Well? To the 5 Buroughs. It’s been out for three days now. I think Check Your Head is still their best, but I’m really enjoying this one. A lot. Really.
Yes.
Check out the links given in this Memepool note.
Don’t buy damaged goods.
Eh. I’m underwhelmed. I’ve been listening to it during my commute and it just completely fades into the background. “Open Letter to NYC” and “Ch-Check it Out” are my favorite tracks on there, but only because they’re the only ones I remember at all. On any of their other albums, they’d be the throwaway tracks. Even Ill Communication had “Sabotage” and “Flute Loop”; there’s just nothing remarkable about this one.
And so as to calibrate this review: I think that Check Your Head is their best album, but Hello Nasty is the one I like listening to the most.
Good advice, if it’s true. I haven’t tried to use it on a Windows machine yet, but I ripped my copy onto my Mac and didn’t see it installing anything. I didn’t think OS X had any kind of AutoPlay, so you couldn’t inadvertently install anything just by inserting a disc.
Still, if it is genuinely installing stuff without listeners’ permission, then that’s of course unacceptable. I’d like to hear whether it’s really going on, or if it’s just paranoia and misunderstanding.
Apparently you are. IMO, while still not the worst group, they haven’t done anything worthy of excitement since Paul’s Boutique.
Personally, I think it was all downhill after Licensed to Ill. I’ll probably check out the latest at some point though.
No to the OP, but am I the only one to notice the similarity of their meter to Chaucer’s in “The Canterbury Tales”?
I was awfully excited to hear the first single, but man, it’s really mediocre. I won’t buy the new album, most likely.
WG
What, is this still the 80s? Are these yahoos still around?
Feh. Rich Jewish guys from Long Island trying to sound like black kids from the 'hood so they can sell CDs to dumb whitebread kids in suburbs and small towns.
“Right to Party” my ass.
Sounds like somebody is stuck in the '80s.
C’est la guerre
Seriously. I guess releasing six albums after their first one, including two that are acknowledged by a ton of people (both black and white, and even – Jewish!!!) as seminal hip-hop recordings, as well as starting a record label that’s launched several indie artists, doesn’t make up for releasing a popular record when you’re starting out in the late 80’s. Even if you’ve done everything possible to distance yourself from that record.
Hell, even the “rich Jewish kids” bit is an anachronism. Everybody in hip-hop is trying to sell CDs to dumb whitebread kids in suburbs and small towns. 'Cuz they’s got the money, you see. That’s kind of what happened during the 90’s. There were books and TV shows about it.
Shhh…he’s a doctor. He must be right.
Well, I for one, have really been loving this album.
In fact, as a whole, I like it better than anything they’ve put out since Paul’s Boutique. I just don’t like their experimental, jazz-influenced stuff. Color me philistine, but me likes the old school beats more than the denser, less accessable tracks they’ve filled out the past few albums with. Especially the instrumentals (ZZZZzzzz…)
And I’m digging the more political tone of the stuff, too. I’ve been waiting years now for some larger bands to make politically conscious music. This fits the ticket rather well.
I’ll be interested to hear if anyone knows anything about the beastie’s album installing software against the user’s wishes.
According to Slashdot, the new album doesn’t have DRM spyware in the US or UK releases, but it does in other countries.
Still, it’s good to make sure the CDs you buy don’t have that crap on them, and to make sure record stores know their customers care about it. Ask the record store clerk if the album has copy protection, or if it’ll install anything when you try to play it on your computer, or if it’ll work in your car MP3 player and your Linux computer. If he says no, make sure you’ll be allowed to return it in case he’s wrong.
Nice post. You perfectly cultivate the high-and-mighty dismissive tone while demonstrating that you’ve probably heard a few of their popular songs at most while never listening closely or finding out what the group is about or where they come from. Way to go, Doc.
Check Your Head is the best album by far. Ill Comm. was decent. Everything after that was crappy, though I did like In Sounds From the Way Out mainly because sometimes I like to listen to the funk they play.
Hello Nasty was, well nasty.
I just don’t get the obsession with the BBoys. They were (are) decent MCs but nothing special to me.
Its also tough to buy into them being cool rappers when they look geriatric nowadays.
To each his own though. My daughter LOVES them. Shes 4.
seriousart says “color me a philistine.” That’s funny.
When I first read that, I thought you said “Flute Loop” was a throw-away track. I thought you were nuts.
This album, IMO, doesn’t have a lot of stuff like “Flute Loop,” “Egg Man,” “Stand Together,” or " The Negotiation Limerick File"; but, it doesn’t have anything that makes me want to hit the skip button, either. It’s all good at the very least, and some is much better. Putting out a whole album instead of a few singles with some filler is pretty impressive to me. Not since Dusty Trails have I heard such a complete piece of work. (Well, I may have to back-peddle from that: Thievery Corporation’s “Sounds From the Thievery Hi-Fi” and Marc Antoine’s “Best Of” come to mind—though Best Of’s may not count.)
That’s good, 'cos nobody is selling it.** It’s not like they’re Van Halen or Aerosmith, totally sold out, several decades since they lost their muse. To the 5 Burroughs (sp?) is still chock full of the je ne sais quois that makes the Beastie Boys the Beastie Boys without putting out a re-hash of their previous stuff.
BTW, anybody got a reliable link about the copy protection software? I’ve heard of “slashdot,” but I’ve never actually taken the time to explore it. I did google for “beastie boys” and “copy protection” and all I found was rumor. The closest I came was a sticky thread at the Beastie Boys forum—YMMV. One interesting post I did read somewhere in my searching said that all the tastes of the new album have been from the Japanese release and, therefore, so much for copy protection. Again, YMMV. I’m curious about the Straight Dope on this.
Lastly, get that Dusty Trails album. It is heaven.
**Not to be a tool. I just love that line from Snatch.
Hardcore worshiper of the genius that is the Beatsie Beatsie Beatsie Beatsie Beatsie Beatsie Boys checking in here.
I don’t have the new one yet.
I don’t pay full price for CDs. I buy WAY too many CDs, and whenever I buy a new CD at full retail price, I can’t help thinking that I coulda bought two or four used CDs for the same money. So I don’t do it.
But I just might for this one. Or the new PJHarvey . . . haven’t decided yet.
Here is a link to the Slashdot news item and comments.
Basically, I’m finding a bunch of links to message boards. The only news article I found didn’t mention the Beastie Boys at all, only The Velvet Underground and Guns-n-Roses.
Some of the posts say that people have ripped the so-called copy-protected CDs sans hassle, others say that the alleged software only makes changes that a human ear can’t detect. Another claims that there is no proper “compact disc” mark on the disc because the alleged software makes it unfit for that designation; however, it is easy to see that the “Enhanced CD” trademark on the new Beastie Boys album has been around since 1995 (submitted in '95, first used '96, published for opposition '97, registered '98) and is for CDs that are both audio CD and multi-media CD-ROM.
So I guess I feel like this is still just a rumor.