Day 0764 - Ill Communication

Beastie Boys "Ill Communication" (1994)

The second day of illness in a row.  Clearly 1994 was an ill year indeed!

 

The Beasties had been paring back their use of sampling, opting instead to play instruments themselves for their tracks.    That, combined with Adam Yauch's interest in Buddhism, their early hardcore punk roots, and their hip hop sound makes for an incredibly diverse album.

There are rocking hardcore tracks, monkish chants, moments of 70s funk, jazz instrumentals and of course the guys busting their raps all over it.   A couple of their better known tracks are found on this album including "Sabotage".  The band had worked out the music for it but had no lyrics.   Later, Ad-Rock was 'ambushed' by paparazzi while attending a private memorial service for River Phoenix.   He unleashed his anger in rap that ended up being the lyrical basis for 'Sabotage'.

Day 0644 - Paul’s Boutique

Beastie Boys "Paul's Boutique" (1989)

The Beasties had parted company with Rick Rubin and Def Jam records, and were being written off in some corners as a bit of a one-hit wonder.

Rather than just repeat their 'bratty frat-rap over rock' approach, the Beasties enlisted the help of sampling and sonic-weaving extraordinaires: the Dust Brothers.  A good deal of the music for the album had already been completed by the DBs with the intention of it being released to clubs as an instrumental album.  The Beasties convinced them to make it the basis for their album.  The Dust Bros suggested that they could strip it back to just the beats, but the Beasties wanted the density of the sound.

There is still a bit of the smartass party rap present but the Beasties do branch out.  The interesting production acts as an a bridge to their later more serious work.  Apart from the vocals, the rest of the album is almost entirely composed of samples, and is viewed by some as one of the last big 'sample albums' before the copyright laws really started to clamp down (though the claim that the samples were never cleared has been contradicted by one of the album's engineers).

Day 0567 - Licensed to Ill

Beastie Boys "Licensed to Ill" (1986)

The Beasties started off as an obnoxious, 'in your face' hardcore punk band, but tired of the limitations imposed by the expectations of fans of that genre.  The boys dropped a couple of members and gained another to slowly evolve into an obnoxious, 'in your face' hip hop group.

The Beasties kept the party vibe and anarchic spirit of punk while stretching their musical wings a bit more; mixing punk and metal riffs with turntables and rap.   The more serious political sound that the band would move towards later on is not really here, but the sonic experimentalism is.

This went on to become one of the most commercially successful hip hop albums... I wish it could be said that it had nothing to do with a passively (or even actively) racist recording industry, but it's unlikely.  To be fair though, this is a musically interesting album that is not undeserving of some success.