RhoDeo 1218 Beats

Hello, i was set to start uploading todays post when i glanced a teletext Item about the death of a Beastie Boys member,

Adam Yauch, better known as "MCA" of the Beastie Boys, died Friday morning in New York at age 47 after having cancer for nearly three years.  It's extremely rare for people to be diagnosed with salivary gland cancer and Yauch was one of the younger patients diagnosed with the disease. Because the cancer is rare, it has been difficult for researchers to figure out what causes it. .A practising Buddhist, Yauch in 96 organized a two-day festival to raise awareness about the plight of Tibet, and the festival went on to become an annual event. He is survived by his wife Dechen Wangdu and their daughter Tenzin Losel Yauch.

Obviously i was shocked somewhat and decided to postpone the post and do a last minute posting on the Beastie Boys, to be honest here to my surprise i found out I had thusfar never posted any of their work, not because I wasn't a fan, in fact I own all their albums, but somehow it never came up ...until now.

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As the first white rap group of any importance, the Beastie Boys received the scorn of critics and strident hip-hop musicians, both of whom accused them of cultural pirating, especially since they began as a hardcore punk group in 1981. But the Beasties weren't pirating -- instead, they treated rap as part of a post-punk musical underground, where the D.I.Y. aesthetics of hip-hop and punk weren't that far apart. Of course, the exaggerated b-boy and frat-boy parodies of their unexpected hit debut album, Licensed to Ill, didn't help their cause. For much of the mid-'80s, the Beastie Boys were considered macho clowns, and while they dismissed that theory with the ambitious, Dust Brothers-produced second album, Paul's Boutique, it was ignored by both the public and the press at the time. In retrospect, Paul's Boutique was one of the first albums to predict the genre-bending, self-referential pop kaleidoscope of '90s pop. The Beasties refined their eclectic approach with 1992's Check Your Head, where they played their own instruments. Check Your Head brought the Beasties back to the top of the charts, and within a few years, they were considered one of the most influential and ambitious groups of the '90s, cultivating a musical community not only through their music, but with their record label, Grand Royal, and their magazine of the same name.

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Such was the power of Licensed to Ill that everybody, from fans to critics, thought that not only could the Beastie Boys not top the record, but that they were destined to be a one-shot wonder. These feelings were only amplified by their messy, litigious departure from Def Jam and their flight from their beloved New York to Los Angeles, since it appeared that the Beasties had completely lost the plot. Many critics in fact thought that Paul's Boutique was a muddled mess upon its summer release in 1989, but that's the nature of the record -- it's so dense, it's bewildering at first, revealing its considerable charms with each play. Shifting to layers of samples and beats so intertwined they move beyond psychedelic; it's a painting with sound. Sadly, after Paul's Boutique sampling on the level of what's heard here would disappear; due to a series of lawsuits, the entire enterprise too cost-prohibitive and risky to perform on such a grand scale. Which is really a shame, because if ever a record could be used as incontrovertible proof that sampling is its own art form, it's Paul's Boutique.

The Dust Brothers and Beasties weave a crazy-quilt of samples, beats, loops, and tricks, which creates a hyper-surreal alternate reality -- a romanticized, funhouse reflection of New York where all pop music and culture exist on the same strata, feeding off each other, mocking each other, evolving into a wholly unique record, unlike anything that came before or after. It very well could be that its density is what alienated listeners and critics at the time; there is so much information in the music and words that it can seem impenetrable at first, but upon repeated spins it opens up slowly, assuredly, revealing more every listen. Musically, few hip-hop records have ever been so rich; it's not just the recontextulations of familiar music via samples, it's the flow of each song and the album as a whole, culminating in the widescreen suite that closes the record. Lyrically, the Beasties have never been better -- not just because their jokes are razor-sharp, but because they construct full-bodied narratives and evocative portraits of characters and places. Few pop records offer this much to savor, and if Paul's Boutique only made a modest impact upon its initial release, over time its influence could be heard through pop and rap, yet no matter how its influence was felt, it stands alone as a record of stunning vision, maturity, and accomplishment. .

Beastie Boys – Paul's Boutique   (flac 332mb)

01 To All The Girls 1:29
02 Shake Your Rump 3:19
03 Johnny Ryall 3:00
04 Egg Man 2:57
05 High Plains Drifter 4:13
06 The Sounds Of Science 3:11
07 3-Minute Rule 3:39
08 Hey Ladies 3:47
09 5-Piece Chicken Dinner 0:23
10 Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun 3:28
11 Car Thief 3:39
12 What Comes Around 3:07
13 Shadrach 4:07
14 Ask For Janice 0:11
15 B-Boy Bouillabaisse (12:34)
Bonus
16 33% God 3:53
17 Dis Yourself in '89 3:30


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Check Your Head brought the Beastie Boys crashing back into the charts and into public consciousness, but that was only partially due to the album itself -- much of its initial success was due to the cult audience that Paul's Boutique cultivated in the years since its initial flop release, a group of fans whose minds were so thoroughly blown by that record, they couldn't wait to see what came next, and this helped the record debut in the Top Ten upon its April 1992 release. As it happened, the Beasties had repositioned themselves as a lo-fi, alt-rock groove band. They had not abandoned rap, but it was no longer the foundation of their music, it was simply the most prominent in a thick pop-culture gumbo where old school rap sat comfortably with soul-jazz, hardcore punk, white-trash metal, arena rock, Bob Dylan, bossa nova, spacy pop, and hard, dirty funk. What they did abandon was the psychedelic samples of Paul's Boutique, turning toward primitive grooves they played themselves, augmented by keyboardist Money Mark and co-producer Mario Caldato, Jr.. This all means that music was the message and the rhymes, which had been pushed toward the forefront on both Licensed to Ill and Paul's Boutique, have been considerably de-emphasized. This is not a detriment, because the focus is not on the words, it's on the music, mood, and even the newfound neo-hippie political consciousness. And Check Your Head is certainly a record that's greater than the sum of its parts -- individually, nearly all the tracks are good, but it's the context and variety of styles that give Check Your Head its identity. It's how the old school raps give way to fuzz-toned rockers, furious punk, and cheerfully gritty, jazzy jams. As much as Paul's Boutique, this is a whirlwind tour through the Beasties' pop-culture obsessions, it's earth-bound D.I.Y. that makes it all seem equally accessible -- which is a big reason why it turned out to be an alt-rock touchstone of the '90s, something that both set trends and predicted them.

Beastie Boys – Check Your Head  ( flac 329mb)

101 Jimmy James 3:14
102 Funky Boss 1:35
103 Pass The Mic 4:17
104 Gratitude 2:45
105 Lighten Up 2:41
106 Finger Lickin' Good 3:39
107 So What'cha Want 3:37
108 The Biz•Vs•The Nuge 0:33
109 Time For Livin' 1:48
110 Something's Got To Give 3:28
111 The Blue Nun 0:32
112 Stand Together 2:47
113 Pow 2:13
114 The Maestro 2:52
115 Groove Holmes 2:33
116 Live At P.J.'s 3:18
117 Mark On The Bus 1:05
118 Professor Booty 4:13
119 In 3's 2:23
120 Namasté 4:01

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Unlike the deluxe reissue of Paul's Boutique, the 2009 reissue of Check Your Head is laden with bonus tracks, suggesting that the lack of B-sides on Paul's was indeed down to complications with samples licensing. Check Your Head almost makes up for the paucity of bonus material by adding a full disc of extras, all assembled from all the various B-sides released on multi-part CD singles and 12" vinyl. Most of these are reworkings and remixes, some of these are quite good, especially the ropey Soul Assassin revision that has an extra verse from B-Real. "Pass the Mic" and "Finger Lickin' Good" are also in good remix form, while "Stand Together" and "Gratitude" are live, but of greater interest are the non-LP rarities presented here for the first time outside of The Sounds of Science compilation. "The Skills to Pay the Bills," in particular, is a dynamic piece of work that could have made it onto the proper album, something that can't quite be said about woozy larks like "Netty's Girl," the Zamboni soul-jazz of "Honky Rink," and the cheerfully stupid "Boomin' Granny," but when they're all presented as part of the extras here, they go a long way to illustrate how glorious this whole era was for the Beasties.

Beastie Boys – Check Your Head bonus ( flac 346mb)

201 Dub The Mic (Instrumental) 4:29
202 Pass The Mic (Pt. 2, Skills To Pay The Bills) 4:25
203 Drunken Praying Mantis Style 2:40
204 Netty's Girl 3:24
205 The Skills To Pay The Bills (Original Version) 3:16
206 So What'cha Want (Soul Assassin Remix Version) 4:08
207 So What'cha Want (Butt Naked Version) 3:29
208 Groove Holmes (Live•Vs•The Biz) 6:12
209 So What'cha Want (All The Way Live Freestyle Version) 3:38
210 Stand Together (Live At French's Tavern, Sydney, Australia) 2:32
211 Finger Lickin' Good (Government Cheese Remix) 4:15
212 Gratitude (Live At Budokan) 4:27
213 Honky Rink 2:12
214 Jimmy James (Original Original Version) 3:43
215 Boomin' Granny 2:17
216 Drinkin' Wine 4:41

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The Beastie Boys had a good, albeit eccentric, hits compilation in 1999 with the double-disc set The Sounds of Science, so what's the purpose of the 2005 set Solid Gold Hits? Well, it is considerably more concise than the previous compilation, spanning just one disc and containing a mere 15 songs compared to the 42 on Sounds. So, for listeners who are just looking for the big hits, this serves its purpose quite well, since this may be missing many great songs -- and not just album tracks or early singles like "She's on It," but charting hits like "Paul Revere" -- but it does have all of their anthems, including "Fight for Your Right," "Brass Monkey," "Hey Ladies," "Shake Your Rump," "So What'cha Want," "Sabotage," "Sure Shot," "Intergalactic," and "Body Movin'," here in its Fatboy Slim remix. While some listeners may find the non-chronological order kind of frustrating, these songs sound good in pretty much any running order, so this winds up as a thoroughly entertaining listen. Perhaps it's not the definitive Beastie Boys album, but for fans who just want nothing more than the hits, this does its job.

Beastie Boys - Solid Gold Hits   ( flac 359mb)

01 So What'cha Want 3:37
02 Brass Monkey 2:38
03 Ch-Check It Out 3:10
04 No Sleep Till Brooklyn 4:06
05 Hey Ladies 3:48
06 Pass The Mic 4:17
07 An Open Letter To NYC 4:13
08 Root Down 3:31
09 Shake Your Rump 3:17
10 Intergalactic 3:30
11 Sure Shot 3:18
12 Body Movin' (Fatboy Slim Remix) 4:08
13 Triple Trouble 2:43
14 Sabotage 2:58
15 Fight For Your Right 3:30

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