One of my earliest memories of hip-hop and rap was the Beastie Boys song “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)” on the radio when I was still in school. I remember saving all my money just to buy the Licensed To Ill album and I now rate it as one of my top 50 albums of all time. At the time I was listening to a lot of chart music and “oldies” but the Beastie Boys helped change my musical tastes and now hip-hop and rap are probably my favorite genre.
The Beastie Boys originated in New York, USA and consisted of Michael Diamond (Mike D), Adam Yauch (MCA), John Berry and Kate Schellenbach. There have been many collaborators since then, the most popular being Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock), Michael Schwartz (Mix Master Mike), and Wendell Fite (DJ Hurricane). The name Beastie was thought to mean “Children who enter anarchist states towards inner excellence”, but in a report with Mike D, he said that this happened after they came up with the name. In the early days, the group opened for bands like The Misfits, Reagan Youth, Bas Brains and The Dead Kennedys.
In 1983, John Berry left and was replaced by Ad-Rock, shortly after the Beastie Boys signed with Def Jam and released the Rock Hard EP in 1984. Shortly after, Kelly left the band, reportedly as a result of your manager. thinking that he didn’t fit the rap image of the band. In 1985, the Beastie Boys opened for Public Image Ltd. (Johnny Rotten of the new band Sex Pistols), also supported Madonna on her “Virgin” tour and Raising Hell tour with Run DMC.
The debut album Licensed To Ill was released in 1986 and is reported as the best-selling rap album of the 1980s and the first rap album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. The album stayed at the top of the chart for five weeks and sold over 5 million copies. Paul’s Boutique was released in 1989 after they signed to Capitol Records and is considered a landmark for hip-hop recordings due to its use of multi-layered and sampling techniques. Rolling Stone magazine described the album as “Pet Sounds/Dark Side of the Moon of hip hop”. and went on to sell over a million copies.
Check Your Head was released in 1992 after another label change to Grand Royal Records (their own label) and the band played all instruments. The album went double platinum in the United States. It is said in the Oxford English Dictionary that the Beastie Boys created the haircut term called Mullet in the song Mullet Head in 1994.
When Ill Communication was released in 1994, it went straight into the US chart at number 1, soon after, the Beastie Boys headlined Lollapalooza (an American music festival) along with The Smashing Pumpkins. They also toured to raise awareness of the Milarepa Fund which deals with Tibetan human rights and Adam Yauch organized the Tibetan Freedom Concert which saw over 100,000 people walk through the gates of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in 1996.
Aglio e Olio was released in 1995 and seemed more of a punk style than usually associated with their Rap style. The exit sound! was released in 1996 and was an instrumental album consisting of jazz/funk beats.
Hello Nasty saw a further change in the Beastie Boys’ music when DJ Hurricane was replaced by Mix Master Mike. The album was released in 1998 and went straight into the US chart at number 1 and sold over 690,000 sales in the first week alone. The album also entered at number 1 in the UK, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden.
When To The 5 Boroughs was released in 2004, it was the first of their albums to be entirely self-produced and reached No. 1 on the US chart and the single “Ch-Check It Out” was No. 2 on the US chart. world internet download list. There was some controversy when the album was released, as some people claimed that the CD installed spyware when played on a PC, but these allegations were settled as it was just copy protection software that only appeared on the European copies.
Beastie Boys released The Mix Up in 2007 and before its release some tracks were leaked on the internet and it was thought that the album would be purely instrumental but when the album was released it was soon discovered that it was just a myth.
The Beastie Boys are currently producing a new album.
My top 10 Beastie Boys songs are:
01. Girls
02. Brass monkey
03. Pass the microphone
04. Time to get sick
05. Three MCs and a DJ
06. Body in motion
07. (You have to) fight for your right (to the party!)
08. Intergalactic
09. Car Thief
10. Bill Paying Skills
