FittenTrimMC
06-13-2004, 09:50 PM
NEW YORK POST
BEASTIE BOYS
"To The 5 Boroughs"
Capitol Records
Without bowing to the current wave of plastic rap, New York's hip-hop pioneers, the Beastie Boys, have come out of retirement with "To the 5 Boroughs" - a straight-up words-and-beats record.
The trio waste no time trying to prove they can play instruments and instead come back swinging with samples, twisted electronic rhythms and hardcore Seussical rhymes. The current single, "Ch-Check It Out," is OK, but the band truly hits its stride in their hometown homage, "Open Letter to NYC," and "Brouhaha," the disc's golden party track.
One complaint: Half the tracks use the same rhythm formula.
From the Sunday Herald
Beastie Boys - To The Five Boroughs (Parlophone)
5 Stars - the highest rating
"It’s not where you’re from,” said Ian Brown in the days before he was popping up in Harry Potter films, “it’s where you’re at.”
In hip hop, however, where you’re from is exactly what it’s about. Yes, you pay respect: to the innovators, to your elders and betters, but most of all you pay respect to your neighbourhood..
The five Boroughs the Beastie Boys salute in their first album since 1998’s patchy Hello Nasty are “Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten,” and the island at their centre, “from Battery [Park] to the top of Manhattan.” To The Five Boroughs is a love letter to New York, the place they’ve called home since they first started out as a snot-nosed bunch of speed-freak punks in the early 1980s.
Fast approaching 40, Mike D (the nasal one), MCA (the gravelly one) and Ad-Rock (the one in the middle) are still angry, but they’re also on form that they’ve not matched since 1994’s Ill Communication. (And as ever, they’re obsessed with food. Chicken tikka, caprese salad, TV dinners, matzohs, grilled cheese, falafels and a whole dinner party’s worth of other stuff gets namechecked.)
This is stripped down, essentialist hip hop; all strict drum machines and clipped samples, loopy synth bleeps and vintage, tinny percussion. The fantastically-titled The Brouhaha knocks together fat, squelching acid bass and harpsichord samples; That’s It, That’s All is a sideswipe against the War On Terror, arguing that “George W got nuthin’ on me/We got to take the power from he.”
An Open Letter To NYC, meanwhile, tackles September 11 head on (as does the cover, a delicate line drawing of New York in which the twin towers still stand), asking the city’s diverse residents to strive for peace.
Not that it’s all serious; there’s enough tomfoolery, bad puns, jokes about having an electrician “stuck up your ass” (on the stomping lead single, Ch-Check It Out) and goofing off to please even the most ardent fan of License To Ill.
BEASTIE BOYS
"To The 5 Boroughs"
Capitol Records
Without bowing to the current wave of plastic rap, New York's hip-hop pioneers, the Beastie Boys, have come out of retirement with "To the 5 Boroughs" - a straight-up words-and-beats record.
The trio waste no time trying to prove they can play instruments and instead come back swinging with samples, twisted electronic rhythms and hardcore Seussical rhymes. The current single, "Ch-Check It Out," is OK, but the band truly hits its stride in their hometown homage, "Open Letter to NYC," and "Brouhaha," the disc's golden party track.
One complaint: Half the tracks use the same rhythm formula.
From the Sunday Herald
Beastie Boys - To The Five Boroughs (Parlophone)
5 Stars - the highest rating
"It’s not where you’re from,” said Ian Brown in the days before he was popping up in Harry Potter films, “it’s where you’re at.”
In hip hop, however, where you’re from is exactly what it’s about. Yes, you pay respect: to the innovators, to your elders and betters, but most of all you pay respect to your neighbourhood..
The five Boroughs the Beastie Boys salute in their first album since 1998’s patchy Hello Nasty are “Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten,” and the island at their centre, “from Battery [Park] to the top of Manhattan.” To The Five Boroughs is a love letter to New York, the place they’ve called home since they first started out as a snot-nosed bunch of speed-freak punks in the early 1980s.
Fast approaching 40, Mike D (the nasal one), MCA (the gravelly one) and Ad-Rock (the one in the middle) are still angry, but they’re also on form that they’ve not matched since 1994’s Ill Communication. (And as ever, they’re obsessed with food. Chicken tikka, caprese salad, TV dinners, matzohs, grilled cheese, falafels and a whole dinner party’s worth of other stuff gets namechecked.)
This is stripped down, essentialist hip hop; all strict drum machines and clipped samples, loopy synth bleeps and vintage, tinny percussion. The fantastically-titled The Brouhaha knocks together fat, squelching acid bass and harpsichord samples; That’s It, That’s All is a sideswipe against the War On Terror, arguing that “George W got nuthin’ on me/We got to take the power from he.”
An Open Letter To NYC, meanwhile, tackles September 11 head on (as does the cover, a delicate line drawing of New York in which the twin towers still stand), asking the city’s diverse residents to strive for peace.
Not that it’s all serious; there’s enough tomfoolery, bad puns, jokes about having an electrician “stuck up your ass” (on the stomping lead single, Ch-Check It Out) and goofing off to please even the most ardent fan of License To Ill.