The BEEeeeeeaaaaasssstiiiieeeeee BOOOOoooooyyyzzzz

^You're supposed to sound like this when you read the title

I think somewhere around the time of 2004 right around the release of their 6th album, To The 5 Boroughs, I remember there being countless Beastie Boys marathons on MTV2. These marathons were aimed at promoting them as well as giving people insight as to where they are coming from, this marathon opened up my ears to a new sound, "The Sounds of Science."

L-R Mike D, King Ad-Rock, MCA

Like most people the first song that hit me was "Intergalactic" [which is still my favorite]. The song featured something I never knew I liked before, sampling. Despite being a hip hop track, Intergalactic used samples from jazz and classical music to produce a very complex beat that just seemed to flow on forever. The song Intergalactic won them a grammy while the video won them a VMA, apparently, I had good taste in music. Even though by now Intergalactic was old, the impact stuck and I found myself searching for more Beastie Boys music.

As mentioned before, this was during the release of the album To The 5 Boroughs and it seemed only natural to look for songs from this album. "Ch-Check it Out" was the most popular track off that album and the video for it played regularly. This song was a bit less interesting than Intergalactic but the video was pure lolwut and I couldn't stop watching. The next video to debut was "Triple Trouble" which sampled the Sugar Hill Gang's 'Rapper's Delight'. Yet again this video was pure lolwut but this in particular put more focus on the fourth member of the group Mix Master Mike. Mix Master Mike was the newest member of the group who came on right before the release of the 'Hello Nasty' album, of course looking for more stuff from him lead me to this song "3 MCs and 1 DJ" OMG that was the most epic piece of DJing I have ever seen in my life.

L-R MCA, Mix Master Mike, Ad-Rock and Mike D

After discovering Mix Master Mike, I went off on a tangent looking for other DJs which is where I discovered people like Fatboy Slim, DJ Qbert and DJ Shadow. He also released some albums for himself most recently the two available for download on him website 'Napalm Rockets' and 'Live Beatdown Vol 1' opened my ears into world of dubstep, which brought me into discovering grime, house and other electronic based genres that now populate most of my music. Anyways to read up more on Mix Master Mike click here.

Back to the Beastie Boys, another song that pulled up was their track, "Fight for Your Right To Party" I didn't fancy that song but the rest of the album, Licensed To Ill [their 1st album btw] was soooo awesome. That album was produced by Rick Rubin [he also produced both Run-DMC's and LL Cool J's first album] the beats were simple and in some cases only had a simple drum beat. By far my favorite song on that album was "Paul Revere" followed by "Hold It Now Hit It"

The Beastie Boys and Run-DMC

If you were paying attention to the video's you would have noticed the huge gap between how they looked then and now. Licensed To Ill was released in 1986 and between then and Hello Nasty they had 3 other albums 'Paul's Boutique', 'Check Your Head' and 'Ill Communication'. These 3 albums grew on me slowly as there was such a large genre gap between these 3 albums and the previous 3 albums I was listening to.

'Check Your Head' was their 3rd album and featured songs composed entirely by them with their own instruments. I like the numerous instrumental tracks on this album but failed to really grasp the other songs until I listened to them one at a time slowly taking in more and more songs. "Gratitude" was my favorite song for a while and eventually songs like "So What'cha Want" and "Skills to Pay the Bills" [dope beat btw] followed.

'Ill Communication' was just as hard to like but featured two of my all time favorite songs [Sabotage and Flute Loop] as well as some more instrumentals [who doesn't like instrumentals]

'Paul's Boutique' is by far my favorite Beastie album. It featured samples from almost every single song and for me describe its awesomeness will not do it justice, so I suggest you listen to the entire album yourself [with an open mind] and take note of how complex the beats are. I leave you with, what I think is the greatest music video ever, "Shadrach".

After 'To The 5 Boroughs' I was delighted to hear that the Beastie Boys were still making albums, 'The Mix-Up' [they won a grammy for that as well] and 'The Hot Sauce Committee Parts 1&2'. The Mix-Up is purely instrumental and it takes another departure from their typical hip hop genre by venturing into the world of jazz. The song "Off the Grid" is just a sample of what to expect from the album. As for the 'Hot Sauce Committee' both parts 1&2 have been put on hold primarily due to the recent illness of MCA. This album however looks promising and is definately worth the wait. "B-Boys in the Cut", "Too Many Rappers" ft Nas and "Lee Majors Come Again" have all met my Beastie Boys approval standards. Definately looking forward to hearing both albums in full, but until then, get better soon MCA.