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Album Review
by Scott Sterling-Wilder
14-6-2004
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| B-Boys: waiting for so long & finally... |
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Beastie Boys: 'To the 5 Boroughs'
(Grand Royal/Capital)
B-Boys: fun during apocalyptical times
Serious-but-funny, relevant and wacky, cussing and meaningful… There sure is no band like them: committed to the truth and promoting different causes, raising awareness to the variety of issues and yet behaving irresponsibly. Having fun in troubled times is the overall theme/message of the B-Boys’ new album.
‘To The 5 Boroughs’ is part love letter to New York, part political commentary and part, well, pop-cultural buffet. The 15-track ‘Boroughs’ is the trio's first new disc since 1998's ‘Hello Nasty‘. [A compilation ‘Anthology: The Sounds of Science’ was released in 2000.]
If fans were worried/curious/musing on how B-Boys have gotten older, whether gone ostensibly wiser and more deep - there is very little difference from their younger selves. Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch, Adam ‘AdRock’ Horovitz and Mike ‘Mike D’ Diamond produced the new album themselves during the past two years, working out of their own downtown Manhattan studio.
The album’s opening track, ‘Ch-Check It Out’, also its lead single, is a blast from the past, with Mike D, Ad-Rock and MCA mugging for the mic and weaving through a rumbling bed of throwback breakdance beats. [The video was directed by Yauch's alter ego, Nathanial Hornblower.]
The litany of pop-culture references is matched, if not eclipsed, by the amount of politically and socially engaged lyrics. The Beasties aren't shy about who they fault for the chaos they see around them - and it's safe to say no-one in the Bush family will be blasting this Beasties album in the back of a limo.
"We've got a president we didn't elect/ The Kyoto Treaty he decided to neglect," MCA rhymes on ‘Time to Build’. It's one of several songs in which he overtly, colloquially comments on the issues in the world today. "Why you hatin' on people that you never met/ Didn't your mama teach you to show some respect?" Ad-Rock adds on the same track. Then, the group harmonizes the chorus of ‘All Lifestyles’: "We gotta keep the party goin' on/ All lifestyles, sizes, shapes and forms."
The other ingredient in ‘Boroughs’, obvious from its album title, is the Boys' love of New York. Songs like ‘An Open Letter to NYC’ pay homage to the city in literal terms. The song sounds like a mash-up remix of a lost, post-disco New York rock track, with snarling guitars and a buoyant bass line. MCA raps, "Dear New York, I hope you're doing well/ I know a lot's happened and you've been through hell/ So we give thanks for providing a home/ Through your gates at Ellis Island we passed in droves."
With the World Trade Center on the cover, ‘To the 5 Boroughs’ is a salute to New York, full of Old-skool Hip-hop beats and political anger. The Beasties attack Bush and the Iraq War on tracks including ‘That's It That's All’. But there are also playful cuts such as ‘Oh Word?’, ‘The Brouhaha’ and ‘Shazam!’
The time honoured saying reminds us that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Thus, six years since their last studio album, the Beastie Boys come back and deliver the things we’ve been waiting/lacking/longing for. ‘To The 5 Boroughs’ presents the trio - now insisting to be called B-Boys - in the light we’ve got to know and love them and the way we want them to sound.
8/10
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The punks of rap [additional notes]
The Beastie Boys started out as the first white group to offer a successful send-up of rap although they developed respect and a serious slant on the genre very quickly whilst managing to combine adolescent charm with topics that were no-hurdles to regular chart-action. Their first attempt at rap was the 1983 12-inch spoof, ‘Cookie Puss’ but altered the tack after teaming up with Rick Ruben who’d found a Def Jam label a year later.
Within short time Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch, Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz and Mike ‘Mike D’ Diamond appeared in one of the first rap movies, ‘Krush Groove’, with single ‘She’s On It’. With their popularity growing, they were ill-advisedly booked as opening act on Madonna‘s ‘Virgin Tour’ that saw the trio shout obscenities to the audiences and got booed in return.
All three members come from artistic/wealthy New York families and proved to be big trouble: success of ‘Fight For Your Right’ in 1987 saw them out on a headlining tour that was plagued by lawsuits, arrests, blame for violence and vandalism, and accusations of sexism and obscenity. A year later, they appeared in Run DMC’s movie, ‘Tougher Than Leather’.
In 1992 they launched own label and fanzine, ‘Grand Royal’ [imprint closed in 2001 and was recently for sale online], toured with Rage Against The Machine on ‘Rhyme & Reason’ dates and caused controversy by playing at the benefit for Mumia Abu-Jamal, a convicted cop-killer who shot an officer in Philadelphia in 1981... They are also known for their passion for ‘Tibetan Freedom’ campaign, supporting it by benefit concerts.
Over the years, B-Boys have managed to remain one of the most influential Hip-hop acts. They had to overcome the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of being white, Jewish and middle-class to earn da respec’…
Scott Sterling-Wilder
14-6-2004
The Beastie Boys’ album ‘To The 5 Boroughs ’ is released 14 June by Capitol
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