good will really did help, since it's otherwise so innately cornball. Hip to be square, and all that.

seven or weight weeks
Take the load off, AlfieAlfred

Done.

Hello Nasty still sounds convincingly futuristic/techy/spacy to me, even twenty years in the rear-view mirror. I think it’s the echoey production, but it might just be that it was my soundtrack during a summer of heavy psychadelics and forays into phone phreaking.

otm

the most amazing thing that the book revealed is that they'd write lyrics individually, come together to see how they fit together, and then assign them to one of the group

they didn't write their own parts, they wrote parts that probably targeted a voice, but then decided who was going to do what collectively

Hello Nasty is a near-great album, my favorite after PB and LTI. The ideal 1998 album: like ...Endtroducing, Odelay, Dots and Loops, it embraces the most luminous part of late '90s capital-fueled musical tourism, yet HN, in its rhymes and attitudes, is also a throwback. In the Jay-Z era the Run-DMC approach was quaint AND refreshing. To work it depended on star power and good will; the Beasties had the former and projected the latter.

i still prefer the boho mysticism of the previous two LPs but this is an excellent analysis of HN

I really recommend the audio version of the Beastie Boys book. It's read by the guys, plus a whole raft of famous people who were on the scene at the time from Kim Gordon to John C Reilly. It's all put together in the same collagey/cut-up spirit as an actual BBs album

Spike Jones’s chapter is all-time trolling in the audiobook