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

http://i.imgur.com/M92zC.jpg

Adam Nathaniel Yauch ("MCA")
5 August 1964 - 4 May 2012

Thank you to everyone who expressed support for this poll happening and to donna rouge who let me cut in line ahead of the ABBA poll to get this underway in a timely manner. Spend the next week digging deep into your Beasties records, eps, singles and compilations...even the later ones you didn't like as recently as Thursday.

• Vote for the standard 20 tracks using this scoring system: 1:40, 2:36, 3:33, 4:30, 5:28, 6:26, 7:25, 8:24, 9:23, 10:22, 11:21, 12:20, 13:19, 14:18, 15:17, 16:16, 17:15, 18:14, 19:13, 20:12.
• Optionally, include your 5 favorite albums in order. I'd be surprised if Paul's Boutique didn't win, but let's see how the rest of the list shakes out.
• Voting deadline is Friday May 11th at midnight EST, 8pm PST and Saturday May 12th at 5am GMT for the Britishes. Email your ballots to johnnyilxfever (at) gmail (dot) com before the deadline. Also, please make sure I know how to score your list (adding the points by each track would be super helpful).

oh cool

Is B-Boy Bouillabaisse one track or nine?

the eternal question

Is B-Boy Bouillabaisse one track or nine?

Executive decision: one track.

I think you should have asked for five favorite videos instead of albums.

Hold it now...POLL IT!

five favorite videos

This is a great idea. If you haven't voted yet (and none of you have), consider adding your five favorite Beasties videos.

It's the weekend, so...bump.

POLLS! AND ALL I REALLY WANT IS POLLS!

thanks JF, primed & so down for this

I'm going to try to compile an abbreviated ballot for this, but I doubt that I can. As I mentioned on the RIP thread, discovering them via "She's On It," and their breakthrough a year later, was tremendously exciting. I followed them more casually from Paul's Boutique forward, but was still a fan of all the hits through to "Sabotage." But that was it for me, and neither did their earlier music follow me into my 40s. For me, they're forever tied to that one moment when Licensed to Ill was the greatest thing in the world. I still show the "Sabotage" video to my students when I spend a period on music videos for media, and show them the Paul's Boutique foldout cover for art, but I haven't played either of the first two albums in 15-20 years. It just happens.

...aaaaaand we have our first ballot!

ha i like this thread title

Was that me, then?

Anyone got a source listing of all their songs?

Sick, yes.

Moka, Wiki is fairly useful if you don't mind a bunch clicking through.

Not a video per se, but I want to vote for their appearance on Futurama anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUrsKjTP2Zk

ballot sent.

2 ballots in, only 4 unanimous choices already.

I hope other people vote for unreleased outtakes and demos.

4 ballots in, only 1 unanimous choice remains.

gonna rep for some deep cuts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P2gW7uRpGA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4RsOS2nQ1s

Boomin' Granny is def in contention for a spot on my ballot.

Twenty's going to hurt. A thousand cuts. I've only gone through two albums and I've got 20 already.

rap songs, rock songs, chill stoner jams, goofy filler tracks (like, "Mark on the Bus" is my shit, and I definitely want to include it on my ballot, but how it's going to eke its way past all this competition, i just don't know)

Sent.
Broke down as:-
x7 Licensed To Ill
x5 Paul's Boutique
x3 Check Your Head
x2 Ill Communication
x2 Hello Nasty
x1 Hot Sauce Committee II

Yeah I'm upwards of 40 with my first pass. This is gonna suck. And there's a lot of faves on Hello Nasty that I forgot!

One of my Hello Nasty faves, listening now makes me ;_;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rDklqPG5pU

Beastie Groove needs some hardcore repping. I'd love to see it get some love

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

7 ballots in now, though clemenza knocked out the last remaining unanimous track. :P

psyched for this, but gonna take a little time touring before i submit

done!

this one really hurt. still not 100% sure that I made all the right choices, but I didn't want to labor too long and turn it into a nightmare.
Lots of heartstrings + nostalgia working with this one, it was really hard to be super-objective.

My ballot broke down thusly
4 - License to Ill
5 - Paul's Boutique
3 - Check Yr Head
4 - Ill Communication
2 - Hello Nasty
1 - Hot Sauce Committee

fuck, there are like 40 songs i want to vote for off the first four albums alone. they were flawless for a while. and everybody wants to say that paul's boutique is their time capsule act of genius, but for me it's check your head. shit is unstoppable.

yeah, I have to admit that i was part of the anti-paul's backlash when it happened. there are still 2 or 3 songs I want to include from it though. as my list stands right now, i have more than 20 that are just check your head and ill communication. i could've done this easily if we'd had 30.

I was going to ask about the backlash. Never really listened to them in that era, but I remember Check Your Head getting grudgingly decent reviews in the end-of-years, but still basically the hangover of a bewildered reception. Yet I find it far more impenetrable than Paul's Boutique, so I find it hard to understand how PB is the one that confused everybody.

Well, bear in mind that I was 10 at the time and my sole exposure to the album was the Hey Ladies video, which me and my friends didn't really understand all the 70s kitsch and stuff.

But even listening to PB now, it feels like their most uneven album to me. Songs I always skip:

Johnny Ryall
Egg Man
The Sounds of Science
What Comes Around
Shadrach

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. PB gets super corny at times and while CYH isn't serious through and through, it never really feels corny to me.

It's true CYH is rarely corny but I don't think the songs are as good as PB's.

^^^this otm.

"Finger Lickin' Good," "So Whatcha Want," "Professor Booty" -- awesome.

Plus I dunno being corny is part of the Beasties' MO.

If you value Paul's Boutique as their best record, sure. I think a lot of their best stuff is ostentatious and exaggerated without lapsing into corniness. But some of PB crosses that line for me. And maybe what does it for me is that their vocals sound very measured and rehearsed in a lot of places, whereas I prefer the stuff that sounds looser and rougher.

this should be out of 50

Goddamnit, I don't think there's any way I'm gonna be able to squeeze "Don't Let The Air Out Of My Tires" on here.

Having these separate albums and tracks polls every week, it's starting to seem like the best albums are the ones with the fewest standout tracks on 'em. They feel more ... cohesive somehow?

I didn't end up even including any demos or anything because I was so loathe to ditch any album tracks, ha!

paul's boutique is weirdly sequenced. problem isn't that it's corny, but that the second half is way better than the first. "shake your rump" is great, but "johnny ryal" and "egg man" and take things down a notch, and "high plains drifter" is one of the weakest tracks on the album, imo. "the sounds of science" winds up great, but takes a couple minutes to get cooking, and once it does, "3-minute rule" kills the energy again. from "hey ladies" on out it's flawless, but damn, that's like halfway through the album.

"Finger Lickin' Good," "So Whatcha Want," "Professor Booty" -- awesome.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 8, 2012 4:30 AM (3 hours ago)

i disagree that the high points of paul's boutique eclipse check your head. alfred OTM, but also "pass the mic", "gratitude", "time for livin", "the maestro", "in 3's" - plus a bunch of great psychedelic funk jams. CYH isn't as sample-a-minute head-spinning as the best stuff on paul's boutique, but the fusion of rap, rock, funk and punk is at least as impressive, imo (despite the unfashionability of such things these days). after picking up and then just as quickly abandoning distinctive producer-driven sounds on ill communication and paul's boutique, check you head is where they finally find a style that's entirely their own.

I disagree about the extent to which Rubin and the Dust Bros drove those sounds. 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.

Alfred OTM

well, not OTM about the Dust Bros

Dust Bros had like 2/3rds of the Paul's Boutique tracks done before they even hooked up with the Beasties - steve shasta to thread

Speaking about the album 20 years on, Adam Yauch told Clash Magazine: “The Dust Brothers had a bunch of music together, before we arrived to work with them. As a result, a lot of the tracks come from songs they’d planned to release to clubs as instrumentals – ‘Shake Your Rump’, for example. They’d put together some beats, basslines and guitar lines, all these loops together, and they were quite surprised when we said we wanted to rhyme on it, because they thought it was too dense. They offered to strip it down to just beats, but we wanted all of that stuff on there. I think half of the tracks were written when we got there, and the other half we wrote together.”

LTI sounds like Raising Hell like a cousin looks like a brother: same family, not alike.

I understand that stuff – I read the 33 1/3 book – but the record by some alchemy sounds like a Beastie Boys record.

'high plains drifter' is great.

I understand that stuff – I read the 33 1/3 book – but the record by some alchemy sounds like a Beastie Boys record.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 8, 2012 9:11 AM (1 minute ago)

well, they got the kind of voices that are in your face

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

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

SO PISSED that outloud is down atm, as i would love to continue this discussion in the proper musical context :(

pegs line is really what gets me, best christ imagery from a jewish guy since "white christmas"

does this help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKNmLMs7ugw

eh, not really, cuz i've got it on phones already. really likef the "everybody adds tunes while we chat" thing.

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

yeah, it's guitar, at least sometimes (kicking in at about 1:00). never would have occurred to me to call it "albini-esque", but yeah, i get you. also OTM.

Excuse me young lady I don't mean ta troubleya
But you're looking so mighty fine inside your bee em doubleya

:)

I love 3 Minute Rule but alas, I could not find room to vote for it

so I am really having a difficult time narrowing this down to 20 tracks, & being actually honest w/ myself abt it, w/o basically stocking my ballot front to back w/ 80s/90s-era singles and obv album tracks. I really want to rep for some deep cuts and one-offs here, b/c there is a treasure trove to be had, for sure, but there's no way their biggest jams don't basically own this poll hands-down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA5-t5wOXaE

Sorry to get you guys all bothered with my opinion about the 5 of 23 tracks on Paul's that I don't like. FTR, the three Paul's tracks I had on my ballot were

3-minute Rule
Looking Down the Barrel
and
Car Thief

But that doesn't mean that cutting a lot of these tracks wasn't super difficult. I would have definitely voted for "Stop That Train" if B-Boy Bouillabaise hadn't been included as one long track. I guess I have my own personal hang-ups about Shadrach though.

Also, love that Stand Together - secret weapon track on CYH - is getting talked up. Hope it shows up in the results!

Ballot breakdown:

Lti - 1
Pb - 4
Cyh - 5
Ic - 4
Hn - 3
Tt5b - 1
Hscp2 - 1
Other - 1

I was on a beastie boys listserv just prior to hello nasty, that thing fucking exploded when the album dropped.

EIII! me and stevie too!

I hadn't heard To The 5 Boroughs before. I really like it, but it's not getting much love here.

i haven't listened to it since the day it came out, when I listened to it twice and then traded it in for something else. I would totally be open to re-examining it, but I wouldn't rebuy it (like I just had to for all the bboys records I only had on cassette).

more on Hello Nasty talk:

My boss at work really broke it down, like, that's really the album that made Gen Y get on board. Dudes would have been a Gen X phenomenon otherwise. I really had it driven home at Bonnaroo (lol), 2009 when I rapped along to "Paul's Revere" and no one around me knew a word; but EVERYONE rapped along to "Intergalactic"

Bonus Beats: I'm so embarrassed too because, I was 9 when Paul's came out, and loved Hey Ladies, and would love to tell you all that I was too smart for the backlash. But my mom BOUGHT me the tape and I made her return it because I was going through a hardcore Christian phase and it had a Parental Advisory sticker :(

haw, at 11 I remember agonizing over whether or not to buy the number of the beast, then I was all like stop frontin there is no god

Sorry to get you guys all bothered with my opinion about the 5 of 23 tracks on Paul's that I don't like.

you voted for car thief so all is forgiven

o hai sic! do we have a listserv reunion thread

But my mom BOUGHT me the tape and I made her return it because I was going through a hardcore Christian phase and it had a Parental Advisory sticker :(

irl lol! So I'm guessing there was no hidden cache of NWA & 2 Live Crew cassettes in yr bedroom, then?

I recall watching a lot of television in the summer of 1989 (I was 12), when Hey Ladies & Me, Myself & I were both in heavy rotation on Yo! MTV Raps. I dug both tunes quit a bit, but I was pretty curious as to why rappers were turning into hippies all of a sudden. A little later on, when I first heard Shadrach, I was sold on Paul's Boutique, but I still didn't actually buy it until around the time Check Your Head came out.

My group of friends rediscovered Paul's around the time Ill Communication came out. I remember taking a bong load and being like "what is this album?" and when my friend told me I was like "wasn't this the one that was supposed to suck?"

Was there ever a 'rediscovery' of Paul's Boutique though? I mean in critical terms - I remember it having a reputation as commercial suicide up until they made it back to the big time with Sure Shot etc; but never the reputation as a bad album, as such.

I dunno. I mean, this is just me from ages 10-15 in the Maryland suburbs.

Other 10 year olds were telling me not to bother.

I dunno, when I started reading music press about 10 years ago (around and maybe a year or two before TT5B) Paul's Boutique was still kinda seen as... at least the one you'd buy last, if that makes sense.

Oh, it's reputation had definitely turned around before then.

I remember selling stacks of it at Sam Goody in like 1998.

I dunno, when I started reading music press about 10 years ago (around and maybe a year or two before TT5B) Paul's Boutique was still kinda seen as... at least the one you'd buy last, if that makes sense.

Where was this? The VV-SPIN axis called it an uncommercial masterpiece from the get-go.

xp Not how I remember it at all. In the mid-90s it was the benchmark record for DJ Shadow, Mo'Wax, Chemical Brothers, etc - the Chems even originally called themselves the Dust Brothers because of it. Maybe there was a difference between dance and indie circles.

Where was this? The VV-SPIN axis called it an uncommercial masterpiece from the get-go.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 May 2012 14:57 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol british press

I dunno. I mean, this is just me from ages 10-15 in the Maryland suburbs.

^ymmv, but I noticed a similar pattern (& from an admittedly similar perspective). ime there were a bunch of kids who gravitated immediately toward Check Your Head b/c, on the surface at least, it seemed tailor made for punk/skater/indie/whatev circles. In general, alot of those folks had written the BBs off as a novelty act after Licensed to Ill, had basically ignored or were unaware of Paul's Boutique, and then listened retroactively from CYH to (re)discover the merits of both albums.

*'a lot' - goddam i hate missing the space bar on that..

lol British press

The first time I can definitely-definitely remember it having a particular reputation was in the Melody Maker 'Unknown Pleasures' book (1995) where it was mentioned in the Tusk section as commercial-suicide-but-nevertheless-amazing-because-utterly-uncompromising albums.

Its other notoriety was as the album which indirectly ruined De La Soul Is Dead.

Wait, what? Never heard of any De La beef.

PB definitely had big cult cache as the incredibly 'cool' BB album (even by their own standards) in the British music press in the mid-90s.

The theory was that Paul's Boutique was so sample-heavy that it forced the labels to take control over this anarchy; De La Soul Is Dead was the next similar album to appear, but got shelved for aeons while they had to seek clearance for every beat.

ha i was actually about to compare Paul's Boutique's slow turnaround from sophomore slump to arguably most revered album to De La Is Dead

xxp - I also seem to recall that, when Odelay became the toast of the town, there was a lot of buzz abt The Dust Brothers & thus a surge of renewed attention paid to PB - critically at least.

ha i was actually about to compare Paul's Boutique's slow turnaround from sophomore slump to arguably most revered album to De La Is Dead

― some dude, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 15:18 (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.rapzilla.com/rz/images/pictures/5mics540.jpg

i meant sophomore slump in commercial terms, obv both albums got good reviews right away

xxp - I also seem to recall that, when Odelay became the toast of the town, there was a lot of buzz abt The Dust Brothers & thus a surge of renewed attention paid to PB - critically at least.

yep – the RS Album Guide published in 2004 makes this point (some dude did too). I know I didn't get a copy of PB until my editor made a CD-R in early '97 ("It changed my life," he actually said lol; not sure he would've liked the Shins).

uh C-90

huh i guess the source didn't originally give out 'mics'.

http://pressrewind.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/delasoul_source591.jpg

yeah the RIAA certifications i posted upthread indicate that PB racked up as much as 75% of its sales to date post-Ill Communication

"Yo, it's like that Prego commercial"

COS I'VE BEEN DROPPING THE NEW SCIENCE AND IVE BEEN KICKING THE NEW KUH-NOWLEDGE

otm, "kicking the new kuh-nowledge" is one of those things I look forward to hearing every time that track comes on. "Sound of Science" is fighting for a top-3 placement on my ballot.

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.

This really rings true for me - some of my friends caught onto Ill Communication in about 1995, then over time people started checking out the other albums (I wound up with Paul's Boutique and Check Your Head on a C90 that I played to death in summer 1997). Hello Nasty was definitely an event, we all loved it - I haven't heard it in years though, I'm not sure how well it holds up.

Wiki reckons it samples LOADS of Beatles:

"Back in the U.S.S.R." by The Beatles
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by The Beatles
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" by The Beatles
"When I'm Sixty-Four" by The Beatles
"The End" by The Beatles
"Walk from Regio's" by Isaac Hayes
"Don't Sniff Coke" by Pato Banton
"Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved" by James Brown
"My Philosophy" by Boogie Down Productions

Never noticed USSR or 64 in there!

64 is the backbone of the first half of the song.

I remember excitedly buying paul's boutique on its release date and, like a whole lot of other people, just not getting it. the fanzine I was writing for at the time was very pro-beasties, but we ended up giving it to lisa suckdog to pan since nobody else wanted to touch it. there were a lot of positive reviews in the mainstream press, but iirc they mostly exhibited a begrudging respect for its sprawl rather than actual passionate raving.

then a weird thing happened... in 1990 I got an inexplicable hankering to hear it again. there wasn't any impetus, like a song being in a commercial or a TV show appearance, just wanted to check it out again, so I went looking for it in record stores and couldn't find a copy *anywhere*. I phoned up one store and the guy on the line said, "you are the third person who's called looking for that album this week. no, we don't have it." some bizarre hive mind moment. when I finally did locate a copy it didn't leave my car stereo for months.

paul's boutique was one of those times when somebody gets so far out in front it takes a while to catch on, and nobody ever catches up.

Throughout most of the 90s, the Beasties were a good year ahead of everyone else in almost every respect. I don't think they were conscious about steering trends, but they were doing it.

the fanzine I was writing for at the time was very pro-beasties, but we ended up giving it to lisa suckdog to pan since nobody else wanted to touch it.

can i just say how much i love this sentence

I'll have to listen again with 64 in mind; it'll probably be embarrassingly obvious now, it's just never really registered. The drums from The End hit me the first time I heard it, I think.

cosign on the sentence. Would hang with Lisa Suckdog.

what's suckdog?

Read Edward's post!

btw carrying on from this convo, Paul's is the 2nd most popular of the band's original LPs to return to the Billboard 200 this week:

In the wake of Beastie Boys member Adam "MCA" Yauch's
 death on Friday, the group's landmark 1986 debut, Licensed to Ill, broke back onto the charts at #18 on sales of 19,000, as business picked up by more than 800 percent over the previous week.

It was one of several Beastie Boys albums
 that crashed back onto the charts, which also included Solid Gold Hits (#51, 8,000), Paul's Boutique (#56, 8,000), Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (#107, 4,000), Ill Communication (#109, 4,000), Check Your Head (#124, 4,000) and Anthology: Sounds of Science (#141, 3,000).

I was at Target yesterday and they had cds of Licensed to Ill for $5 (didn't see any of the other albums at all). I got one just because it's easier than digging in a box to find my old copy.

pillbox you may know her by her govt name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Crystal_Carver

very diff albums pecking order on the current most listened to albums on US Spotify btw: Ill Communication (#62), Licensed (#65), Hello Nasty (#66), Paul's Boutique (#70), Hot Sauce (#99)

i just kind of vaguely know Lisa Suckdog as an '80s underground rock person, since she wrote the liners for the reissue of Sonic Youth's Evol

I somehow ended up with a cassette copy of Licensed to Ill when I was about 15 - I don't remember buying it so I'm not sure how I ended up with it. But especially once I started driving, it was "the little cassette that could" for like, 10 years. Bored with new stuff, radio sucks? Throw on LTI. Crappy day, gonna drive to get some pizza? LTI.
Even when PB and CYH became the cool Beasties albums, there was something about LTI. And like someone mentioned upthread, it always settled those knock down, drag out, who-rules-the-stereo-arguments with your friends.

lisa never really rocked, except maybe back and forth

it's going to be hard not to do a 100% paul's boutique / ill communication ballot

dunno that there's such a thing as a bad ballot itt

I fucked up the order of my ballot because I was too impatient to get it out there, but I'm happy with my song selection.

i just remembered that LTI was the first non-Christian record I owned as a kid (mom was on the whole PMRC/satanic-panic tip), on cassette & given to me for my tenth birthday by my not-totally-ex-hippie uncle David. My folks let me keep it for some reason &, there then being no rationale for a continued household ban on the devil's music, I was free to pursue a life of music fandom and hedonic apostasy.

my ballot was pretty silly, I'm sure I would rank them differently on any given day. Resisted the urge to just submit the Paul's Boutique tracklisting.

when the re-appraisal of Paul's Boutique kicked in is hard to measure. I remember it being praised as similar to (and better than) "3 Feet High and Rising" when it came out while I was in high school, but I couldn't find a copy. I remember seeing the Hey Ladies video and being jealous of a classmate who had a cassette copy, but wasn't able to locate a copy of my own until 2 years later, at which point I was blown away. And then Check Your Head came out shortly afterwards.

I'm not sure reappraisal is the right word when the album got awesome reviews in '89. We discovered it many years later.

Pazz and Jop '89:

11. Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever (MCA) 381 (35)
12. Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique (Capitol) 347 (32)
13. Fine Young Cannibals: The Raw and The Cooked (I.R.S.)

interesting sandwich!

would gladly consume such a sandwich tbh

Really wish I had bought Paul's Boutique instead of Raw and the Cooked : (

Owning either (or both) makes life better, so don't beat yourself up.

I'm not sure reappraisal is the right word

sure - it's an album that had trouble finding it's audience, I guess. I'm not sure why. It's not like my tastes changed radically between '89 and '91, I just literally could not get my hands on the album.

I heard about it for a few years before I actually heard it. I remember reading excited reviews about it in various places, but unlike LTI -- which was much in evidence everywhere throughout my college years -- I don't remember knowing anyone who had a copy of Paul's Boutique. It went on my "I should check that out" list, and eventually I did.

just wanna vote for the second half of Ill Communication except that it's such a groove in itself that it's hard to separate things. probably perverse to vote "Transitions" #1 but I'm thinking about it

yeah i mean...a much higher percentage of Appetite For Destruction fans bought GNR Lies than Licensed To Ill fans bought Paul's Boutique. it was really kind of a huge initial dropoff in sales.

yeah and I don't get why that was, exactly? was there some kind of backlash to LTI that I'm forgetting? I guess Tougher Than Leather had a similar drop-off

Mr Veg remembers a lot people complaining that PB was 'too noisy', ie bc of so much sampling. And I think a lot of people took them literally with the tuff leather jackets partyboy stuff and got mad when they didn't do LTI Part II

The differences between Tougher Than Leather and Raising Hell are WAY less substantial than the differences between Paul's Boutique and Licensed to Ill. I think a ton of people who thought No Sleep Til Brooklyn and Fight for Your Right were like, "what? This is actual rap. I want some rock with rapping on it."

Lies had an enormous hit ballad.

but see that would require that people actually heard PB and didn't like it. which to my mind was not the case, people just didn't buy it or hear it (or even know about it)

xp

actually not as hard as i thought

my breakdown

LTI - two songs, quite low
PB - nine songs, def dominating the top 10
CYH - only four songs, even though i really like it as an album it's hard to pick individual songs off of it, everything seems to work better in context
IC - only two songs?!? i thought i liked this album!
HN - three songs, but two of them are quite high

didn't pick any instrumental tracks because it didn't seem to make sense but if i picked one it would probably be "butterfly"

The differences between Tougher Than Leather and Raising Hell are WAY less substantial than the differences between Paul's Boutique and Licensed to Ill.

right, I was just bringing it up because they were both on Def Jam and both previous records sounded similar - a sound which was (maybe? I don't remember) considered passe by '88.

xp

relistening to Ill Communication and DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN!

not that PB sounded like LTI obviously, just that maybe people assumed it did and so didn't bother...?

xp

RUN DMC was never on Def Jam, though...right? Profile all the way!

i somehow forgot how FUNKY this album is. Crazy, especially considering the hardcore thrown in doesn't throw it off at all.

RUN DMC was never on Def Jam, though...right? Profile all the way!

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 18:09 (15 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

understandable mistake to make, being brothers w/ Russell Simmons.

paul's boutique commercial failure was due to 1) no hit single and 2) it alienated almost all the existing fans who bought it unheard

with no word of mouth and nothing on radio/TV what was going to fuel sales?

when heard in the context of the album "hey ladies" makes sense, but as a single it sounded like a big mess. the chorus is non-existent, and those retro funk moves sounded kinda kitschy after years of 80s future shock and their own brief legacy of big drums and riffage. as a habitual MTV watcher at the time I can say honestly say I saw the "shake your rump" video once, and "hey ladies" 0 times.

I saw Hey Ladies every morning before school for a while.

haha I always forget that about Run DMC. I habitually associate Def Jam with that early Rick Rubin style, what can I say

def saw the Hey Ladies video a couple times when it came out

I remember the premiere of Hey Ladies being a huge deal on MTV, but I don't think I saw any of the other Paul's Boutique videos until well into the 90s.

with no word of mouth and nothing on radio/TV what was going to fuel sales?

Robert Hillburn!

of course!

Maybe if Hey Ladies hadn't had to compete with Love Shack for America's retro kitcsh dollars that fall.

regarding tougher than leather, it was weird how in '88 that run DMC style of rapping suddenly sounded so old and played out. eazy-e and NWA were huge at this point, I remember having a compilation w/ them and the world class wreckin' cru on it and the latter's "I did THIS then I did THAT" flow sounded so corny.

Shadrach got some nominal daytime rotation on MTV iirc. I didn't hear Shake Your Rump until I bought the album years later, tho - that just seems kinda frankly insane!

also I saw tougher than leather, in the theater, while tripping

I saw Hey Ladies every morning before school for a while.

― how's life, Wednesday, May 9, 2012 1:20 PM (13 minutes ago)

that explains it, I was in college, mornings did not agree with me

if I'm remembering this right, wasn't capitol expecting a huge LTI-style blockbuster, got handed this bizarre mishmash, and when it didn't take off immediately they just threw up their hands? frankly they needed some marketing ninjas to sell PB to middle america.

in hindsight PB prolly would've moved more units initially if "looking down the barrel of a gun" was the lead single.

Yeah, the Beasties getting out of the CBS/Def Jam contract was a hassle iirc and Capitol treated them to a huge contract as their reward...so then they were handed Paul's Boutique and had no clue what to do with it.

Yeah, Capitol record held a big shindig on the roof of their building with (no joke) a dixieland jazz band, skywriting, the Cap records president gushing about them ....they even flew the capitol records-style Beastie logo flag over the building. Captiol clearly thought this was going to be massive.

There's even video: http://vimeo.com/26077924

That video is nuts! It all came back to me as soon as I saw the flag being raised and the three of them interviewed on the roof (saw a bunch of that footage on MTV).

it's going to be hard not to do a 100% paul's boutique / ill communication ballot

― the late great, Wednesday, May 9, 2012 9:21 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

relistening to Ill Communication and DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN!

― Thoughts? You must have loads. (a hoy hoy), Wednesday, May 9, 2012 10:08 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

on relistening i've warmed slightly to ill communication, but it's still clearly a weak sister to check your head. great up through "sabrosa", don't get me wrong, but it loses serious steam after that. i mean, i'm considering voting for five IC tracks, but they all occur within the album's first seven. it's got two short punk jams, neither a tenth as good as "time for livin'", and a bunch of smoked-out instrumentals, none as memorable or inviting as "something's got to give" and "in 3's". though it's only six minutes longer than check your head, the back half of the album feels like a trudge in comparison.

lol contenderizer that DAAAAetc. happened about a 1/3rd of the way through and i got kinda bored of the end.

Those instrumentals are pretty great, imo! "Eugene's Lament" , "Futterman's Rule", and "Rickey's Theme"? I cut them from my ballot, but if it had been a bigger ballot, I wouldn't have. Also, you got "Do It" and "The Scoop", which are fresh as fuck.

actually, maybe the instrumentals work better in the context of "In Sound From Way Out".

In 3's is great, I don't care what anyone says.

"Do It" was my highest ranked track from Ill Communication

also, i don't think that paul's boutique failed commercially because no one was interested in the beastie boys anymore, or because no one heard it. it was a massive curveball, delivering basically none of the party tantrum rap-metal that had made licensed to ill such a huge hit. "fight for your right to party" fans were bound to be disappointed, and paul's boutique didn't have the kind of immediately accessible, guaranteed crossover hits that could instantly attract a comparably huge new audience. kid buys a copy, wants smash stuff up parent-hating insanity music, is bummed, tells his friends not to bother = bad sales out of the gate. "hey ladies" was a minor hit at best, and that's the only track that comes close to duplicating the LTI vibe.

just watched the LTI video. would have been a huge hit in the early 90s, but nobody was rocking that self-mocking loser/slacker 70s throwback shit in '88, at least not on MTV. as mentioned upthread, they were just a little to far ahead of the curve.

^ the "hey ladies" video, i mean

In 3's is great, I don't care what anyone says.

it is, it is! that's what i was saying. guaranteed a spot on my ballot.

i'm kind of amazed by the huge steps taken by the BBs over their first five albums. each represents a distinct phase that other acts might have spent several albums exploring (or just going through).

License to Ill - fresh style, massive hits
Paul's Boutique - radical divergence, baroque experimentation, audience lost
Check Your Head - assertion of artistic identity, muso seriousness, audience rebuilt
License to Ill - artistic stagnation, hits from the ruts
Hello Nasty - self referentiality, "old school" nostalgia, dance music

of course, part of the reason for this is probably that they took so damn long between albums. the BBs put out just five albums in their first 12 years on major labels. a couple decades earlier but over a similar period, the rolling stones released 14 (give or take, depending on how you count them).

you want to call everything Licensed to Ill today, don't you?

License to Ill represents artistic stagnation? Really? Best album ever released by a "stagnant" group then.

Sorry Ill Communication LOL mind control.

duh, and i keep calling it license to ill. fuck a brain cell.

but yeah, ill communication is the "stagnant" one, imo

Ill Communication only really adds the drone-y and Tibetan-drummy bits sonically. I guess it adds Yauch's interest in Buddhism too. Both of these are added in the back-half of the album. It does feel... I think it's harsh to say stagnation - let's say a consolidation - from Check Your Head. What it does have is a handful of stone cold 100% genius pop smash hits - Sabotage, Sure Shot, Get It Together, Root Down - which really lift the record. Nothing else on it is 'bad', but it doesn't feel as new and fresh and unexpected as CYH.

feels just like a continuum of awesomeness to me.

Ill Communication always seemed like a more stoned version of CYH, more fuggy. Still a great album though, yeah.

Listening through to Hello Nasty now, seems a lot better than it sounded last time I listened to it (probably about eight years ago). 'Intergalactic' can do one though, the sole BBs song I'm sick of hearing.

man I love the second half of Ill Communication, a thing in itself, stoned I guess but def reaching for something else, cosmic, the kind of thing you can get lost in. It's their best album imo.

for the record re PB's reviews; in the 33 and a 3rd book about it there's a quote from TIME magazine(!) that says 'this album is as important to 1989 as Blonde On Blonde was to 1966'. it was raved about in the UK; even the likes of Q magazine went majorly mental about it and they ignored almost all rap.

this is entirely my fault for trading too many phish tapes in the 1990s, but half the time I listen to sabotage and it gets to the wwwWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAUUuuuuuuuuuuugggggggghhhh part, i keep expecting to hear Trey from Phish singing it. but it says something about the song and about phish that it got a bigger response out of the crowd than anything else I ever saw them play.

one aspect of Ill Communication that I definitely get tired of is all the distorted vocals.

nothing you can say about Phish can ruin Sabotage for me, no sir

one aspect of Ill Communication that I definitely get tired of is all the distorted vocals.

yup, it's a good trick, served CYH well, but they really run it into the ground on illco

wonder how many more votes this gets than the all-time hip-hop poll. i'm gonna say 25-30.

it doesn't ruin it for me, exactly. god, i was rolling when i saw them do that too. it was a really faithful cover. just a different vocal timbre.

otm a hoy hoy, that poll's popularity was ridic disappointing

like Ill Communication, the second half of Hello Nasty is open-ended & spacey, a monolithic groove with lots of rooms to get lost inside; really loving HN on this relisten

always hear a lot of complaints that HN drops off in the second half but I dig it, it's structured like a party where the beginning's all wild and exuberant and by the end ppl are sleeping on the lawn or staring contemplatively at the fishbowl or giving incomprehensible shout-outs and listening to lee perry albums

but end up quietly reflecting on their own mortality

ha! yeah, i love that shout-out track. also the one that's like "ravers of the world - UNITE!"

I think I like that aspect of the Beastie Boys, the reclining into self-awareness in the second halves of their albums (after LTI, I guess); but it's especially vivid in their three 90s albums. I recognize the switch but it's a turn-on for me after the boom of the singles.

this goes out to..... NEWCASTLE.... where VENOM come from

idk just listened to Ill Communication and was really feelin' that second half. Stoned jammy murk forever. This poll is impossible.

yeah that side is the best

wonder how many more votes this gets than the all-time hip-hop poll. i'm gonna say 25-30.

― Thoughts? You must have loads. (a hoy hoy), Wednesday, May 9, 2012 1:50 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm a hoy hoy, that poll's popularity was ridic disappointing

― Euler, Wednesday, May 9, 2012 1:54 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, it's a lot easier to get your mind around a handful of albums than three decades of history in one of the most vibrant and active pop genres. plus ILM rap, R&B & dance music heads are super territorial and dismissive of incorrect/inexpert opinions. takes the fun out of those genres for me (at least as they exist on this board).

Having that Beach Boys thread up at the same time as two important Beastie Boys threads is fucking up my game a little.

so am I the only one here planning to vote for Groove Holmes? I've always dug that jam more than pretty much any of their other instrumental tracks (save, perhaps, for the +dB remix of Flute Loop that's on one of those Mo' Wax Heads comps). Then again, you could play chopsticks on a B3 and I'd be prob be smitten somehow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgJdgHiIMNQ&feature=related

I ended up choosing between In 3's and Groove Holmes... Holmes lost this time around. But I fuckin love that track, no matter what.

Groove Holmes is on my master list. Tomorrow i'm gonna game the two instrumental records + TT5B + whatever the last one is and.... aww jeez.

Speaking of instrumentals, I finally got a copy of the Mix Up. It's really freaking good.

i like "groove holmes", but it won't make the final cut

17 ballots in now and the results are still shifting all over the place.

Groove Holmes is pretty great on the album where it is, but it wasn't one of my top instrumentals. no instrumentals made my list actually, although I kinda regret that vis a vis Eugene's Lament.

hate to be all serious acid jazz head here but i honestly can't imagine listening to any of those beasties instrumentals on their own

I voted! Lots and lots and lots of weird bits and deep cuts on my ballot. Not being hard or anything, I just always liked the weirdo tracks on their albums rather than their party-hop classics. It's all good though.

I much prefer Ill Communication to Check Your Head. Check feels disjointed to me in a way that Ill Comm doesn't, but then I heard IC first and had come to a lot of the instrumentals on Check through the In SOund compilation, so that's always messed it up for me.

HEy, I always loved Johnny Ryall and Egg Man from Paul's Boutique - thought they were highlights!

Ill Comm had great instrumentals too - Always loved Futterman's Rule and Transitions

surprised by the number of people who fail to get with my consensus

Also come to the conclusion that Hello Nasty is their best album. Edward III is 100% OTM about the second half of that album.

late great - lay some fresh acid jazz on me. my experience was limited to one Acid Jazz label comp and a Groove Collective record back in the heyday.

money mark - "money mark's keyboard repair"

a good roy ayers comp

you can stop there

lol. all I remember was plunking down $9.99 for something with James Taylor Quartet on it. it was really underwhelming for all the hype about acid jazz.

Also come to the conclusion that Hello Nasty is their best album. Edward III is 100% OTM about the second half of that album.

― Scary Move 4 (dog latin), Wednesday, May 9, 2012 4:33 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

I agree as well. The high points might not be as high but it is more consistent than any of the others, even given its length.

hate to be all serious acid jazz head here but i honestly can't imagine listening to any of those beasties instrumentals on their own

yeah I didn't vote for any of them

money mark - "money mark's keyboard repair"

this really is such a great album

srsly though i got into acid jazz partly through the beastie boys thing and then into trip hop and i still listen to trip hop (like old portishead and tricky and mo'wax and ninja tune albums from the 90s and even more obscure stuff) but acid jazz stuff i am completely over

the thing is that it's 99% just lesser imitations of actual jazz-funk and soul-jazz from the 60s and 70s and you certainly don't need me to recommend you any of that because i'd just be recommending all of the dudes that the beasties shout out to, herbie hancock, jimmy smith, freddie hubbard, donald byrd, eddie harris, les mccann, ramsey lewis etc etc etc

yup

If we're talking about BBoys' cohort albums, Hurricane's album is really great too (and has one track with the Boys on it).

thing is at the time it was easier for me to find the imitations than it was to find the originals. Groove Merchant was insanely pricey!

xp

Hurricane's best moment was the Afros album

which is fucking hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRvyFTLnu-E

love mark's keyboard repair so much. such a dusty, warm, weird little record.

Okay shit...I've never heard it, but I'm all over this Afros track.

whole album is great. produced by Jam Master Jay

I'm listening to Money Mark's 'Push The Button' album for the first time in about 14 years. Nostalgia RUSH!!

loved that album

yeah Push The Button is really good

i have a life and a job was too lazy to vote in the horror poll, but i could probably swing 20 beasties songs

have you considered getting a second job

yeah it literally took me 10 minutes to put together my beasties ballot. horror movie ballot, well um uh yeah.

thing is at the time it was easier for me to find the imitations than it was to find the originals. Groove Merchant was insanely pricey!

this is true, there wasn't that reissue / mp3 blog culture there is nowadays, thank you acid jazz

my alltime fave beasties guest spot is this milk dee solo joint, I didn't vote for it but be my guest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnZo7Bx7wL4

If we're talking about BBoys' cohort albums, Hurricane's album is really great too (and has one track with the Boys on it).

His first solo album has two tracks with the Boys on it (though iirc MCA isn't on Stick 'Em Up), plus the Australian edition (which came out earlier) has one or two more produced by them (eg Shaftman, the second best thing on it); his second album (which only came out on Wiiija) has one produced by Adrock; and the third has one with Adrock and Black Thought rapping, and one with Money Mark playing keys and Public Enemy rapping.

There was a second and a third? Not sure either of them ever crossed my radar.

20 ballots in. Two days left to vote. Do this!

i'm taking a while mostly cuz i hadn't listened to illco and nasty in ages. nasty, especially, i really needed to spend some time with. it's way better than i remembered, O_O @ the back half. though i wouldn't go as far, i can see why so many count it as their favorite. certainly the most colorful & varied BBs album.

II haven't even had time to put together a list of all their songs including b-sides and remixes and whatnot, let alone think about trimming it down. a six-day-poll seems really really short, especially at a time when people are going to be actively digging into the catalogue anyway

So far "33% God" is the b-side with the highest rating on my list

if folks have b-sides or other strays that they think go toe-to-toe with the best album tracks, then pls to post (or at least mention) them here pls! and thank you

I just scanned through the releases I own and went with my heart, i.e. the ones I remember enjoying the most at 17.

I'm trying to track down a digital copy of 33% God; has anyone got it?

Skills To Pay The Bills is on my list.

love "33% god", but it's basically an instrumental version of "shake your rump", and i prefer the latter (know this one cuz i had the love american style EP way back when). wish i could point you towards a digital copy, SM, but i had to youtube it.

and "skills to pay the bills" is awesome, thanks for the tip.

Aha, if it's basically just instrumental SYR, I'm less bothered about tracking it down. That'd be cool to hear, obviously, but I'm not feeling like I'm missing out on a whole new song I've never heard.

Also this - <i>well, it's a lot easier to get your mind around a handful of albums than three decades of history in one of the most vibrant and active pop genres. plus ILM rap, R&B & dance music heads are super territorial and dismissive of incorrect/inexpert opinions. takes the fun out of those genres for me (at least as they exist on this board)</i> - is completely OTM regarding why I didn't / wouldn't vote in a straight hiphop poll. (Plus I seldom vote in polls anyway.)

Balls to html and bbcode.

contenderizer and sickmouthy, there is a place called beastiemixes. they have a bootlegs section.

if folks have b-sides or other strays that they think go toe-to-toe with the best album tracks, then pls to post (or at least mention) them here pls! and thank you

I voted for "Some Dumb Cop" "Egg Raid On Mojo" "Cooky Puss" and "Bennie and the Jets."

Final breakdown is:

1 - Cooky Puss
2 - License To Ill
1 - Love American Style EP
6 - Paul's Boutique
1 - An Exciting Evening At Home With Shadrach, Meshac And Abednego EP
2 - Check Your Head
5 - Ill Communication
1 - Hello Nasty
1 - The Mix-Up

Voted Beastie Revolution too, which is like a reggae pastiche, but played too retardedly to count as full-blown racism.

if folks have b-sides or other strays that they think go toe-to-toe with the best album tracks, then pls to post (or at least mention) them here pls! and thank you

"33%" and "And What You Give Is What You Get" is on my list. "And What You Give..." is a rework of "Shadrach" with five hundred more samples crammed in it (head exploded when I first heard Black Flag and The Jam in it). I just realized that I had both "33% God" and "Shake Your Rump" on my ballot, but who cares as they're both fucking brilliant.

Also had a track from "The Mix-Up" that isn't earth shattering, but I just like a lot.

I need to get The Mix-Up.

I will explore beastiemixes tomorrow too.

Skills To Pay The Bills is on my list.

Same here, I finally bought the mp3 of this at the weekend having first heard it on the 'Sabotage' VHS compilation about 14 years ago.

Just sent my ballot, works out as:

Licensed to Ill - 1
Paul's Boutique - 7
Check Your Head - 5
Ill Communication - 4
Hello Nasty - 2
Other - 1

Ballot pending another listen to To the 5 Boroughs.

just sent mine! skipped the albums thing but glad i caught the "favorite videos" poll

I've got a 4 disc bootleg called the paul's boutique companion. worth getting lost in if you wanna OD on PB...

Disc 1 - Demos and Rough Versions

01 3-Minute Rule (Rough Version)
02 Hello Brooklyn (Rough Version)
03 Johnny Ryall (Demo with Mike D Scratch Vocal)
04 Johnny Ryall (Rough Version)
05 Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun (Rough Version)
06 Egg Man (Rough Version)
07 The Sounds Of Science (Rough Version)
08 33% God (Get Off The Mic)
09 Full Clout (Shake Your Rump Demo)
10 Dust Joint (Car Thief Demo)
11 Car Thief (Rough Version)

Disc 2 - B-Sides and Rarities

01 Shake Your Rump (Video Version)
02 Hey Ladies (Single-Video Composite)
03 33% God
04 Dis Yourself In '89 (Just Do It)
05 Shadrach (Live @ The Country Club)
06 Ask For Janice Pt. 2
08 And What You Give Is What You Get
09 Some Dumb Cop Gave Me Two Tickets Already
10 Shadrach (Live @ Soul Train)
11 Your Sister's Def
12 Ask For Janice, Pt. 3
13 Some Dumb Cop Gave Me Two Tickets Already (45 RPM Version)

Disc 3 - Instrumentals

01 Shake Your Rump
02 Johnny Ryall
03 Egg Man
04 High Plains Drifter
05 The Sounds Of Science
06 3-Minute Rule
07 Hey Ladies
08 Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun
09 Car Thief
10 What Comes Around
11 Shadrach
12 59 Chrystie Street
13 Mike On The Mic

Disc 4 - Show Vinyl

01 Shake Your Rump
02 Johnny Ryall
03 Egg Man
04 High Plains Drifter
05 Time To Get Ill
06 The Sounds Of Science
07 3-Minute Rule
08 Hey Ladies
09 Hold It Now, Hit It
10 Untitled

They're being sued by Trouble Funk now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buXt-yyZEss

forgot how much i like the sad indie solo guitar hello nasty tracks

Instant Death, Picture This and I Don't Know = all voted for by me.

I had completely forgotten about the loungy one with the female vocal.

Yeah that's Picture This, with Luscious Jackson.

think it's gonna go down like this:

licensed - 6
PB - 4
CYH - 5
illco - 2
nasty - 3
other - 0

'I Don't Know' was one of the 2 HN tracks I voted for, thanks in part to Vegemite Girl reminding me of it on this thread.

Yeah that's Picture This, with Luscious Jackson.

you are confused imo.

"I Don't Know" is on my ballot too.

yeah "picture this" has brooke williams not luscious jackson... was just listening to it!

"I Don't Know" is on my ballot too.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 10, 2012 7:09 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Good bass line too.

They're being sued by Trouble Funk now.

More accurately, they're being sued by the label that now owns the rights to Trouble Funk's recordings.

hello nasty is so weird, it's one of their most diverse albums stylistically, covering every impulse they dabbled in up to that point, yet still sounds integrated and of a whole

also feels way more controlled than CYH or IC, like they're effortlessly steering this massive musicmaking starship through the universe

I got some shit right here, if you could <bleurgghhhhhh>I hooked my turntable to a wah wah pedal

well colour me wrong, i always thought it was one of the luscious who sang on picture this...

no punk songs on hello nasty.

hello nasty is so weird, it's one of their most diverse albums stylistically, covering every impulse they dabbled in up to that point, yet still sounds integrated and of a whole

also feels way more controlled than CYH or IC, like they're effortlessly steering this massive musicmaking starship through the universe

― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Thursday, May 10, 2012 7:29 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also, in looking out to other pop styles and back at their own career, nasty seems the least tied to a particular moment in time. not "timeless" (i'll reserve that adjective for licensed to ill), but still surprisingly fresh sounding, ditching the weedhead rap-rock oppressiveness of CYH and illco. the only aspect of its sound i might call dated are the cibo matto-esque psychedelic indie pop touches, and i like those too much to complain.

i think that was the most mindblowing thing for me, at 16 upon first putting on Ill Communication and hearing Tough Guy and thinking "Woah, I thought this was a rap band!"

weedhead rap-rock oppressiveness

isn't 33% god purely the dust brothers work?

Hello Nasty was the first major incident of eighties-retro that I can remember. The music press made a big deal out of it; a hole "remember the 80s" spread in Select etc... Although now the influence seems quite muted.

*whole

weedhead rap-rock oppressiveness

i love check your head, but there's definitely a broishness there that they scrape away completely for hello nasty

Hello Nasty was the first major incident of eighties-retro that I can remember.

Maybe you missed Elastica?

The Menace? I never listened to it.

isn't 33% god purely the dust brothers work?

who's doing the "it's the joint" vocal?

Weirdly great indie-lounge song from Hello Nasty I'd forgotten all about until yesterday: 'Song for the Man'. Have had it in my head all day so I gave it the #20 spot on my ballot.

xxpost If you mean the first album and the Wire influence, that's something that never really went away. Blur were also doing a few 80s new wave things, but it was Hello Nasty's old-skool vibe that I remember kicking off the whole eighties nostalgia wave that marked the following decade. Jurassic 5 were also part of that I guess, and then the resurgence in 80s rap led to electro and breakdance etc...

CYH and, to a lesser extent, IC both seemed like they were about joining the Beasties' gang; like by buying, listening, and getting into those records you became a Beastie Boy friend by proxy, one of the guys they were hanging out with on the back of IC, or one of the people in the photos in the sleeve of CYH.

Hello Nasty seemed like the gang had gone, and they were ready to be friendly with the whole world. Or something.

Song For The Man was on my ballot. Love the ending; totally incongruous (with the Beastie Boys I knew up to then), and totally great.

Song for the Man is like an alternate universe in where Smashmouth have got ahold of themselves.

xxpost If you mean the first album and the Wire influence, that's something that never really went away. Blur were also doing a few 80s new wave things

I debated including Blur there as well, but Elastica was the first band to really sell it...from the mode of dress, to the album cover, and so on. I guess you could argue they were mining the very late 70s, but it essentially had 80s written all over it.

maybe makes sense to distinguish between 70s/80s retro in rock/punk/new wave, and the same in hip hop and dance music

late 70s & early-mid 80s, i mean

beck's odelay had begun to dig into hip hop as a retro genre a couple years before hello nasty though ("ooh, la la, sassoon")

thanks to the dust brothers, one supposes

Song For The Man also great, if a bit sycophantic/hypocritical in the light of Licensed to Ill

sounds like thurston moore is singing it

he's not, but he might

CYH and, to a lesser extent, IC both seemed like they were about joining the Beasties' gang; like by buying, listening, and getting into those records you became a Beastie Boy friend by proxy, one of the guys they were hanging out with on the back of IC, or one of the people in the photos in the sleeve of CYH.

Hello Nasty seemed like the gang had gone, and they were ready to be friendly with the whole world. Or something.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 10 May 2012 15:54 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this is so true. I know this sounds funny, but Ill Communication had such an impact on me when I first heard it as a depressive indie kid. It was the first time I thought, "hey, dorky white guys can also be cool" and I remember feeling on top of the world for the first time in a very long time.

re: song for the man... they'd been apologizing for licensed to ill for many years when they made hello nasty

hypocritical or y'know just growing up

true, true. They still got flack for it. Especially at Reading when they told the Prodge not to play Smack My Bitch Up.

I would've told prodigy not to play for entirely different reasons

The Prodigy and the Beastie Boys were my two favourite bands at that time and to see them in succession was like a dream come true. Sadly the Prodigy were complete dross, but the Boys killed it!

they'd been apologizing for licensed to ill for many years when they made hello nasty

speaking of licensed to ill, it's funny to me that i had paul's boutique and check your head duking it out upthread for the beastie's single moment of time-capsule brilliance. it seems so obvious that it always has been and (probably) always will be LTI. so obvious, maybe, that it's easy to forget. like it's not even a question. the only question is what comes next.

I was 13 when "Fight for Your Right" hit the radio, and if there's ever been a more perfect marriage of song and age I could barely imagine it.

I was talking about Beastie Boys with someone the other day and they pointed out that I'd completely forgotten LTI. I always do.

I don't really like Licensed To Ill, save a couple of songs. This is entirely down to the snare sound giving me a headache. There, I said it.

I do like their punk tracks on Aglio I Olio and Some Old Bullshit though.

I think if you weren't around/culturally aware when License to Ill broke it doesn't have nearly the impact. As far as my actual cultural experience of the Beasties its all about my delinquent cousin being into Check Your Head, the "Sabotage" video, the massive ubiquity of Hello Nasty (the album everyone could love) and getting high and really really into Paul's Boutique in college (like ~10+ years after the original release). For a huge swath of younger Beasties fans, LTI is a footnote.novelty record. One song (might) make my ballot.

'Song For The Man' apart from the vocals sounds like a Blur b side to me. I don't mean that in a bad way, I love Blur b sides.

The plinky plonk piano reminds me of Madness as well actually.

Yeah Licensed To Ill sounded pretty corny and outdated when I first heard it - I grew to like it but I'd still rank it below the four that followed.

who's doing the "it's the joint" vocal?

sample from Funky 4+1's That's The Joint

who's doing the "it's the joint" vocal?

dude:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzuskHUux6U

33% God is def 100% Dust Brothers but it was released under the Beasties aegis so whatever

I think if you weren't around/culturally aware when License to Ill broke it doesn't have nearly the impact. As far as my actual cultural experience of the Beasties its all about my delinquent cousin being into Check Your Head, the "Sabotage" video, the massive ubiquity of Hello Nasty (the album everyone could love) and getting high and really really into Paul's Boutique in college (like ~10+ years after the original release). For a huge swath of younger Beasties fans, LTI is a footnote.novelty record. One song (might) make my ballot.

― Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB), Thursday, 10 May 2012 16:15 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this is the same for me. LTI is a relic, but not an enjoyable album for me. The production's too sparse and the rapping's too shrill.

Licensed to Ill may be their only Gen X album, with all the rest squarely hitting Gen Y.

I guess I'm in the minority about finding Hello Nasty pretty boring. I'd go back and listen to it but I sold my copy a year or so ago. They're rapping had really devolved by that point - very sub-Run DMC/"everybody say the last word of every line in unison" yawnsville. and I was never interested in them writing indie rock songs either.

love LTI tho.

Yeah, I'm gonna be 33 next week, so I was about 7 when LTI came out, and novelty record sums up my feelings about it. Fight For Your Right is on my ballot, but only that.

I think if you weren't around/culturally aware when License to Ill broke it doesn't have nearly the impact

Yeah this is true, and I was only about ten and never paid them much attention for nearly another decade - find the album as a whole a little lame but I put those singles on back-to-back this morning and the rush was incredible.

man you think the rapping on "Putting Shame in Your Game" and "Intergalactic" and "Just a Test" shows erosion?

Yeah, my only grievance with a large chunk of Hello Nasty is the cadence of their rhyme style (which carried over even worse on 5 Boroughs). It's so leaden. Hot Sauce was a (very welcome) move away from that, and it's too bad there'll never be more tunes now.

For me the key thing about Hello Nasty isn't the rapping at all (which I agree is nowhere near as head-spinning as PB or gang-cool as CYH); so much so that I don't even think about the rapping on it, or even really think of it as a rap album. It's the musical breadth, the sound palette; it's enormous, and incredibly... happy? There's a lot of grime and fug on CYH and especially IC (which is WAY cool) and it's all dispersed on Hello Nasty. It's incredibly open-minded and communicative.

I was 13 when Licensed to Ill came out so it doesn't necessarily seem like a novelty to me, though lyrically it's the most ridiculous. And guess it's sparse too, but but it's of its time: it is a 1986 rap album. I hadn't thought about it in forever (don't own the cassette anymore, and now only have the 89-98 albums/singles) but seeing them do The New Style on Chappelle's show that was floating around earlier in the week reminded me that I was obsessed with it at 13 for good reason.

they did rely on that "der-der-der-der-der-der-DER!" type of rapping a lot though - especially by the TT5B stage.

PB and CYH are my favorite albums, but LTI is *right* there with them. I was like 9 when it came out, I missed the whole cultural touchstone thing...but seeing their videos and knowing No Sleep and Fight for Your Right for years meant that when I finally did get my hands on the album I was so ready, lol.

I fuckin love it. Every song is great and ridiculous and fun. I don't get any of the lameness or whatever.

LET IT GO
LET YOURSELF GO
SLOW AND LOW
THAT IS THE TEMPO
(BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR)

Putting Shame In Your Game is some great wordplay and delivery, yes.

I could do without the track "Girls," which 13 year old me loved but 38 year old me is all "really?". Other than that, I think Licensed to Ill is pretty tight the whole way through.

Thing is, one of the first albums I ever owned was Run DMC's Tougher Than Leather, which is a similar idea to LTI and I always loved it!

I was 12 or 13 when LTI came out and it was the sole tape that I took on our summer holiday to Butlins. So for 2 weeks I heard it roughly 10 times a day (basically whenever I wasn't playing football). Forever classic.

I could do without the track "Girls," which 13 year old me loved but 38 year old me is all "really?". Other than that, I think Licensed to Ill is pretty tight the whole way through.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, 10 May 2012 16:30 (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha, Girls was trolling on a major level. I still hear it as cartoonish ridiculousness anyway - not to be taken too seriously, although I guess some people might have.

aw man, I still like 'Girls'

esp the 'with newwave hairdos'

I was 14 when LTI came out and it completely dominated my friends and my listening for a year. Absolutely mind blowing.

Similarly to Shakey and Johnny, I find Hello Nasty lacking in the rapping and, to my ears, it is far too long. There is a good 40-45 minute album, but that leaves 30 minutes of filler. I listened to it for the first time in ages this past weekend and it seemed even weaker than I remember.

xp Oh, I'm sure it was trolling, and seemed funny the first 40,000 times I heard it. But now I skip it.

LTI is so so so much more than a novelty record. If it didn't have Fight For Yr Right on it, no-one wld question it being a 1-2 punch w/ Raising Hell. Or Radio for that matter.

I generally listen to Hello Nasty one half at a time.

wow, all the license to ill dismissals are really surprising to me. i'm an old gen exxor, so maybe this is all too predictable, but it still sounds like their catchiest, punkest, and most pop-accessible album by a huge margin. genius beats and hooks for days. the simplicity of the tracks is one of LTI's greatest strengths, imo, puts the hairy-ass guitar and shrill vocals front and center. i'm surprised that the basic sound isn't more embraced by typically minimalist & electro friendly ILM. plus their funniest, dumbest and most memorable rapping. easily one of the best albums of the 80s. like up there with 1999, thriller, the B-52's debut and remain in light.

Voted! 4 LTI; 6 PB; 4 CYH; 2 IC; 1 HN; 2 TT5B; 1 AEEAHWSMAA.

If it didn't have Fight For Yr Right on it, no-one wld question it being a 1-2 punch w/ Raising Hell. Or Radio for that matter.

OTM

LET IT GO
LET YOURSELF GO
SLOW AND LOW
THAT IS THE TEMPO
(BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR)

OH
TEE
EM

It's a shame I can never truly love the blocky early Rubin sound of Licensed to Ill and Raising Hell. I love tracks in isolation, but the explosion in hip hop production and rhyme schemes immediately afterwards means I'm always left a bit undernourished by the albums. All my enjoyment of LTI happens on one level whereas Paul's Boutique is just this endless labyrinth of pleasure.

I love Girls. Whatever.

The correct answer to this poll is the entirety of Paul's Boutique which owns from start to finish in a way that few other albums do.

Also, Cooky Puss. Oh and some stuff off LTI too.

Fight For Your Right to Party didn't make my ballot cuz I'm sick of it, not even close to my favorite thing on the album. And while the production isn't as dense as what came afterwards, there are a lot of novel touches to it - sampling Creedence, War, Black Sabbath, plus the various old school bits (Schooly D, Trouble Funk etc) the proto-Miami bass parts - there's a lot in there.

xp

Girls is eh sorta funny but She's Crafty is funnier

I'm really tempted to set up a Hello Nasty v. LTI Gen Y/Gen X thing but I know its a false dichotomy. Completely different albums made by completely different people. Am curious if any solid Gen Y'er will rep for LTI as a stone-cold classic they still listen to/enjoy.

Yeah I love She's Crafty too.

got into the cab and the cab driver said he recognised my girlie from the back of her head

I have no fucking idea what Gen X/Gen Y means.

Yeah I was going to ask exactly where the divide is because iirc I'm sort of in the middle.

AHH you're a babby and would most def be Y, I think.

As I was born between LTI and PB, I guess I'm neither.

lol ok.

3ft High and Rising and It Takes A Nation Of Millions were my first hip hop records, really, and Rubin-era LTI / Run DMC just sound so weird and old and unsophisticated next to them.

I always identified with gen xers when reading newsweek articles about them.

It's a shame I can never truly love the blocky early Rubin sound of Licensed to Ill and Raising Hell. I love tracks in isolation, but the explosion in hip hop production and rhyme schemes immediately afterwards means I'm always left a bit undernourished by the albums. All my enjoyment of LTI happens on one level whereas Paul's Boutique is just this endless labyrinth of pleasure.

see, that's weird to me. i love early synthpop, electro and rap for, not despite, the astringent minimalism. there's something refreshing and weirdly mineral about those sounds. i don't think in listening to the pleasure principle, non-stop erotic cabaret or pleasure victim that i'd enjoy these songs with more density and layering. i get into the weird, rinky-dink, tinfoil tooth synth landscapes. same goes for rubin's production on license to ill and raising hell (which is relatively dense and colorful). shit sounds badass. and the simple rhyme schemes are like 50s rock riffs. super-basic, but they get the job done.

Roughly IMO:

Gen X = Born Late 1960s - 1980
Gen Y = Born Early 1980s - ~1990

Not rigorously defined.

3ft High and Rising and It Takes A Nation Of Millions were my first hip hop records, really, and Rubin-era LTI / Run DMC just sound so weird and old and unsophisticated next to them.

i can imagine a late beatles fan saying something similar about chuck berry

"weird and old and unsophisticated" vs "classic"

ha, yeah!

Gen X - "the term generally includes people born from the early 1960s through the early 1980s"
Gen Y - "there are no precise dates for when Generation Y starts and ends, and commentators have used birth dates ranging somewhere from the mid-1970s[6] or early 1980s to the late 1980s"

So, yeah, I'm right where the overlap occurs. They're pretty useless categories imo though so it doesn't really matter.

She's Crafty is a favorite - I didn't end up voting for it, which makes me mad at myself

This line forever: the cadence of it is just so great

Nooooooooooow I like nothin better than a pretty girl's smile
And I haven't seen a smile that pretty in a while

I pretty clearly remember when people started using the term Gen X but was too young to really get it or consider myself part of that group. On the other hand I think I was a little too old to be considered Gen Y. Meh.

They're pretty useless categories imo though so it doesn't really matter.

Yeah but we'll never know how you really feel about the Beastie Boys unless you align yourself with one of these arbitrary categories.

head over to the generation thread on ILE for lengthy dissertations on this

I put She's Crafty at #11 on my ballot

I was born in 1988.

I read Generation X. It wasn't much cop.

I'd vote LTI over Hello Nasty.

The only thing I got from that Coupland book was that he's way more hung up on nuclear war than I ever was. Which made me feel much much better.

when i was in 4th grade i had an hour plus bus ride to a school in a different neighborhood. one of my friends had an older brother with a LTI cassette and he wrote down all the words to paul revere, which we worked hard on memorizing. eventually he gave us a dubbed copy of LTI. took it home, put it on the stereo, and promptly got a beating from my dad. :-(

:(

i def remember being puzzled by this line: "the sheriff's after me for what I did to his daughter"

I did it like this, I did it like that, I did it with a wiffle ball bat...sooooooo

I'm on the run the cops got my gun

Roses are red the sky is blue
I got my barrel at your neck so what the fuck you gonna do
It's just two wheels and me the wind in my eyes
The engine is the music and my nine's by my side

^^ think he was having a flashback to paul revere here

I think I got into gen x culture after the fact, but adopted it as my own. I think if you came of age/got into pop culture after Kurt died you technically count as Y. I got into Nirvana the day he died, so...

Oh, that's actually a really good line of demarcation.

yeah, i think so too. kurt being the apotheosis/pieta of gen x culture.

as time has passed my favorite songs on LTI are the stripped-down, beat-and-a-rhyme stuff: hold it now hit it, posse in effect, the new style, paul revere. my least favorite songs on the album have always been fight for yr right and no sleep til.

rhymin and stealin is one of my all-time favorite album openers. it just hits like a ton of bricks

also: "pistol is loaded i shot betty crocker, deliver colonel sanders down to davy jones locker" = all-time

as time has passed my favorite songs on LTI are the stripped-down, beat-and-a-rhyme stuff... my least favorite songs on the album have always been fight for yr right and no sleep til.

it's all great. kerry king's guitar on "no sleep" is all-time. slayer!

also ppl complaining about the rapping on hello nasty are nuts, or maybe just don't appreciate the intricacy of their delivery. sure, it's old school licensed to ill style, but with all the bolts tightened and a deftness to match the rubbery shapeshifting tracks. tune in to 1:30 on "the move", where they round-robin the syllables of "insane mind games move quick like flame". is it because they make it sound so effortless that ppl dismiss it as facile? I dunno, maybe try getting 3 of yr buddies together to see which vocal routine you can work out first, "the move" or "professor booty".

and speaking of "the move", it's like a masterclass in sampling, there are dozens of perfectly interlocking rhythmic bits stitched together over its runtime. the more you pay attention to what's going on in that track, the more rewarding it is, but it also doesn't feel dense and overly engineered, there's a fluidity that allows you to forget all that and just be like aw cool bumping party track.

ps dogs love me cuz I'm crazy sniffable

and this, which is my favorite sequence on that song

I bet you never knew I got the ill peripheral
In your home I'm cloned I'm on your headphones
I love it when you spazz out all alone

"The Move" is all time.

Currently listening to LTI, might pick two from here in the end. But goddam this album is shrill.

It isn't quite LTI style. It's a lot tighter. Less flamboyant, maybe. But from listening to those five albums over the last week, I think the quality of the lyrics is on par with the other albums.

yeah that last line is such a great example of a musician capturing and reflecting a listener's personal relationship to music, but it's so casual and tossed off, xp to VG

I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard the harpsichord break in "the move"

am now realizing I left "the move" off my ballot

:(

I love it when you spazz out all alone

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:47 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that last line is such a great example of a musician capturing and reflecting a listener's personal relationship to music, but it's so casual and tossed off...

― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:54 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is also, perhaps only cuz i'm forcing the point, a good concrete example of the change in attitude mentioned upthread. nasty shifts the implied relationship between artist and audience from from bro-cru group solidarity (on CYH and illco) to a one-on-one dynamic that's at once personal and universal. they're talking to a "you" that includes everyone, not so much the gang of us.

didn't remember "The Move" at all. just listened to it - it's okay. after the first verse they do get into some more entertaining rhyme schemes but the track on the whole doesn't blow me away or anything

Edward III otm. I love the engineering and mixing on Hello Nasty.

tell me how does it feel to be dead inside

xp

awesome

Considered voting for "The Move" but didn't ultimately have room for more than two Hello Nasty tracks. Kinda wish I had put Hello Nasty at #2 on my albums ballot - it's certainly my favorite to listen to after Paul's Boutique, but Licensed to Ill is probably better song-for-song. I've never really loved LTI like I'm supposed to, though, which I think comes down to the thudding minimalism of the beats - it's brilliant and it results in a bunch of great tracks, but over the course of a full LP it gets wearying, for me and I suspect for a lot of people who came to rap in the 90s or later.

the fact that so many ppl on ILX live on that wide age 28 to age 35 grey zone/gulf between Gen X and Gen Y makes these conversations excruciating

I think they're kind of fun myself. Well, to a point.

you gonna do a ballot, whiney?

i hope does it during one of his cali funk-metal 4EVA moods

I hope Whiney does it, i mean

my god I just heard "Namaste" for the first time in years. It's proto-Tricky!

been listening to some paul's boutique demos. "full clout" is kind of amazing, an early version of "shake your rump" and apparently an indulgence of the dust bros' desire to strip their tracks down to make them suitable for rapping over. a big licensed to ill style beat dominates, it's like the missing link between the first and second album. and it's always weird to hear all the early alternate lyrics on something so ingrained. early "car thief" lyrics are hilar too, MCA: "my dick is a tree trunk"

the fact that so many ppl on ILX live on that wide age 28 to age 35 grey zone/gulf between Gen X and Gen Y makes these conversations excruciating

― thommys got bendz (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, May 10, 2012 2:23 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, ilx's affection for 'generation' talk lately needs to run its course ASAP

^^^cosign

degenerations

generational observations ought to be posted with a youtube link to a song that the rest of us can enjoy during the ritual chin-stroking

may I suggest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRwhm-B6yNI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAIOzM7SsMo

How about this one?

blocked in my country, looks like I dodged a bullet there

I'd like to say I didn't enjoy watching that.

praise the gods

it wasn't morris minor and the majors, was it?

5 songs into TT5B and wow this is sucky.

'twas xp. I'm sorry.

we had to perform that stupid stupid song in high school. ;_;

*counts years* that'd definitely make you a Gen Xer then?

5 songs into TT5B and wow this is sucky.

yeah, it's a pretty rough ride, but I will say a lot of those songs sounded way better on a live performance from some MTV show called $2 bill that aired when the album came out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CwzDeIzlbM

still not heard anything on TT5B worth voting for. Hell, if you asked me to remember the last song I don't think I could do it. So generic. Such a drop-off.

ok the beat to An Open Letter to NYC is kinda fly.

I think crawlspace is the only decent track on there and it'd be 2nd tier on any other beasties alb

I cut that really late. Ch-Check It Out and Triple Trouble a little bit better.

has no one done the obvious gen ilx yet?

generation lex

Best thing about TT5B by far was the CD packaging.

TT5B isn't bad but the production is so monochrome.

Is it, or is the sleeve just synaesthesiaing you?

Best thing about TT5B by far was the CD packaging.

I saw them on the tour for this album and everything was much better live.

no punk songs on hello nasty.

That’s because Aglio E Olio, which had nine punk songs* on it, had come out a few months earlier

* and a lounge cover of Light My Fire with Miho Hatori on vocals on Side D of the double 7”

isn't 33% god purely the dust brothers work?

It’s definitely NOT any of the Shake Your Rump demos – seems not improbable that 33% God and Dis Yourself In ’89 were done in collaboration with the Beasties, who did get super-into sourcing samples for the album.

one of the guys they were hanging out with on the back of IC

Those are the members of the band, dude. Even if you don’t recognise Mark or Hurricane (!), AWOL has his name on his hat.

ok the beat to An Open Letter to NYC is kinda fly.

Open Letter is 90% Sonic Reducer by the Dead Boys. The Rub N Tug remix is probably the second-best thing related to Five Boroughs (Letterman performance of Ch-Check It Out is best, Just Blaze remix of Ch-Check is third.)

sic you're my new BB guru

Open Letter is 90% Sonic Reducer by the Dead Boys.

qft (and emphasis)

prefer the album version to the rub n tug rmx, tbh

sic you're my new BB guru

super-trivia: the Gr!nn!ng Sum0 live bootleg 7" was manufactured in the same plant as the legit AEO dbl 7 (I know/knew the dude who did it)

FUCK - forgot to vote for this

*please clear the ice for the zamboni"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq6EFkPR4nc

"NEW 2007"?? that's from 1992

did everyone remember to vote for Rock Hard?

;_;

nope, but since i haven't voted yet, thanks for the heads up

Did everyone vote for Mullet Head?

(seriously this deadline is too short, still not even started a list and won't have any free time until Sunday evening)

I'm gonna extend it through the end of Saturday (US Eastern time) now because I have to work that day anyway and won't be able to roll out videos and albums until Sunday.

maybe I'll come into work for a couple of hours tomorrow then

re: that beastiemixes site, I spent yesterday listening to bootlegs of bsides and rare material and remixes and such. this morning, i discovered that they have a set of "sample sources" comps for each of the albums. super-informative.

sent my ballot:

LTI - 7
PB - 3
CYH - 4
IC - 5
non-album - 1

dude plz don't start the results roll-out on Sunday

it sounds like he's just going to do the videos/albums lists on Sunday as an appetizer? sounds like a good idea to me

Yeah, that is correct.

oh okay never mind

Sent!

LYT = 4
PB = 6
CYH = 2
IC = 3
HN = 4
HSC = 1

I'm up to date on tabulations and now we've got 29 ballots in. Wouldn't mind having more!

voted.

Licensed to Ill: 6 tracks
Paul's Boutique: 3 tracks
Check Your Head: 3 tracks
Ill Communication: 3 tracks
Hello Nasty: 3 tracks
To The 5 Boroughs: 2 tracks

balloted

Submitted. Let's get some more ballots in!

Yeah, 35 ballots now. Keep them coming.

ballot sent

lti: 7
pb: 4
cyh: 3
ic: 2
hn: 1
tt5b: 1
non-album: 2

this is either a really stupid observation or an obvious one someone's already made but doing this quick overview over the past week the beastie boys maybe kinda echo the four seasons - initial (peak) success as boys on the block out for a good time w/ perhaps not the most sophisticated take on the gentler sex and vocals some ppl find obnoxious and grating followed by a retrenchment in the face of a paradigm shit (british invasion/new school rappers) and a dip in commercial fortunes (and label change maybe? not sure when the four seasons did that)(yes i'm talking out of my ass here) coinciding w/ what would later be recognized as their most formally daring period followed by a third act commercial comeback where the group while not being a retro dinosaur act still acts a somewhat anachronistic standard bearer and has fun w/ nostalgia. eventually ppl realize this group of bratty white dudes represents new york, a very specific new york, in a way that might not have been imagined when they first hit.

lol paradigm shift rather though trading in 'surfin bird' for 'a world w/o love' might be a paradigm shit

Weird...but interesting! I'm just putting the finishing touches on my Q-Tip = Len Barry theory.

obv in this scenario https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsjcyKQpMKk = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt0LBlH3dAc

btw that latter track? that's why god invented the radio

Man, Bonehead's really swingin'.

lti: 7
pb: 4
cyh: 3
ic: 2
hn: 1
tt5b: 1
non-album: 2

― balls, Friday, May 11, 2012 5:28 PM (33 minutes ago)

see, now that's how you do it

even if i only went for six of LTI myself

this is either a really stupid observation or an obvious one someone's already made but doing this quick overview over the past week the beastie boys maybe kinda echo the four seasons

Lol, I was wanting to map them onto phases of the Rolling Stones' career upthread, mostly as a product of the recent Stones poll:

Licensed to Ill = early Stones as a singles band, snotty bratty punk shit, timeless pop hits
Paul's Boutique = Their Satanic Majesties Request, hard left that the world wasn't ready for, "commercial suicide"
Check Your Head = late-60s/early-70s Stones, Beggar's Banquet through Exile, long hair & musicianship, glory regained
Ill Communication = mid-70s, Goat's Head Soup - Black and Blue, falling into a rut but still scoring hits
Hello Nasty = late-70s/early-80s, Some Girls - Tattoo You, new sounds & audiences, mining the past, dance music
To the Five Boroughs and cetera = inevitable decline (with bright spots), eminence

finishing my ballot right now. If it is not in exactly as the clock strokes midnight, it won't be much later than that.

Deadline was extended through Saturday (same times), so no worries mang.

Paul's Boutique = Their Satanic Majesties Request, hard left that the world wasn't ready for, "commercial suicide"

but the analogy breaks down around the fact that while there's plenty of Satanic Majesties defenders (I'm one) no one considers it their best, as a lot of people (including me) do re PB.

yeah, not gonna try to pretend the analogy is watertight, just some points in common

I am however intrigued by the Some Girls-Tattoo You phase of their carer.

*career

like satanic majesties, paul's boutique was a game-changing and aggressively psychedelic album that initially "underperformed" but fans eventually came around to. that's about as far as the analogy goes, though...

is paul's boutique really psychedelic tho?

Compared to LTI, I'd say yeah!

I think so. In a different way to Eight Miles High or Sgt Pepper, obviously. I'll explain why later.

If the beasties have an 'acid album,' it's totally paul's boutique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aY2MrOue8E

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Gfqu_HqqeaU/TT9xs1ahHbI/AAAAAAAAEKc/eSbPm1ARS2Q/s1600/42_beastiesInner.jpg

We're at 39 now, my ballot will make 40. Who hasn't voted?!!!

eugenia

Kinda obvious, but I always mapped them onto Winston Churchill's career myself. LTI = snotty, punk-nosed brat with some questionable decisions (for 'Girls' read Gallipoli, for the stage show the gold standard). Then the visionary period in the wilderness (PB = crazy guy ranting about Hitler all through the 30s), with the public starting to get back on board with CYH/the ousting of Halifax. IC is the phoney war not-entirely-successful building of momentum (Dunkirk = Grand Royal?), before HN is D-Day onwards. Then with TT5B he gets kicked out of office even though he's still putting out the same work.

hard to argue w that

Is it too late to get my ballot in?

nah, deadline extended through tomorrow

I cannot believe that there was a time when I thought Bodhisattva Vow was an embarrassing throwaway. It's fantastic.

i still haven't voted. def. will though! only two more records to go, and they are ones i've never listened to before. (the mix-up and hot sauce).

Those Rolling Stone analogies are good. The one I'd change (it completely loses the chronology, so it doesn't work in that sense) is Paul's Boutique = Exile on Main Street. I love one and didn't get much out of the other, but a lot of Christgau's Exile review would seem to apply just as well to Paul's Boutique, and there's also the way that neither was immediately and universally acclaimed--it took a few years. (I always thought the problem with Satanic Majestie's Request was that the Rolling Stones were blatantly playing catch-up, not that the world wasn't ready.)

I always thought the problem with Satanic Majestie's Request was that the Rolling Stones were blatantly playing catch-up, not that the world wasn't ready.

yeah, i don't expect the analogy to hold up perfectly. alfred was right that, while time may have been kind to their satanic majesties request, it hasn't been retrospectively recognized as perhaps the band's finest hour. and you're right that the stones stumbled jumping onto an established psychedelic pop bandwagon, while the beasties/dust bros. more-or-less invented their version of psychedelic rap.

re: PB being "psychedelic" - the first vinyl copy I ever saw of PB was at the UCSC radio station and in the comments box on the sticker of the front one of the DJs had written "forget the 60s, this is our OWN psychedelic music!"

3 feet high and rising came out months before, it was a pretty sampledelic year. i doubt the timing works out (someone who knows their beastie history in detail can confirm or deny) but tone loc had hit the previous winter and spring w/ 'wild thing' and 'funky cold medina' and i could imagine the beasties, having ditched their label and the prominent producer responsible for their sound on their big huge hit album they now had to followup, knowing they were viewed understandably as a fluke novelty act, looking at a hip-hop scene that had moved on from rock box to rakim and public enemy and knowing that because of either their limited skillset or their race they couldn't really attempt to make a go of those styles, hearing 'wild thing' w/ its van halen sample and thinking 'the delicious vinyl guys, that's who we need to work with'. what i can remember is that w/ the native tongues and the bomb squad and 'paid in full (seven minutes of madness remix)' that by 89 licensed to ill felt like eons ago and the beasties definitely appeared to be a joke that was on the wrong side of the divide so when the new album flopped no one was surprised but when you heard it and the thing not only held its own w/ what prince paul and hank shocklee were doing but arguably advanced it? it was hard to believe what you were hearing and i knew alot of ppl who just wouldn't, they couldn't deal w/ this thing having the beastie boys name on it. the density of it was somewhat novel though part of the progression of the times also - fear of a black planet feels more sample dense than nation which feels way more sample dense than yo! bum rush.

just sent my ballot.

3 feet high and rising came out months before, it was a pretty sampledelic year.

yeah, good point. for some reason, i remembered 3ft coming out a few months after PB, and didn't think to wiki for confirmation. it's not like the beasties were alone in going wild with it. otoh, they weren't following the obvious pop trend of the moment, either.

great post btw

well De La were new artists when the album dropped and it seemed to build slowly with "Me Myself & I" being the third single

boy, it's been a while since I've had a chance to think about Randee of the Redwoods.

oh, I forgot "sampledelia" was a thing. I guess in that context Paul's Boutique is psychedelic. but, pretty much none of my (admittedly limited) experience with psychedelics is evoked when I listen to Paul's Boutique

About four more hours of voting left. We're over 40 now, so everything that comes in now is gravy!

Things that are psychedelic about Paul’s Boutique:
-“A Year and a Day”
-Late-period Beatles samples throughout “Sound of Science,” and the beat-less section between the song’s two main parts.
-The “dubby” feel of “3-Minute Rule”
-The heavy breathing laid over the Eagles sample in “High Plains Drifter”
-Maybe the “chorus” of “Shake Your Rump” (the squelchy bass sound after the title sample is played)
-The “Shadrach” video
-That underwater photo posted above

That said, I don’t think psychedelia is the dominant thing on “Paul’s Boutique.” As balls said, it came out at the same time as PE and De La were also creating these “chop up the past 30 years of music” sample collages that were far denser than the rap music of 3 years earlier. Psychedelia is in the mix just like funk, soul, and hard-rock records are, but it’s far from the only thing there; it’s not like “Hey Ladies” is reminiscent of listening to Barrett-era Pink Floyd.

^ also sampled bong hits

This is somewhat obvious, but there's a clear similarity in the careers of the Beasties/Beck/Eminem. They begin as clowns/novelties (not an aesthetic judgement--those early records are my favourites by them), release a second album that critics write about very seriously, and after that, it's up and down.

A little than an hour left to vote. If you're on the fence, get off it and send me a ballot.

A little *less

FIN.

Albums unveiled tomorrow.
Top 50 tracks over the course of the week.
Videos after tracks.

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

DROP

Forgot this, on the psychedelic tip: "59 Christie Street" has the Hendrix sample, and "Car Thief" as a whole has a certain elements that I think qualify it.

Again, I think psychedelia is just one element in the mix, but I think it's there.

Here's a playlist I made a few years ago: all the Paul's Boutique samples I could find on Spotify.

http://open.spotify.com/user/nathanwoolls/playlist/2lqepdfazLKllqynRPQBSL

(also if anyone's interested - Nation of Millions samples: http://open.spotify.com/user/nathanwoolls/playlist/3CUxIrGEInLzlVZeaiLLhR and 3 Feet High & Rising samples http://open.spotify.com/user/nathanwoolls/playlist/3lcfUhB2hHcvWGE3RzPfJk

Awesome thanks. This stuff, I lap it up.

Spotify suddenly now worth every penny, ty nate.

Things that are psychedelic about Paul’s Boutique:

and the riff at the end of "looking down the barrel of a gun", and overall, randomness embraced as an aesthetic approach

LTI was a good alb for drinking, but I know when my friends and I started listening to paul's boutique, certain substances made it a much richer listening experience, as good as spacemen 3 or monster magnet or w/e we were jamming at the time

so in that sense, if it wasn't psychedelic it was at least psychedelic-friendly

Ill Comm is the true psychedelic beasties album.

^^^^ this guy knows what's up

great playlists sir!