No. 217: Licensed To Ill

Band: The Beastie Boys
Album: Licensed To Ill
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: One of Rick Rubin's biggest triumphs, "Licensed To Ill" samples heavily from hard rock while still remaining a rap record. IT was the group's debut album and something of a coming out party for the group.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: While it defined the group's early style, that style is really annoying.
Best song: "Brass Monkey" is kind of fun, if sexist.
Worst song: "Girls" is stupid, though you could say that about a lot of songs on the album.
Is it awesome?: Nope.

The Beastie Boys, now, are something of model liberal citizens. They're Buddhists who work for peace in Tibet and they're the type of vegetarians that'll harass you about eating a hamburger. I imagine they get their news from NPR.

But, remember when I said "I've never met a big-time Beasties fan who wasn't a complete idiot?" Let me expand on that. The humor in the Beastie Boys relies upon a snarky, adolescent-type of humor. It's slightly above the poop and dick jokes of Green Day, but it's still the "hey, look at me!" of a child's comic routine.

Anyway, for some reason, the Beastie Boys appeal to idiots especially and frat-boy types in particular. The kind of people who call things they don't like "fucking bullshit" a lot. The kind of people who love "Entourage" because they think "it's totally like my life."

Anyway, while the Beasties are now the type of people who read The Nation and watch "This American Life," their appeal to idiots is because they once were those people. "Licensed To Ill" was originally called "Don't Be A Faggot," but the label wouldn't distribute it with such a title. They've since apologized, but, this record is really just a big frat-rock record.

(I understand this isn't necessarily the way it was meant to be received; Rick Rubin was a metal head and used what he knew. Even the metal-y songs were largely parodies of heavy metal's 80s excesses, specifically "No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn" and the classic "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)." Nevertheless, the record was received as sincere and remains as such.)

---

If you take it as parody -- as the Beasties claim it was, which I believe, at least -- the record is pretty clever. "Brass Monkey" is patently ridiculous and "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)" is similarly stupid. "No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn" does metal in silly tones, as well. "Girls" sounds like what it is: A big joke.

Rubin's production is -- along with the Beasties' snark -- is the defining trait of the record. "Rhymin' & Stealin'" is sort of strange in that Rubin's metal fetish here combines two classic metal songs (the beat from "When The Levee Breaks" and the guitar riff from Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf"). "She's Crafty" is odd, largely because the main sample is, strangely, Zeppelin's "The Ocean" and it doesn't totally fit. Rubin's metal background works sometimes in hip hop (Jay-Z's "99 Problems"), but needs a great MC for it to work.

And, quite frankly, it's hard to claim the Beasties as great MCs. And "Licensed to Ill" isn't a great record.

No. 156: Paul's Boutique

Band: The Beastie Boys
Album: Paul's Boutique
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: The Beasties were the VH1 of their time, taking bits and pieces of pop culture in their lyrics and regurgitating them in a party rap setting. In terms of hip hop record production, this one is important. Like, ridiculously important. The use of huge (and I mean huge) amount of samples on a record is the defining characteristic of "Paul's Boutique," thanks to the Dust Brothers production team. There's almost no new music on here, but simply bits and pieces of old songs. Sampling was toned down in the '90s, thanks to a lawsuit against Biz Markie, but "Paul's Boutique" is one of sampling's greatest triumphs.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: I'm not a big Beasties fan and their snot-nosed-kids rap style gets irritating. Nasal rap is not good. Also, I've never met a big-time Beasties fan who wasn't a complete idiot.
Best song: "Hey Ladies" has, like, 500 samples and the best hook on the record.
Worst song: "What Comes Around" is slower than it should be.
Is it awesome?: I'm not in love with it, but it's clearly one of the most important records of the '80s.

Let's first talk about the actual Beastie Boys in 1989. They'd started as a punk band in the late 70s and became a three-man rap crew before the release of 1986's "Licensed to Ill," wherein they hooked up with the famous (and awesome) Rick Rubin.

Anyway, Rubin's technique -- while different than a lot of hip hop producers in that he used a lot of metal and hard rock samples -- was pretty standard in his use of samples. He didn't layer tons of samples and he kept a pretty standard number in the songs.

Enter the Dust Brothers. The Dust Brothers were a DJ combo that basically tried to cram as many samples in the music as possible. This included standard hip hop samples (Sugarhill Gang, Public Enemy, Afrika Bambaataa, etc.), classic funk tracks (James Brown, Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, etc.), movie sound effects (including effects from "Psycho" and "Jaws") and classic rock (The Eagles, Beatles, Sweet, etc.). The samples are almost piled on top of one another, even causing Chuck D to say "Paul's Boutique had the best beats."

(Of course, this was a time before you had to clear samples, so this type of production is long extinct. Thanks to the landmark Biz Markie/Gilbert O'Sullivan case, samples now need to be cleared.)

The Beastie Boys, of course, did the same thing with their lyrics. Referencing just about everything they could, a new name-brand, advertising slogan or cartoon character name comes up ever second line. Acting like a regurgitation of last night's long night, the Beasties' lyrics dropped references to just about everything under the sun. Don't believe me? Check this out.

It's a record from a forgotten time, almost. It's pre-G-Funk, pre-whole sampling of hooks (a la Puffy) and pre-mashup. To say that "Paul's Boutique" is a landmark album would be understating it.

---

With all that said, I find the Beasties' flow to be kind of annoying. I know the call-and-response rapping style was popular in the '80s -- mostly because Run-D.M.C. did it -- but it gets really annoying when it's three nasally white kids from Brooklyn. Their voices were less annoying on subsequent albums, but "Paul's Boutique" is frustrating. So, while it's hugely important, it's not my favorite record.