It seems like every other week this year there has been another twentieth anniversary retrospective of a landmark album (compared to this year where so far, unless The Black Keys album ages well, there really has not been one yet). The most recent much ballyhooed anniversary was for Ill Communication. With Check Your Head, these were the two “weird albums” from the Beastie Boys that fit in very well with the early nineties explosion of hip-hop and alternative rock. After Ill Communication, which is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, the trio went back to mostly straight hip-hop for their (presumably) last three lyrical based albums.
Even though the Beastie Boys started out as a punk band and there was plenty of live instrumentations on Check Your Head, no one was expecting Sabotage as the first single off the album. The song managed to rock harder than most songs it shared time with on alt-rock radio stations. Ad Rock just let go of all his anger in three short minutes while the highlight of the song was the MCA bass breakdown which was the highlight of any of their live shows (their performance remains one of the greatest in VMA history). The song sat right in the middle of the album with similar, short, punk songs Tough Guy and Heart Attack Man at the beginning and end o the album.
Of course you cannot talk Sabotage without mentioning the awesome Spike Jones. Lampooning seventies cop shows, the Beastie Boys were game to put on silly wigs and mustaches while sliding across car hoods and tackle each other into pools. I sure there were many people twenty years ago hoping that a real Sabotage television show would air right after Beavis and Butt-Head.
Though in the middle of their live music phase, there are still plenty of great songs on Ill Communication that was closer to the hip-hop end of their musical spectrum. The best is the Q-Tip assisted (one of only two guest verses in the Beastie catalogue, Nas being the other) Get it Together where Tip effortlessly plays off the boys in an old school pass the mic type song. The album also features the rare flute-infused rap track, not just on the album opener Sure Shot but a flute sample also naturally showed up on Flute Loop. Root Down split the difference, a heavy funky bassline with some tight lyrics over them.
After Ill Communication the Beastie Boys stuck to their hip-hop roots with their next three lyrics based albums with the instrumental The Mix-Up, which was more funk based than the punk sounds of Ill Communication. Unfortunately with the death of MCA, this is probably all we will get to hear from the Beastie Boys unless they clean out the vaults. But with albums like Ill Communication, their legacy is more than set as one of the greats of any genre.
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