As the first white
rap group of any importance,
the Beastie Boys received the scorn of critics and strident
hip-hop musicians, who accused them of cultural pirating, especially since they began as a
hardcore punk group in 1981. But
the Beasties weren't pirating -- they treated
rap as part of a
post-punk musical underground, where the do-it-yourself 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.
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For much of the mid-'80s,
the Beastie Boys were considered as macho clowns, and while their ambitious,
Dust Brothers-produced second album,
Paul's Boutique, dismissed that theory, it was ignored by both the public and the press at the time. In retrospect, it 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.
It was remarkable turn of events for a group that demonstrated no significant musical talent on their first records. All three members of
the Beastie Boys --
Mike D (born
Mike Diamond, November 20, 1966), MCA (born Adam Yauch, August 5, 1965), and Ad-Rock (born Adam Horovitz, October 31, 1967) -- came from wealthy middle-class Jewish families in New York and had become involved in the city's
punk underground when they were teenagers in the early '80s.
Diamond and Yauch formed
the Beastie Boys with drummer Kate Schellenbach and guitarist John Berry in 1981, and the group began playing underground clubs around New York. The following year,
the Beasties released the 7" EP Pollywog Stew on the indie Rat Cage to little attention. That year, the band met Horovitz, who had formed the hardcore group the Young and the Useless. By early 1983, Schellenbach and Berry had left the group -- they would later join
Luscious Jackson and Thwig, respectively -- and Horovitz had joined
the Beasties. The revamped group released the
rap record "Cookie Puss" as a 12" single later in 1983. Based on a prank phone call the group made to Carvel Ice Cream, the single became an underground hit in New York. By early 1984, however, they had abandoned
punk and turned their attention to
rap.
In 1984,
the Beasties joined forces with producer
Rick Rubin, a
heavy metal and
hip-hop fan who had recently founded Def Jam Records with fellow New York University student Russell Simmons. Def Jam officially signed
the Beastie Boys in 1985, and that year they had a hit single from the soundtrack to Krush Groove with "She's on It," a
rap track that sampled
AC/DC's "Back in Black" and suggested the approach of the group's forthcoming debut album.
The Beasties received their first significant national exposure later in 1985, when they opened for
Madonna on her Virgin Tour. The trio taunted the audience with profanity and were generally poorly received. One other major tour, as the openers for
Run-D.M.C.'s ill-fated Raisin' Hell trek, followed before
Licensed to Ill was released late in 1986. An amalgam of street beats, metal riffs, b-boy jokes, and satire,
Licensed to Ill was interpreted as a mindless, obnoxious party record by many critics and conservative action groups, but that didn't stop the album from becoming the fastest-selling debut in Columbia Records' history, moving over 750,000 copies in its first six weeks. Much of that success was due to the single "Fight for Your Right (To Party)," which became a massive crossover success. In fact,
Licensed to Ill became the biggest-selling
rap album of the '80s, which generated much criticism from certain
hip-hop fans who believed that
the Beasties were merely cultural pirates. On the other side of the coin, the group was being attacked from the right, who claimed their lyrics were violent and sexist and that their concerts -- which featured female audience members dancing in go-go cages and a giant inflatable penis, similar to what
the Stones used in their mid-'70s concerts -- caused even more outrage. Throughout their 1987 tour, they were plagued with arrests and lawsuits, and were accused of inciting crime.
While much of
the Beasties' exaggeratedly obnoxious behavior started out as a joke, it became a self-parody by the end of 1987, so it wasn't a surprise that the group decided to revamp their sound and image during the next two years. During 1988, they became involved in a bitter lawsuit with Def Jam and
Rick Rubin, who claimed he was responsible for the group's success and threatened to release outtakes as their second album. The group finally broke away by the end of the year and relocated to California, where they signed with Capitol Records. While in California, they met the production team
the Dust Brothers, and they convinced the duo to use their prospective debut album as the basis for
the Beasties' second album,
Paul's Boutique. Densely layered with interweaving samples and pop culture references, the retro-
funk-psychedelia of
Paul's Boutique was entirely different than
Licensed to Ill, and many observers weren't quite sure what to make of it. Several publications gave it rave reviews, but when it failed to produce a single bigger than the number 36 "Hey Ladies," it was quickly forgotten about.
Despite its poor commercial performance,
Paul's Boutique gained a cult following, and its cut-and-paste sample techniques would later be hailed as visionary, especially after
the Dust Brothers altered the approach for
Beck's acclaimed 1996 album,
Odelay. Still, the record was declared a disaster in the early '90s, but that didn't prevent
the Beasties from building their own studio and founding their own record label, Grand Royal, for their next record,
Check Your Head. Alternating between old-school
hip-hop, raw amateurish
funk, and
hardcore punk,
Check Your Head was a less accomplished than
Paul's Boutique, yet it was just as diverse. Furthermore, the burgeoning cult around
the Beasties made the album a surprise Top 10 hit upon its spring 1992 release. "Jimmy James," "Pass the Mic," and "So Whatcha Want" were bigger hits on college and alternative rock radio than they were on
rap radio, and the group suddenly became hip again. Early in 1994, they collected their early
punk recordings on the compilation
Some Old Bullshit, which was followed in June by their fourth album,
Ill Communication. Essentially an extension of
Check Your Head, the record debuted at number one upon its release, and the singles "Sabotage" and "Sure Shot" helped send it to double-platinum status. During the summer of 1994, they co-headlined the fourth Lollapalooza festival with
the Smashing Pumpkins. That same year, Grand Royal became a full-fledged record label as it released
Luscious Jackson's acclaimed debut album, Natural Ingredients.
The Beasties' Grand Royal magazine was also launched that year.
Over the next few years,
the Beasties remained quiet as they concentrated on political causes and their record label. In 1996, they released the hardcore EP Aglio e Olio and the instrumental
soul-jazz and
funk collection
The in Sound from Way Out! Also that year, Adam Yauch organized a two-day festival to raise awareness and money about Tibet's plight against the Chinese government; the festival went on to become an annual event.
The Beastie Boys' long-awaited fifth LP,
Hello Nasty, finally appeared during the summer of 1998, and became their third career chart-topper. A longer wait preceded release of their next album,
To the 5 Boroughs, which appeared in mid-2004. In 2005, Capitol issued Solid Gold Hits, a 15-track survey of
the Beasties' lengthy career. In 2006, the band released theatrically the concert film Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That! The film was pieced together from footage shot by 50 DV and Hi-8 cameras that were distributed to fans with little more instruction than to keep shooting. The DVD version appeared in July of that year. In 2007 they released the all-instrumental album The Mix Up. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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