Do NOT Even JOKE - The Beastie Boys & "Let It Wreck Your Mind" | MUSIC is not a GENRE - Episode #22

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*If you don’t know the Beastie Boys by now, stop reading this and go find out. Get their EXCELLENT Beastie Boys Book and/or watch the Spike Jonze doc that comes out tomorrow. I might whip through some of their history in the video, but I’m not going to flesh it out here.*

Beastie Boys are top 10 for me. Not in a revolving “these 50 bands could easily be my top 10” sense. Real no joke never out top 10. Here’s why:

1. They kicked it off right when I was the age to most appreciate them.

2. They were funny from the get-go – serious about music but never too serious about themselves.

3. They’re from NYC, a place I was in love with decades before I moved here.

4. They showed me that otherwise totally uncool white boys could rap if they wanted to.

5. They took hip hop to places it hadn’t been, yet still respected its roots and the people who pioneered it.

6. They evolved. Musically. Professionally. Personally. They never quit growing and exploring.

7. They mixed it up. They were never content to stick to the boom bap, because they were too curious not to always find something else to weave into their sound.

8. They LOVE music of all kinds. Love and respect and revere and take the piss out of but still know what good listening means.

9. They were never quite what you thought they were.

It’s still quite hard for me to believe that Adam Yauch is dead, and has been for eight years. Like Prince or Bowie or Cobain or Lennon, the world doesn’t seem right without them in it. It’s like they’re still here. Do I wish the other two Beasties would still make music? Hell yes! Do I understand why they don’t and totally respect it? Hell yes! But it hurts not to look forward to their next release every few years.

So what’s so special about this 12”? First, it’s the only thing of theirs I have on vinyl. Second, these songs were not hits in the USA, yet I liked them better than some of the hits from Licensed to Ill. Third, the B side was written by their compatriots and early tour mates, Run-D.M.C. And fourth, the style from Side A to Side B has a real past-present-future shift. “She’s On It” has that Rick Rubin heavy metal/rap hybrid, while “Slow and Low” pairs a BOOMING 808 kick with what sound like live guitar band samples. It’s more than the subtle shift it sounds like. A song like “Slow and Low” both pulled from the 808-heavy past, and presaged their cut and paste work on Paul’s Boutique. *Side note: my partner and I were down at the site of Paul’s Boutique in the “before days”, and there’s a cool little Beasties tribute mural there.*

When their first album came out, and subsequently 12” singles like this one here, my brother and my DJ-ing partner/friend learned the lyrics and rapped them at school dances over the instrumental tracks. I’m fairly sure I was Ad Rock, my bro was MCA, and my friend Mike S. was Mike D. We absorbed it so early on, that it became part of our DNA. You can hear that plain as day on a song like this:

REC - "Let It Wreck Your Mind" (formerly "I Took One for Me" - from the album Syncopy for the Weird)

Do you have any history with the Beasties? With any kind of hip hop? Discuss dammit!

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