Does anyone still care about The Beastie Boys?

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If you did, ever. Just heard "Fight For Your Right" on the radio and remembered how much I liked them up to Ill Communication (hated the last album). What happened to them? They don't seem to get much of a mention on ILM.

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 13:54 (twenty-two years ago)

"Fight For Your Right" ruined my entire life. Their '80s output is fantastic.

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 13:56 (twenty-two years ago)

They got too old on our asses.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

They're total wussbags now. "Oh, we love the Dalai Lama and hate parties." "Oh, well, piss off."

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Mike D is now 95 and made of leather.
http://www.mtv.com/shared/media/news/images/b/Beastie_Boys/sq-miked-072101int-mtvn.jpg

― Chris V. (Chris V), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Would they have lost as much steam had they put out a record three years ago? How many bands now can go 5 years without new stuff and still be popular?

Personally, I jumped off the train at Ill Communication.

― dleone (dleone), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:02 (twenty-two years ago)

That looks like the bastard child of Perry Farrell and Leonard Nimoy.

― dleone (dleone), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Hello Nasty was all right. But it sorta took the edge off of how much fun it was to listen to their previous three rekkids (I don't really rate Lic. to Ill, even though it was the first tape I have had that I picked out myself--my sister used to always force Howard Jones and Simple Minds on me--but it sounds better as a nostalgia trip than as actual musical whatsit). Or maybe the Beastie Boys are only fun when you're young.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:05 (twenty-two years ago)

When Ill Communication came out, it seemed like everyone I knew had it/talked about it/liked them. Can't say the same for Hello Nasty. I did buy it, but my vinyl copy was warped, so I returned it to discover the entire first production run was warped. I never did hear the album. I feel no loss.

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:05 (twenty-two years ago)

No loss, Sean.

maybe the Beastie Boys are only fun when you're young.

But I'm young! (ish)

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Why do bands have to remain relevant/interesting anyway? It's like everybody with a hit has an interminable 5-album career now!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:12 (twenty-two years ago)

no no, I mean really young. I mean, I was like 14 or 15 when Check Your Head came out and that album became like a code for living my life.
Now, I don't know. Whatever.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Ill Communication is the only Beasties album I still listen to with any regularity.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Paul's Boutique used to get mentioned on ILM a lot, but it's not so fashionable now. I still love the first 3 records. They were great. They got old. cut em some slack.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I was like 14 or 15 when Check Your Head came out and that album became like a code for living my life.

You must have been the most insufferable teenager! :P But I bet you had fun.

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:33 (twenty-two years ago)

oddly, played check yr head this afternoon, independent of this thread. that record still slays me (and paul's boutique, and ill comms), but Hello Nasty did NOTHING for me...

― stevie (stevie), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Hello Nasty had some tracks that REALLY got me good ("Negotiation Limeric File", "And Me", "Remote Control"), but I would definitely agree that it's pretty spotty...although I wouldn't go so far as to say I didn't like it; on a sunny day, in the car, on the interstate, it suddenly becomes like 1,000,000 times better.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Paul's Boutique is brilliant: important but still fun to listen to. I listen to it pretty frequently, and am blown away each time. The production is great, the seamless pastiche of samples and instrumentation, the way everything just blends together so smoothly. Plus, songs like "Sounds of Science" and "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" are, I think, some of the best tracks they've ever done. And the fact that this very ahead-of-the-curve album came out after License to Ill, which is pretty crap, makes it even better. How did they improve so much so quickly?

― Brandon Gentry (Brandon Gentry), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:22 (twenty-two years ago)

My two cents: The stuff they did before *Licensed To Ill ("Rock Hard," "Cookie Puss," etc. - not the hardcore crap) was better than anything they did after *Paul's Boutique, give or take "Sabotage." I started thinking they'd turned into lazy hacks the first time they rhymed "commercial" with "commercial." And that Tibetan jazz fusion instrumentals era or whatever it was never made any sense at all.

― chuck, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:26 (twenty-two years ago)

>>>The stuff they did before *Licensed To Ill ("Rock Hard," "Cookie Puss," etc. - not the hardcore crap) was better than anything they did after *Paul's Boutique, give or take "Sabotage." <<

As was *Licensed to Ill* itself, which was the best (funniest, smartest, catchiest, most rocking, etc.) album they will ever make by far, no matter what anybody here says. (The best tracks on *Paul's Boutique* are "Hey Ladies, "Shake Your Rump," and especially "A Year and a Day." A lot of the rest of it is sort of an art project, I think, though at least a fun one. Which is more than you can say for all the punchline-free wheel-spinning they followed it up with.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:32 (twenty-two years ago)

they just got old and tired, it's sad but it happens. I don't really care what they do anymore (the lyrics to that anti-war song were awful, even if the beat was allright).

Just listened to Paul's Boutique this weekend and I am firmly in the "masterpiece" camp. Every time I put it on, I can't turn it off until I get all the way through it - it just gets a stranglehold on my attention, it's so dense and clever. Licensed to Ill and Check Your Head are great as well, but the marriage of the Beasties and the Dust Bros. was a match made in heaven.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:38 (twenty-two years ago)

re rhyming commercial w/ commercial, one's an adjective, one's a noun. it's legal.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't care about them at all anymore. Used to really dig their stuff. For me Ill Communication was the beginning of the end. Hello Nasty was so boring, terrible rapping, even worse choruses. How about that hook:

Ree Mote
Control
Remote
Control

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

"Everybody's rappin' like it's a commercial
Actin' like life is a big commercial"

Which one is the adjective?
(Oh, I know I probably just have the lyrics wrong).

― Nick A. (Nick A.), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought it was "Everybody's rappin like it's so commercial"
but thinking about it, you might be righter than I Nick A.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I like the robot voice that goes"I have an erection, I have an erection" over and over again.

Sorry to lower the tone. Please continue.

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

>>Everybody's rappin' like it's a commercial<<

>>I thought it was "Everybody's rappin like it's so commercial"<<

Either way, it's incredibly stupid (and not in a good way, either.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I like opinions-stated-as-fact. They make me smile.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

If it's obvious that what yr saying is an opinion, there's no need to frame it as such.

― Nick A. (Nick A.), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked Hello Nasty at the time, but now it sounds pretty dated.. but that came out in what, '98? It really sounds like 1998.. I don't know if I can properly describe it, but it just has this sound that a lot of records that came out that year had, particularly records on Grand Royal. I think they're still capable of putting out some crazy-good shit. I guess we'll see if they choose to or not.. if they ever release another record.

― Bobby D Gray (bedhead), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Why does no one ever call the Beastie Boys on their mystifying tendency to ram every downbeat in their raps? I couldn't listen to "Intergallactic" beause of that. I don't remember them doing that on Paul's Boutique or even Check Your Head.

― dleone (dleone), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:20 (twenty-two years ago)

"...tendency to ram every downbeat in their raps"

Or as James Brown put it, "hittin it on the ONE."

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

They don't "sell it"on Hello nasty at all. It's just so much lazy, knocked-out "product".

By "selling it", please refer to the universally accepted Tracer Hand definition of "selling it".To whit:

"Mark E S can't really sing either, and sometimes his band is fabulously competent, but the attitude that backs it up is just ferocious. He SELLS it. Dylan sold it. Cash sold it. I don't think Berman sells it. At least not to this customer. It's like he's sort of hoping you're buying but if not, hey, no biggie, come back tomorrow. "

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Wasn't especially blown away by their anti-war song (which, I should point out, does not mean I was "pro-war," but rather that it was simply a weak effort on their part). That said, their track record is pretty consistent to the extent that I will always have time for them.

I wish they'd ease up a bit on the piety, though.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I'll still give a fuck. Can't see why I'd stop.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 20:56 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah i still think theyre a good laugh
i mean,i was tempted to concede that they're a bit ridiculous at this stage,but then they always were ridiculous...

― robin (robin), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 21:09 (twenty-two years ago)

compare that goofy-ass photo of Mike D compared to the later one and realize this guy's ALWAYS been tripping. That said, I wish he and LL Cool J would just go buck wild at Haggen-Daz. Their newly ultra-rigid faces scare me.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 21:14 (twenty-two years ago)

'Hello Nasty' is a brilliant album, impeccably produced...tho the 'ramming home every downbeat' syndrome WAS too prevalent - only real criticism of it/them

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 21:16 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, my major post-"Paul's Boutique" criticism is that somehow, even when the lines were clever, their rapping actually seemed to get WORSE. Just dumber, simpler, more obvious. On "Check Your Head" this didn't matter so much because the freewheeling music was more to the fore (and they could still kick out really funny rhymes like "Boomin' Granny"). On PB they're finishing each other's lines, switching up rhythms, their voices all overlap and have a great dynamic interplay. By the time they got around to "Hello Nasty" it's like all they could remember to do was early-Run DMC type rhyme schemes. Duh-mb.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 21:30 (twenty-two years ago)

um...my thread should of said "that goofy-ass photo of Mike D in Stairway To Hell." He's got a ridiculous sno-cone hat on.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

my post not thread! Anthony Typo Fever Is In Effect For The 03!

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

"Intergalactic" was like the only decent song they played in bars with girls in them that I went to in the summer/fall of 98, and I would always sing "Intergalactic Prophylactic" when dancing with girls who I knew weren't going to sleep with me anyhow.
So Hello Nasty had its value.
It's the first Beastie Boys album I didn't buy as soon as it came out (except like the first one, which I don't know how much after it came out I bought it, cuz I was like 9 or 10 or something)(not including also all the non-album stuff like In Sound from... and whatever else). I still haven't bought it, but my GF has it. But I never listen to it. But I could. But I won't.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 02:43 (twenty-two years ago)

i sold all my beastie albums (save for paul's boutique) to buy food or something a few years ago. i've never gotten around to re-purchasing/downloading them again and i regret it every five or six months maybe.

it's about that time.

― brian badword (badwords), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 04:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I will always. Paul's Boutique is the best album ever. This is why I have a tattoo of it on my back.

Yes Mike D looks like a leather handbag but AdRock is still extremely fuckable.

and despite how annoying new stuff is, you can't deny past brilliance. They will always be worth caring about.

― That Girl (thatgirl), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 04:35 (twenty-two years ago)

i belong to generation check your head. that NATN essay and all that.

hello nasty is the only one i listen to these days.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 04:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Paul's Boutique is the best album ever. This is why I have a tattoo of it on my back.

a tat of the words or of the cover art?! the latter sounds like a must see to me.

― brian badword (badwords), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 04:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Hello Nasty and Check Your Head were crap I think. But today I went out and finally bought my own copies of Paul's Boutique, Ill Communication & License to Ill. You don't know what you're missing until it goes missing (I now live with quiet, older housemates, the first time I have been away from 2nd-hand Beasties radiation in my entire life).

― Millar (Millar), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 05:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I would always sing "Intergalactic Prophylactic" when dancing with girls who I knew weren't going to sleep with me anyhow.

Horace Mann in Patrick Bateman-style non shockah. :P

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 05:18 (twenty-two years ago)

This is why I have a tattoo of it on my back.

I DEMAND to see evidence to back up this claim, as it verily makes my head spin.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 13:10 (twenty-two years ago)

You know what you should have tattooed onto your back?

http://www.mtv.com/shared/media/news/images/b/Beastie_Boys/sq-miked-072101int-mtvn.jpg

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

++++I think Paul's Boutique is brilliant: important but still fun to listen to. I listen to it pretty frequently, and am blown away each time. The production is great, the seamless pastiche of samples and instrumentation, the way everything just blends together so smoothly. Plus, songs like "Sounds of Science" and "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" are, I think, some of the best tracks they've ever done.

too bad the beasties had NOTHING to do with the music on that album. the dust brothers made all the music/created all the samples. the beasties just rapped over tapes. still, i like it. check your head is probally my favorite. i saw them last in lollplza 95' and they were quite good onstage. i haven't paid attentin to them in a long time.
i miss grand royal magazine.

― kephm, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 16:55 (twenty-two years ago)

"too bad the beasties had NOTHING to do with the music on that album."

That's bullshit. There's video footage of them cutting the live tracks to "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun", some of the stuff from "A Year and a Day" was put together by the band, the intro and outro are produced by Mario Caldato, not the Dust Bros., etc. The Dust Brothers did do the large majority of the work, no doubt, but it's unfair to say the Beasties had *nothing* to do with it.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

important but still fun to listen to

Pardon me, but what exactly does that mean?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

i stand by check your head and ill cummunication.
it's a shame what they are now tho. every rhyme they have now sounds the same - it's terrible really.

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

++There's video footage of them cutting the live tracks to "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun"

& jsut what are they doing in the video? tweaking a board? pulling a bong hit?

― kephm, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

they're playing the guitar and bass riffs. Watch the video. It's included on their first video comp, released shortly after Check Your Head.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 17:25 (twenty-two years ago)

the "skills to pay bills" video?

― kephm, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah that one! Sorry, I was blanking on the title. I watched it for the first time in many moons a couple weeks ago.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 17:37 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

I found this incredible site and wanted to share it, but wasn't sure what thread it would be relevant unti I dug this'un up.

http://www.angelfire.com/fl2/beastie/yo.html

I think the Beastie's rise is an interesting story unto itself, despite their more recent attempts. This is interviews cutup into a timeline, and can arouse interest in their early days again...

― PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie), Friday, 20 May 2005 20:18 (twenty years ago)

Ha ha, I'm in there, somewhere...

― xhuxk, Friday, 20 May 2005 20:26 (twenty years ago)

xhuxk, did you ever like the Warlock Pinchers?

― donut debonair (donut), Friday, 20 May 2005 20:29 (twenty years ago)

Chuck Eddy (journalist): I was doing a story on the Beasties for Creem, just after Licensed to Ill came out. We did the interview and they were bratty, throwing food at me, no big deal. That night, they went on the Joan Rivers Show and presented her with a book on extended sexual orgasms. We go back to the hotel and I turn in. At four in the morning, they got the key to my room from the hotel desk by saying that I was part of their party. Most of the Licensed to Ill long-form video is of them getting ready to go into my room, but I didn't even know they had a video camera at the time. I just knew that they broke in, dumped water on me, and ran out of the room giggling. Next thing I knew, they turned into Tibetan monks and started making really boring jazz records.

― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Friday, 20 May 2005 20:31 (twenty years ago)

chuck you don't have a copy of the comic of that spin ran around that time do you?

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 20 May 2005 20:32 (twenty years ago)

nah...well, maybe hidden away in a box somewhere. i'm not even sure i remember it, to be honest. i definitely don't have a copy of the video; wish i did, though.

i never even heard of the warlock pinchers til now!

― xhuxk, Friday, 20 May 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

This is later in that piece:

Eddy: Now that the Beasties are Buddhists, I should break in somewhere and pour water on them. That would be the ultimate revenge, since they're not allowed to fight back.

― xhuxk, Friday, 20 May 2005 20:36 (twenty years ago)

I saw Yauch at a Noodle Bar a few months back. I guess you could always scope those places out...

― PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie), Friday, 20 May 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

I mention the Warlock Pinchers only because you seem to really like License To Ill and the stuff that directly preceded it. Then again, you may absolutely loathe them. They're most famous for songs like "Morrissey Rides A Cockhorse", "Where The Hell Is Crispin Glover" and "I Think We're Tiffany". They were a Denver area combo that was essentially a hybrid of Big Black and this era of Beasties. Cheap beatbox, snotty rapping, guitar noise, offensive lyrics, occasional scratching and samples, etc. Their first album Pinch A Loaf is half samples and prank calls. Their second album Deadly Kung Fu Action has "the hits". Their third album Circuzed Peanuts is just an unmemorable mediocre followup, then they broke up.

― donut debonair (donut), Friday, 20 May 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

They sound like I'd probably hate them, to be honest! But who knows?

― xhuxk, Friday, 20 May 2005 20:45 (twenty years ago)

i care very much about the Macho boot that Rub n Tug did for them... the bass line from macho city is great!

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Friday, 20 May 2005 20:51 (twenty years ago)

I saw Mike D. on Lafayette Street two days ago. He looks paradoxically boyish and weathered simultaneously.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 20 May 2005 21:19 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

i saw th beast e boys on a horse they were fabulous and so happy

― crumbo, Monday, 25 July 2005 17:17 (twenty years ago)

But do they care about me?

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 July 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

I mention the Warlock Pinchers only because you seem to really like License To Ill and the stuff that directly preceded it. Then again, you may absolutely loathe them. They're most famous for songs like "Morrissey Rides A Cockhorse", "Where The Hell Is Crispin Glover" and "I Think We're Tiffany". They were a Denver area combo that was essentially a hybrid of Big Black and this era of Beasties. Cheap beatbox, snotty rapping, guitar noise, offensive lyrics, occasional scratching and samples, etc. Their first album Pinch A Loaf is half samples and prank calls. Their second album Deadly Kung Fu Action has "the hits". Their third album Circuzed Peanuts is just an unmemorable mediocre followup, then they broke up.
-- donut debonair (do...), May 20th, 2005. (donut)

Yay Donut! God, that brings me back...this dude had that in high school and OH did we have a good time listening to it (we was a kool hip kid in town he also had the Pushead Metallica skate deck which I admire greatly! and he even had a Killing Joke album (Dirt Extremities, etc? something like that...and he turned me on to Voivod!)....but yeah, I think I still have Circumcized Peanuts, which I remember sounding clutterd and dull, but there were 2 good songs - Flaming Jerrys (a Dead diss) and Jesus on the Urinal Cake, where they flush Jesus down the toilet and then chant "JESUS AINT ON THE URINAL CAKE NO MORE! HE AINT ON THE URINAL CAKE!"

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 25 July 2005 17:49 (twenty years ago)

ten months pass...

I fucking love Hello Nasty

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Sunday, 4 June 2006 01:27 (nineteen years ago)

Worst lyric ever:

"Here's a little something that you might not like.
My DJ's name is Mixmaster Mike."

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Sunday, 4 June 2006 01:56 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, Snrub, that always kind of bothered me too. Does Mixmaster Mike have enemies? Or were they confronting head-on the controversy surrounding the loss of Hurricane?

― Doctor Casino (Doctor Casino), Sunday, 4 June 2006 07:17 (nineteen years ago)

I remember getting turned on to the Warlock Pinchers in HS, after my watching one of those fucked up anti music christain propaganda films at my weekly mandatory youth group meeting.
The host interviewing them was like, "so you guys have a real relationship with satan huh?" and the W.P. guys were like, "oh yeah totally, well i mean, he's alright. We just had a drink with him earlier actually, and he was being a real jerk. We mostly just play basketball with him and shit like that..."

― astronautagogo (astronautagogo), Monday, 5 June 2006 07:20 (nineteen years ago)

People who bang on about how crap their lyrics are just don't really get it though.

Hello Nasty was awesome, everything after was bullsh.

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 5 June 2006 07:45 (nineteen years ago)

Have to say I'm absolutely baffled by the Hello Nasty dissing on this thread. The production is complex (sit down and listen to the transitions in "The Move"), it has their wittiest set of lyrics since Paul's Boutique, for once the jam interludes don't grind the album to a halt, they resumed the complex vocal trade-off style they'd been too stoned to execute for nearly a decade, and they dropped one of the best hip-hop albums of the year with nary a gat nor an f-bomb in earshot. I mean, they rhyme "soft-spoken" and "pannekoeken", give a shout-out to Venom, and as a bonus you get to hear Lee Perry babble on like a cross between Mark E Smith and Papa Legba - what the fuck's wrong with you people?

If you want to talk about boring Beastie records, give it up for To The Five Boroughs. They're back on autopilot.

― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 5 June 2006 12:21 (nineteen years ago)

OTM.

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 5 June 2006 14:22 (nineteen years ago)

Good call. Hello Nasty is overlong and has some filler, and the downbeat thing does get a bit annoying, but there's some dense, complex production on there. Intergalactic is quite brilliant production wise.

The album also has the best parody/tribute to Run DMC ever:

"I'm the king of boggle, there is none higher, score 11 points from the word quagmire".

― Stew (stew s), Monday, 5 June 2006 15:09 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, and the In The Round tour they did to promote HN was inspired. I don't know why more bands don't do arena gigs in the round. It made the SECC seem like more like the Barrowlands, which is some feat, let me tell you.

― Stew (stew s), Monday, 5 June 2006 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/columns/resonant-frequency/06-01-06.shtml

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 5 June 2006 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

-- Stew

OTM. That SECC gig was a thing of beauty. Which has to be a first.

― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:08 (nineteen years ago)

The thing I didn't like about Hello Nasty was that the production was so cool, and they just shit all over it with their stupid rhymes and tire schtick. I hate them.

― josh in sf (stfu kthx), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:30 (nineteen years ago)

stupid rhymes in rap songs, I hate when that happens

― nicky lo-fi (nicky lo-fi), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:52 (nineteen years ago)

i liked hello nasty but not enough to keep it. too much filler.

― gear (gear), Monday, 5 June 2006 16:58 (nineteen years ago)

This kind of thing always baffles me:
It would be hard to overstate how much the Beastie Boys meant to me in the first couple years of the 1990s...Licence to Ill...Licence to Ill...Licence to Ill...
(from the Pitchfork article linked a few posts up)

― Mike Dixn (Mike Dixon), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

"'Brass Monkey' was my totem, my freak flag - and I didn't care who knew it"

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

Filler on rap albums, I hate when that happens.

Funny, I don't think any album needs to be longer than 40 minutes and the "filler" on Hello Nasty doesn't bother me. When I first started listening to it, I thought the first 7 songs were really strong (okay maybe not "Remote Control") and the album began to taper off, but the more I listened to it the more I started to appreciate latter-half nuggets like "The Negotiation Limerick File" and "The Grasshopper Unit".

Even the last three cuts, which get a lot of flak for being filler, seem like good come-down closers to me. Esp. "Instant Death" - the album was recorded as Ad-rock was dealing with the death of his mother and a best friend, there's something oddly chilling about it.

― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

the filler for me is the droning folkie shit. take them out and the album would be pretty solid all the way through. although actually this is the first b-boys album where their rapping bothered me a little.

― gear (gear), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

I thought their rapping on Hello Nasty was way stiff actually, rather than a return to form. Instead of doing the line-trading a la Paul's Boutique they just had all three of them shout the last word of each line in unison for what seems like *every single line*. Its very Run DMC and all, but I tired of it instantly. I probably haven't listened to the album more than a handful of times tho, I suppose I could go back and re-check it...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:28 (nineteen years ago)

Well I'm a droning folkie so that must explain it.

Until I heard To The Five Boroughs I would've picked Check Yr Head or Ill Communication as the Beasties' lyrical nadir. How did the rapping bother you, gear? Too old school?

― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:30 (nineteen years ago)

it didn't bother me to the point that i thought it was terrible, but it was the first album of theirs where i was bugged by the nasality.

― gear (gear), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:31 (nineteen years ago)

why does no one call out Run DMC for at least equally shitty lyrics?

there isn't a single bad song on Hello Nasty

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 5 June 2006 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

Now I have to go back and listen to it, my memory is the vocal interplay is more involved than them all yelling the last word of each line. Maybe just listening is the problem, Shakey - you've got to learn all the words and rap-a-long!

― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 5 June 2006 18:01 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

http://ichlugebullets.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/upanass.jpg

― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Monday, 11 August 2008 11:10 (seventeen years ago)

Is that your bestiality forum, Dom?

― Scik Mouthy, Monday, 11 August 2008 11:44 (seventeen years ago)

three years pass...

i wanted to make a thread about Hello Nasty, but there's a bunch of discussion here

re-listening now - I don't think there's another album like it. I realize the Beasties have always been ecletic but there's a difference between doing punk or jazz-funk and doing full-on elevator lounge jazz, if anything this seems even weirder and more spaced out than it did when it was released. Dunno if its held up as well for anyone else - probably one of the few 70-minute hip hop albums that actually works all the way through. Also I really dig how much Biz Markie there is on the album. I was surprised to read that Mark Richardson article, where he kind of implies that this and To the 5 Buroughs were birds of a feather - this is everything I've ever liked about them.

― frogbs, Wednesday, 9 November 2011 22:48 (fourteen years ago)

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