dee_bee_76
06-14-2004, 04:26 PM
SOUND BITES: Audio reviews
The Associated Press
Updated: 5:20 p.m. ET June 14, 2004
In this week's reviews, the Beastie Boys go back to old-school, East Coast hip-hop in "To The 5 Boroughs".
The Beastie Boys’ highly anticipated new album, “To The 5 Boroughs,” is a return to the classic hip-hop style not heard entirely on a Beastie’s release since 1989’s “Paul’s Boutique.”
Gone are the prog instrumentals, the two-minute thrash anthems, the sabotaged ’70s-hard rock and the live instruments. Recorded entirely on a computer, “5 Boroughs” is an ode to Gotham and the East Coast hip-hop groups of the early ’80s: Think passing mics, juvenile rhymes, rubbery basslines, scratching records (courtesy of Mixmaster Mike) and stomping beats.
The Beasties constantly reference the people, places and things that are popular and esoteric in New York City — Mike Piazza, Page Six, Canal Street watches and the sporting goods store Modell’s are just a few of the many name-dropped.
Anything goes when Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D rhyme in tandem and it often comes off like a freestyle at a rec center. Though they touch on weighty subjects like politics on “Time to Build” (“We got a president we didn’t elect/The Kyoto Treaty he decided to neglect”), there’s inside jokes that range from basketball to food.
The choice samples (EPMD, Big Daddy Kane) evoke the ghosts of hip-hop’s past with choruses cribbed directly from earlier joints. Their punk roots show up via the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer” — they take the song’s main guitar riff for “An Open Letter to NYC.” That song is a highlight, along with Ad-Rock slipping into fake foreign accents and Mike D’s declaration of “you heard me like I was E.F. Hutton.”
On “Three the Hard Way,” MCA disses a perpetrator with “your rhyme technique/ it is antique.” But it could have easily been a boast about his own crew’s flow, as they seem to become even more real with age.
The Associated Press
Updated: 5:20 p.m. ET June 14, 2004
In this week's reviews, the Beastie Boys go back to old-school, East Coast hip-hop in "To The 5 Boroughs".
The Beastie Boys’ highly anticipated new album, “To The 5 Boroughs,” is a return to the classic hip-hop style not heard entirely on a Beastie’s release since 1989’s “Paul’s Boutique.”
Gone are the prog instrumentals, the two-minute thrash anthems, the sabotaged ’70s-hard rock and the live instruments. Recorded entirely on a computer, “5 Boroughs” is an ode to Gotham and the East Coast hip-hop groups of the early ’80s: Think passing mics, juvenile rhymes, rubbery basslines, scratching records (courtesy of Mixmaster Mike) and stomping beats.
The Beasties constantly reference the people, places and things that are popular and esoteric in New York City — Mike Piazza, Page Six, Canal Street watches and the sporting goods store Modell’s are just a few of the many name-dropped.
Anything goes when Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D rhyme in tandem and it often comes off like a freestyle at a rec center. Though they touch on weighty subjects like politics on “Time to Build” (“We got a president we didn’t elect/The Kyoto Treaty he decided to neglect”), there’s inside jokes that range from basketball to food.
The choice samples (EPMD, Big Daddy Kane) evoke the ghosts of hip-hop’s past with choruses cribbed directly from earlier joints. Their punk roots show up via the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer” — they take the song’s main guitar riff for “An Open Letter to NYC.” That song is a highlight, along with Ad-Rock slipping into fake foreign accents and Mike D’s declaration of “you heard me like I was E.F. Hutton.”
On “Three the Hard Way,” MCA disses a perpetrator with “your rhyme technique/ it is antique.” But it could have easily been a boast about his own crew’s flow, as they seem to become even more real with age.