We Gonna Party for the Right to Fight

For all the kiddies out there wondering what us old people talk about when we talk about being “Old School,” check out the Beastie Boys catalogue. They were Old School even when they were the new kids on the block. And though their musical leaning have evolved over the years, their flow has remained old school, interplaying with each other as MCA, Ad-Rock and Mike D trade off lines even though posse albums died around the time of the West Coast-East Coast feud. So Old School, there have been no vanity projects, just the three of them releasing albums together.

It took a while for Hot Source Committee Part One to see the light after the diagnosis of MCA with cancer (who now has a clean bill of health) which delayed the album which was originally supposed to come out in late 2009. In traditional Beastie Boys fashion, who never miss chance to make a joke, retiled the album Hot Source Committee Part Two, with almost the exact track list as Part One. Now the tracks originally set for Part Two will be released as Part One at a later date. Maybe.

Hot Source Committee Part Two is reminiscent of the electric vibe of Hello, Nasty but with more live instrumentations at points throughout the album like on the guitar fuzz of Say It or the punk drive of Lee Majors Come Again, their snottiest work since Sabotage. But aside from the opener upbeat seventies porn groove of Make Some Noise, most of the tracks lack the weird fun of tracks off of Hello, Nasty. And when all the other current rappers are over abusing auto-tune, the Beastie Boys over did it a bit on the vocoder especially on Tadlock’s Glasses.

But when their voices do come through it is classic Beastie Boys, whether they giving nods to the olden days shouting out rotary connection, John Salley and implore the listeners to be kind and rewind while Mike D calls himself the Jewish Brad Pitt. And it is about time someone put Kenny Rodger’s Roasters on blast (even if Kenny Rogers’ Gambler is my gambling theme). And Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament may be their funkiest instrumental to date. Though Part Two may not stand up to the rest of their catalogue, here’s hoping Hot Source Committee Part One makes it out before the end of the world next year.

Song to Download – Make Some Noise

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.