Beastie Boys - Check Your Head


It's time to Check Your Head. It's the third Beastie Boys album, and it's their return to being a band. It's not really hardcore like they started out, it's not alternative rock like everyone calls it, this is a specifically hip hop band. That's surprisingly unique, and there aren't any others i can think of off the top of my head. Lots of collaborations, but nothing so self contained.

Believe it or not, this is a golden age structured album. A mix of songs and interludes, a real back and forth between the sampling and band, silly and serious, all of it designed to get your head bobbing. The album is an audio block party, something for everybody to enjoy. 

Christgau called it a great concept with "half there execution," like they were Sexual Chocolate or p(nmi)t's Audiodetritus or something. I disagree for the simple reason that he is only comparing them to an idealized image of big business mainstream, and his judgement is based on the supposed idea that they aren't good at the New Orleans Jazz style they try to emulate. I've said it before and i'll say it now: who told you you aren't allowed to suck, and why can't i enjoy it? Beastie Boys being a band again was seen as a nod to their little coterie of die hard white fans instead of the first attempt at actually doing it. Like i said a long time ago, there's a lot of love/hate because on one hand they just straight up peaced out on Simmons and Rubin for Capitol's money machine, but on the other they didn't become anything radically different from what they had always been. He's essentially reading the band as a board meeting gimmick when they aren't. They were a punk band that liked hip hop and invented being both at the same time. It's like ragging on Uriah Heep for being near-prog, you're missing the obvious point that that's what they're doing on purpose.

What does that have to do with anything? Well 3/4 of the concept for this album is about the lunacy of Bush and Schwarzkopf and Desert Storm. I won't weigh in on that topic, other than to remind you that 10 year old Bottle watched the largest coalition of nations since WWII hurl depleted uranium at Iraq while Saddam Hussein threw the biological weapons we sold him back at us on live television. Yay, sports team!

Ok, i checked my head. Still pretty terrible in there. At least I have Biz Markie singing about the Beastie Boys coming home to cancel out the air raid sirens.

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