PaddyBoy
11-06-2004, 09:36 AM
Beastie Boys: Rolling stones of rap?
Once written off as obnoxious and overhyped, They've become legends in their field
T'CHA DUNLEVY
The Gazette
November 6, 2004
Your mom busted in and said "What's that noise?"
Aw mom, you're just jealous, it's the Beastie Boys
- Fight For Your Right
It sounded like a joke. And a bad joke, at that.
The year was 1986. I had just embraced the musical revolution of rap, courtesy of CHOM FM (ack!), Run-DMC and their new best friends Aerosmith.
Diligently learning how to Walk This Way, my first impressions of the Beastie Boys had me cringing at their (my) whiny whiteness. Run-DMC was cool. The Beastie Boys were wack.
Specifically, it was the neanderthal chorus of their smash hit Fight For Your Right ("to paaaaaaaartayyyyy!!!").
But I was only 15, and obviously couldn't recognize musical genius. In my defence, the Beastie Boys were harsh. They were out to offend.
And rock the house, too, of course, but in a big, obnoxious way that shouted out their punk rock roots.
They were a precisely calibrated combination of punk snarl, juvenile pranksterism, and raw, New York City street rap.
It's easy to point out artistic brilliance - and somewhere in the Beasties' beer-swilling big beats and scream-rap rhymes, there was brilliance - in retrospect. But there's nothing like first impressions, the in-the-moment aura of an era.
As the fabled, late-30-something Beastie Boys roll into Montreal this weekend, new album (To the Five Boroughs) in tow, for a concert at the Bell Centre, they are a known quantity, money in the bank, a Sure Shot.
But it's two decades into their career. How did they get here? How did we? Why are they back? Why are we so excited to see them again?
Is this one of those Rolling Stones moments us (aging) kids swore would never come, when we go check out our old favourite bands to relive past glories?
Whoops, did I say favourite bands? Well, yes, things changed after 1986.
After their 1987 world tour, Michael Diamond (Mike D), Adam Horovitz (Adrock) and Adam Yauch (MCA) moved out to L.A. to clear their heads.
They hooked up with two dudes called the Dust Brothers (who later worked their magic with Beck) and created one of the most ambitious, wildy creative and musically accomplished rap albums ever.
Paul's Boutique was an epic sonic and lyrical journey merging the sampling sophistication of Public Enemy with the reference libraries of pop music and pop culture, the wordplay of Dr. Seuss and the Beasties' mildly matured, iconic sense of fool's cool.
In other words, another work of blinding genius that, this time, perhaps luckily, passed under the radar of the masses. Paul's Boutique eventually sold a modest million copies, compared with Licensed to Ill's five million.
Corner turned, hump jumped, freakiness piqued, the Beastie Boys put their noggins together and came up with the third release in their cult-casting trilogy, Check Your Head, in 1992.
Returning to real instruments, they let the grooves lead the way and landed in perfect cosmic alignment with the exploding movements of grunge rock and creatively booming, early 1990s hip-hop.
And that's where they found a home - as torch-bearers for open-minded music lovers. Able to rap, ready to rock, but full of funk and always, most importantly, there to start the party.
They had gone from geeks to hipsters, still hamming it up, but not so cartoon-like.
Still the same incorrigible Beasties, full of sass and talking goofball trash, while proving by example that music is a free-for-all adventure, of the choose-your-own variety.
They followed up quickly with Ill Communication, a like-minded, on-par sequel to Check Your Head, in 1994, capping an impressive run to which 1998's Hello Nasty and To the Five Boroughs are dignified footnotes.
They've still got it - the style, finesse, the License to Ill, if you will. But things have changed.
The social consciousness that saw them stand up for Tibet freedom in the late 1990s now finds them standing up for the people of their city (All Lifestyles, An Open Letter to NYC), and questioning U.S. foreign policy (It Takes Time to Build).
It's an awkward fit at times. But it's touching that they, one-time bar-raisers of superfly smart-alectude, are willing to sacrifice a smidgen of eloquence for the greater good.
When it all comes together, it flows quite nicely, as when Adrock pays homage to Public Enemy's righteous rewrite of their notorious anthem:
With the sound delight we rock all night / And yes we're gonna party for the right to fight.
- Right Right Now Now
And yet, thankfully, they're not so grown-up as to forget where it all started. This, from That's It That's All:
'Cause I'm a freakie streaker like Winnie the Pooh / T-shirt and no pants, and I dance the boogaloo.
'Nuff said.
Beastie Boys perform tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at the Bell Centre. Talib Kweli opens. Tickets cost $36-$45, plus taxes and service charge. Call (514) 790-1245 or order at www.admission. com online.
Once written off as obnoxious and overhyped, They've become legends in their field
T'CHA DUNLEVY
The Gazette
November 6, 2004
Your mom busted in and said "What's that noise?"
Aw mom, you're just jealous, it's the Beastie Boys
- Fight For Your Right
It sounded like a joke. And a bad joke, at that.
The year was 1986. I had just embraced the musical revolution of rap, courtesy of CHOM FM (ack!), Run-DMC and their new best friends Aerosmith.
Diligently learning how to Walk This Way, my first impressions of the Beastie Boys had me cringing at their (my) whiny whiteness. Run-DMC was cool. The Beastie Boys were wack.
Specifically, it was the neanderthal chorus of their smash hit Fight For Your Right ("to paaaaaaaartayyyyy!!!").
But I was only 15, and obviously couldn't recognize musical genius. In my defence, the Beastie Boys were harsh. They were out to offend.
And rock the house, too, of course, but in a big, obnoxious way that shouted out their punk rock roots.
They were a precisely calibrated combination of punk snarl, juvenile pranksterism, and raw, New York City street rap.
It's easy to point out artistic brilliance - and somewhere in the Beasties' beer-swilling big beats and scream-rap rhymes, there was brilliance - in retrospect. But there's nothing like first impressions, the in-the-moment aura of an era.
As the fabled, late-30-something Beastie Boys roll into Montreal this weekend, new album (To the Five Boroughs) in tow, for a concert at the Bell Centre, they are a known quantity, money in the bank, a Sure Shot.
But it's two decades into their career. How did they get here? How did we? Why are they back? Why are we so excited to see them again?
Is this one of those Rolling Stones moments us (aging) kids swore would never come, when we go check out our old favourite bands to relive past glories?
Whoops, did I say favourite bands? Well, yes, things changed after 1986.
After their 1987 world tour, Michael Diamond (Mike D), Adam Horovitz (Adrock) and Adam Yauch (MCA) moved out to L.A. to clear their heads.
They hooked up with two dudes called the Dust Brothers (who later worked their magic with Beck) and created one of the most ambitious, wildy creative and musically accomplished rap albums ever.
Paul's Boutique was an epic sonic and lyrical journey merging the sampling sophistication of Public Enemy with the reference libraries of pop music and pop culture, the wordplay of Dr. Seuss and the Beasties' mildly matured, iconic sense of fool's cool.
In other words, another work of blinding genius that, this time, perhaps luckily, passed under the radar of the masses. Paul's Boutique eventually sold a modest million copies, compared with Licensed to Ill's five million.
Corner turned, hump jumped, freakiness piqued, the Beastie Boys put their noggins together and came up with the third release in their cult-casting trilogy, Check Your Head, in 1992.
Returning to real instruments, they let the grooves lead the way and landed in perfect cosmic alignment with the exploding movements of grunge rock and creatively booming, early 1990s hip-hop.
And that's where they found a home - as torch-bearers for open-minded music lovers. Able to rap, ready to rock, but full of funk and always, most importantly, there to start the party.
They had gone from geeks to hipsters, still hamming it up, but not so cartoon-like.
Still the same incorrigible Beasties, full of sass and talking goofball trash, while proving by example that music is a free-for-all adventure, of the choose-your-own variety.
They followed up quickly with Ill Communication, a like-minded, on-par sequel to Check Your Head, in 1994, capping an impressive run to which 1998's Hello Nasty and To the Five Boroughs are dignified footnotes.
They've still got it - the style, finesse, the License to Ill, if you will. But things have changed.
The social consciousness that saw them stand up for Tibet freedom in the late 1990s now finds them standing up for the people of their city (All Lifestyles, An Open Letter to NYC), and questioning U.S. foreign policy (It Takes Time to Build).
It's an awkward fit at times. But it's touching that they, one-time bar-raisers of superfly smart-alectude, are willing to sacrifice a smidgen of eloquence for the greater good.
When it all comes together, it flows quite nicely, as when Adrock pays homage to Public Enemy's righteous rewrite of their notorious anthem:
With the sound delight we rock all night / And yes we're gonna party for the right to fight.
- Right Right Now Now
And yet, thankfully, they're not so grown-up as to forget where it all started. This, from That's It That's All:
'Cause I'm a freakie streaker like Winnie the Pooh / T-shirt and no pants, and I dance the boogaloo.
'Nuff said.
Beastie Boys perform tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at the Bell Centre. Talib Kweli opens. Tickets cost $36-$45, plus taxes and service charge. Call (514) 790-1245 or order at www.admission. com online.