Licensed to ill Does'nt get enough credit

[pesto pizza]

No sleep till brooklyn was the second single I ever bought after walk this way.It was a good 8 weeks before I bought LTI in may 1987.I was way behind on the hype simply because I was a school boy with no money.Everyone was talking about LTI at school but no one would let u listen to it on their walkmans,kids didnt share their music like they do these days
the attitude was more like ha ha Ive got it you have'nt.
Anyway after asking a fellow pupil to listen to his LTI tape and him saying NO yet again and with loving posse in effect so much,that evening after school in may I went to my local WOOLWORTHS and bought Licensed to ill for £5.99 which at the time was a lot of money for me.
Got home put it on the record player in the front room and played it for the first time, I remember all my first listens to Beastie boys albums and I have a really poor memory on most things too much beer I think.
I begun to regret my purchase I didnt like rhymin and stealin as I was'nt a fan of no sleep til brooklyn.
But then the new style came on and still till this day is in my all time hip hop top ten songs.
at 14 the beastie boys changed my taste in music for ever,my dress sense,my future attitudes to politics, my attitudes to different races, cultures and foods.
if I had'nt spent that £5.99 in May I know I would a different person to this day.I did'nt go off them in the Pauls boutique days get into house/ravemusic and get back into them in the check your head days.
26 solid years of loyalty started with a hip hop masterpiece that still is fresh,funny and rockin.
do I love RHYMIN & STEALIN and NO SLEEP TILL BROOKLYN now, yes those songs just took a few more listens for me.

[Michelle*s_Farm]

No sleep till brooklyn was the second single I ever bought after walk this way.It was a good 8 weeks before I bought LTI in may 1987.I was way behind on the hype simply because I was a school boy with no money.Everyone was talking about LTI at school but no one would let u listen to it on their walkmans,kids didnt share their music like they do these days
the attitude was more like ha ha Ive got it you have'nt.
Anyway after asking a fellow pupil to listen to his LTI tape and him saying NO yet again and with loving posse in effect so much,that evening after school in may I went to my local WOOLWORTHS and bought Licensed to ill for £5.99 which at the time was a lot of money for me.
Got home put it on the record player in the front room and played it for the first time, I remember all my first listens to Beastie boys albums and I have a really poor memory on most things too much beer I think.
I begun to regret my purchase I didnt like rhymin and stealin as I was'nt a fan of no sleep til brooklyn.
But then the new style came on and still till this day is in my all time hip hop top ten songs.
at 14 the beastie boys changed my taste in music for ever,my dress sense,my future attitudes to politics, my attitudes to different races, cultures and foods.
if I had'nt spent that £5.99 in May I know I would a different person to this day.I did'nt go off them in the Pauls boutique days get into house/ravemusic and get back into them in the check your head days.
26 solid years of loyalty started with a hip hop masterpiece that still is fresh,funny and rockin.
do I love RHYMIN & STEALIN and NO SLEEP TILL BROOKLYN now, yes those songs just took a few more listens for me.

I like that story (y)

[Jazz Martian]

I agree. That album doesn't at all get the credit it deserves. I largely attribute that to the B-boys themselves, which is understandable. Songs like FFYR, and Girls are garbage to me (mostly just from a musical standpoint!), and I understand why the more evolved/mature Beasties wanted to separate themselves from it. But from a straight up musical point of view, I don't recall them ever giving it the real credit I think it deserves.

IIRC my favorite track off of it, when it was released, was Paul Revere. Now it's def Rhymin & Stealin. They went in hard on that one! What a great track to kick off the album.

[Micodin]

I'm not sure how much more praise LTI needs to get enough credit in your eyes.

It's sold over 9 million copies in the US alone.

It was also one of Columbia Records' fastest-selling debut records to date.

It was the first rap LP to top the Billboard album chart.

5 mics from The Source.

It's one of Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

It's one of Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century.

It's in Pitchfork Media's "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s"

And that's just shit I copied from Wikepedia. I'm pretty sure all of my friends own this record in some form and thats including non hip-hop heads.

That album changed the rap game forever. It was getting major spins on Urban and Rock radio when it was released and still to this day. It put Def Jam on the map and allowed the Beasties to tour the world with Run-DMC and then headline their own world tour.

I think LTI gets plenty of credit.

Your story is nice, and I'm sure a bunch of us that was around in '86 has a nice LTI story (myself included), but to say the album doesn't get enough credit is untrue. It's one of the most celebrated and purchased hip-hop records of all time.

[fonky pizza]

I'm pretty sure all of my friends own this record in some form and thats including non hip-hop heads.



I agree, it was the same in Europe, any teen-ager in the 80's had this record or it's just like..where have you been?

[Jazz Martian]

Yeah no doubt from a commercial and mainstream critical standpoint it def gets all its propers and then some. However, how I perceived the OP's POV was from an "inner circle" or whatever, type of ranking, where it seems to generally be rated on the bottom of the totem pole. At least that's how I perceived it. And as we know, the boys themselves had "disavow-type-attitude" towards it, essentially from the moment they became a caricature of what they stood against...and for awhile ended up becoming. Anywho...

[bigblu89]

I assumed he meant from the "B-Sides" aspect of it.

The "mainstream" tracks of LTI, save for No Sleep, are shit. FFYR and Girls, the two song most "non fans" attribute to LTI are garbage compared to Rhymin & Stealin, New Style, and Slow and Low.

Where as you look at the other big Beasties album, the "mainstream" song is one of the better tracks on the album (CYH had So Whatcha want, IC had Sabotage, HN had Intergalatic).

[Jazz Martian]

Word. Yeah I can see that perspective as well.


*EDIT*

Songs like FFYR, and Girls are garbage to me (mostly just from a musical standpoint!)

I just re-read what I wrote with this sentence! I meant EVEN from a musical standpoint, and def not JUST from a musical standpoint! Cause the lyrics are garbage to me as well! I just can't stand those two songs at all. Everything else on the album, even if I'm not real keen on the tracks as much as others, are still good songs. Those two to me just suck. Though I do think that the song 'Girls' musically was (and still is) really unlike anything else in the hip-hop genre.

[pesto pizza]

Yeah no doubt from a commercial and mainstream critical standpoint it def gets all its propers and then some. However, how I perceived the OP's POV was from an "inner circle" or whatever, type of ranking, where it seems to generally be rated on the bottom of the totem pole. At least that's how I perceived it. And as we know, the boys themselves had "disavow-type-attitude" towards it, essentially from the moment they became a caricature of what they stood against...and for awhile ended up becoming. Anywho...

(y)

[Micodin]

I assumed he meant from the "B-Sides" aspect of it.

The "mainstream" tracks of LTI, save for No Sleep, are shit. FFYR and Girls, the two song most "non fans" attribute to LTI are garbage compared to Rhymin & Stealin, New Style, and Slow and Low.

After FFYR died down in the 80's Brass Monkey pretty much became the song rock and urban played a lot. At least that's what I heard.

[Kid Presentable]

I'm not sure how much more praise LTI needs to get enough credit in your eyes.

It's sold over 9 million copies in the US alone.

It was also one of Columbia Records' fastest-selling debut records to date.

It was the first rap LP to top the Billboard album chart.

5 mics from The Source.

It's one of Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

It's one of Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century.

It's in Pitchfork Media's "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s"

And that's just shit I copied from Wikepedia. I'm pretty sure all of my friends own this record in some form and thats including non hip-hop heads.

That album changed the rap game forever. It was getting major spins on Urban and Rock radio when it was released and still to this day. It put Def Jam on the map and allowed the Beasties to tour the world with Run-DMC and then headline their own world tour.

I think LTI gets plenty of credit.

Your story is nice, and I'm sure a bunch of us that was around in '86 has a nice LTI story (myself included), but to say the album doesn't get enough credit is untrue. It's one of the most celebrated and purchased hip-hop records of all time.

I think the band downplayed it a lot, and on the boards it has been one of the least celebrated - in some corners - part of the catalogue. Plenty of people froth on it, it's just not as prominent as the praise for other stuff. Maybe that's what the OP meant.

[pm0ney]

What do you want them to do, build a monument to Licensed To Ill outside of the library of congress? The record is universally regarded as one of the greatest records of all time, is one of the best selling rap records ever and has tracks from it played on back spin every other hour. What more do you want?

And in terms of members of the board, I've been here literally since before *this* board existed and it's my second favorite Beasties album behind Check Your Head.

[Brass Monk]

Your story is nice, and I'm sure a bunch of us that was around in '86 has a nice LTI story (myself included), but to say the album doesn't get enough credit is untrue. It's one of the most celebrated and purchased hip-hop records of all time.

Yeah, this. And the fact that LTI vocals show up as samples on so many other classic Hip Hop albums also highlight this fact.

However, I do think classic Hip Hop albums overall are not getting the credit they used to get (or at least ones that precede the mid-90's, except maybe Straight Outta Compton) and that's unfortunate.

[Bernard Goetz]

I think the point is that (as others have noted here) LTI in this particular community is not highly respected in general terms, evidenced by the thread from a little while back where people shared their rankings of all the albums, and LTI was time and again placing down around The Mix-Up, 5 Boroughs, and even sometimes last. I remember reading those posts with my jaw dropped. I mean, yes, they have better albums, but LTI is at least their 3rd or 4th best, personally.

[pesto pizza]

I think the point is that (as others have noted here) LTI in this particular community is not highly respected in general terms, evidenced by the thread from a little while back where people shared their rankings of all the albums, and LTI was time and again placing down around The Mix-Up, 5 Boroughs, and even sometimes last. I remember reading those posts with my jaw dropped. I mean, yes, they have better albums, but LTI is at least their 3rd or 4th best, personally.

(y)yep thats what I think,just you put it better

[Jazz Martian]

What do you want them to do, build a monument to Licensed To Ill outside of the library of congress? The record is universally regarded as one of the greatest records of all time, is one of the best selling rap records ever and has tracks from it played on back spin every other hour. What more do you want?

It's like you read the first post, then read Micodin's post (reworded and gave the gist of it), misinterpreted what pesto meant, and fired off your immediate response.:rolleyes:

And in terms of members of the board, I've been here literally since before *this* board existed and it's my second favorite Beasties album behind Check Your Head.

Yeah and this was the first website, that I ever remember visiting (with the space station, that had different shit that you found when you clicked on different parts of it, back around the release of HN...before the BBS). So what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Don't take it personally, I'm just in one of those moods haha.;)

LTI is at least their 3rd or 4th best, personally.

Yeah, not sure I would disagree. It's a classic album at the least.

[pm0ney]

It's like you read the first post, then read Micodin's post (reworded and gave the gist of it), misinterpreted what pesto meant, and fired off your immediate response.:rolleyes:



Yeah and this was the first website, that I ever remember visiting (with the space station, that had different shit that you found when you clicked on different parts of it, back around the release of HN...before the BBS). So what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Don't take it personally, I'm just in one of those moods haha.;)



Yeah, not sure I would disagree. It's a classic album at the least.


Oh, don't worry I won't be losing any sleep over it.

[Micodin]

Don't take it personally, I'm just in one of those moods haha.;)

Oh, don't worry I won't be losing any sleep over it.

No one should take shit personally or lose sleep about this shit... Why? Because it's the internet.

[pm0ney]

No one should take shit personally or lose sleep about this shit... Why? Because it's the internet.

Yep.

[YoungRemy]

it's never at the top of my lists, seems like it has always been kind of a nostalgic gimmick album for me.

like, it is a perfect reminder of the 80's but since I'm not a die hard hip hop head it just isn't the holy grail for me as a beastie boys fan.

I have always enjoyed the band's evolving musicianship, and I do not take away the significance and impact the album had on shaping their own career as well as hip hop.


embarrassingly, it was always the LTI songs that I couldn't sing all the way through during concerts. but yet listening to them live brought me great joy and memories during those moments.

[Brass Monk]

I think the point is that (as others have noted here) LTI in this particular community is not highly respected in general terms, evidenced by the thread from a little while back where people shared their rankings of all the albums, and LTI was time and again placing down around The Mix-Up, 5 Boroughs, and even sometimes last. I remember reading those posts with my jaw dropped. I mean, yes, they have better albums, but LTI is at least their 3rd or 4th best, personally.

Pesto's initial post did not specify being underrated in this community.

If he did specify that, I would agree. On this board it's sometimes shockingly underrated as evidenced by the past few comments (although I don't think that means its not getting respect).
But generally speaking, outside this board, it's not underrated given all the accolades it has received.

[3stooges]

Whether or not it gets credit by other people doesn't mean so much to me. People get things wrong all the time, so I don't really care too much about their opinions.

As far Beastie albums go, if I have to rank them, I've got PB and CYH tied for first, and LTI and IC tied for second. I might even give LTI a slight edge over IC because of the "classic"/influence factor. For me those are their four best albums. The rest are good but those are the four that really stand out in my opinion.

LTI is the most "classic" Beastie album though. All those four are classics (IC maybe slightly less so in that sense but still a great record), but if somebody asks about the Beasties 100 years from now I think LTI songs will be the ones people will mention first. I kind of compare it to people like the Beatles or the Beach Boys, where they may have done better stuff a little bit later on, but their early big hits are the ones everybody knows, even decades later.

[Kid Presentable]

They had like the longest 'prime' since the Beatles or Zeppelin. Maybe lesser output in terms of quantity, but fucking hell what an amazing 8 year run. And then to dominate with Hello Nasty was quite a feat.

[Jazz Martian]

No one should take shit personally or lose sleep about this shit... Why? Because it's the internet.

Word.

and...

They had like the longest 'prime' since the Beatles or Zeppelin. Maybe lesser output in terms of quantity, but fucking hell what an amazing 8 year run. And then to dominate with Hello Nasty was quite a feat.

Word again.