Review Summary: Beastie Boys at their finest in years; the world rejoices
Beastie Boys have been the representative of that one empty space in pop culture for 25 years now. They’re devoid of trends but they make music with a sort of pop appeal. Even the Beastie Boys at their most experimental (Check Your Head, Ill Communication) still make music that appeals to the casual music listener. The Boys have taken almost every trend in pop culture during their career and have flipped it inside out. Maybe this comes from boredom with the standard form, or maybe it comes from a willingness to experiment with new styles. Either way, it still sounds fantastic. In a recent interview with
Rolling Stone, (a magazine I don’t normally read) the boys said they loved to write music but they were really lazy so many of their ideas never came into fruition.
Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 is the opposite of the second half of that statement. They did write music and their ideas came to fruition. After rapper MCA’s battle with cancer, the Beastie Boys have finally come out with the hard worked masterpiece we all deserve.
Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is the album we needed after that (mostly) atrocious attempt at political hip-hop with
To The 5 Boroughs.
HSCP2 opens up with “Make Some Noise” which harkens back to Check Your Head-era Beastie Boys with its funky, casio keyboards and static, distorted vocals. In fact most of the album harkens back to
Check Your Head in the sense that it carries most of what made COH great. Distorted vocals, lots of instrumental sections, randomly short songs, and a small collection of hit-making tracks. Songs like “Too Many Rappers” and “Here’s A Little Something For Ya” show the Beastie Boys at their most swaggerish, dropping their freshest lyrics with confidence and dated-but-still-funny pop culture references. Shout-outs to old school TV shows, music and celebrities run the gamut of the record. It’s all so fresh even if we’ve heard it all before. “OK” is an example of this, with its 80s-vocoder chorus and disco power-keyboards reminding us exactly why the 80s were great, even if you never grew up then. (Also, the “Be kind, rewind” reference was freaking cool).
I’ve got to write more about “Too Many Rappers” here. It’s one of the best songs on the record, even if that is still just an opinion. Nas sounds his best since
Stillmatic, the boys deliver their braggadocio with amazing levels of swagger, and that chorus slams so hard it’s impossible to not just snap your neck back and forth to it. Oh and that new beat totally beats out the originals minimalist, drum-heavy stomp with alien keyboards and fuzzy sound effects. Other than that, there are still many memorable tracks to be experienced here. “Say It” is still more COH-worship, “Don’t Play No Game That I Can Win” brings a catchy, reggae-heavy vibe with an excellent chorus by future star Santigold, and “Long Burn The Fire” has what comes close to being the catchiest beat on the album, with a wah heavy guitar and a slow, riding beat.
The best thing about
Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is that it can be listened to as a full album or it can be listened to on a shuffle-type play, with individual songs playing and standing out on their own. Either way it still sounds great, but it just shows the versatility of the Beastie Boys. They can craft great singles while simultaneously making even greater albums. On their own, the songs are incredible. As a whole album, HSCP2 just rocks the house. You can’t deny what it does, and you can’t deny it does it well. It’s a throwback album while also being the freshest release this year in hip-hop, after getting loaded up on terrible pop-rap(looking at you
Lasers) and standard east coast grime(looking at you
Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang). The boys are standing tall and proud amongst their peers like they should be, recognizing and playing with the fact that they are legends. They’re one of the few artists who give Def Jam credibility. In fact, the only minor quibble I had with the album was that there weren’t enough songs. Then again, maybe that’s for the best, as it really is the perfect time length for an album, clocking in at somewhere between 40-50 minutes.
The Beastie Boys have finally revitalized their career with HSCP2. They stand high as legends while still experimenting with new sounds in order to keep from getting old. Despite aging and battles with cancer, the Beasties sound younger than ever. They revisit their past and more, whilst keeping up with modern trends, throwing it all in a blender, and then see what sticks. I’ll be damned if
Hot Sauce Committee isn’t a candidate, or isn’t even, album of the year. The boys at some of their finest, HSCP2 gets a 4.5/5.
