rollingstone gives a rare 5 star review to the new beastie boys album

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

kind of surprising
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Beastie Boys

To The 5 Boroughs

These are some things that have changed since the Beastie Boys' last studio album, Hello Nasty, was released in 1998: There is no Grand Royal Records; the trio shut down its eccentric custom label in 2001. Adam "MCA" Yauch's deep, rough growl is now an even deeper, stranger weapon of taunt; he now fires boasts and insults like a hip-hop Tom Waits, in a smoker's-cough harangue scoured free of melody.
And there is no World Trade Center. This may seem like a weird time -- wartime, everywhere you look -- for Yauch, Adam "AdRock" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond, all on the cusp of forty, to make a record that in its gibes and hyperspeed is the closest they have come to their old-school fight and comedy on 1986's Licensed to Ill. Actually, it is the perfect time. To the 5 Boroughs is an exciting, astonishing balancing act: fast, funny and sobering. "I bring the shit that's beyond bizarre," Horovitz asserts against the quick hop and spears of sampled brass in "Ch-Check It Out." "Like Miss Piggy," he adds, apropos of nothing, to which all three respond in idiot falsetto, "Who moi?" In "Right Right Now Now," the Beasties lament Columbine and call for "more gun controlling" over tense rolls of Muzak harpsichord, then twist the chorus of their biggest hit into a free-speech cheer, retrieving Public Enemy's inversion from 1988: "We're gonna party for the right to fight." The Beasties pour the Pink Champale and Riunite here, but they're not drinking to forget. They turn the dis on "a president we didn't elect" in "It Takes Time to Build": "Is the U.S. gonna keep breaking necks/ Maybe it's time that we impeach Tex."

more:
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album?id=6040857&pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=triple1

[Political_Junkie]

1. Wow, that's cool.

Love the Beasties. Have to get this one.

[dolo amber]

2. Sa-WEET!

:bounce:

The single is great, and it looks like the rest of the album will be too! :D

[Supply Side Jesus]

3. I never buy music.....but

for this I will make the exception. Gotta support the artists that think. Anybody else remeber that Beatsie Boy single during the run up to the invasion? THAT was a great song. Damn if I can't remeber the song's name.

[name not needed]

4. world gone mad?

[Hailtothechimp]

5. I was hoping that track would be on the new CD.

But it isn't. I picked it up on the day it came out (first rap I've bought since Licensed to Ill back in the 80s) and I'm so glad I did. A couple of things if you're interested:

The image of the twin towers on the cover will get people's attention. But it's not a gratuitous thing at all. The whole CD is a tribute to NYC, which is a lot more than bu$h's phony show there this summer will be.

The references to New York are all over the place, and they can (and hopefully will) call bullshit on the republicans using the city as a stage prop.

The lyrics are all included in a classy corrugated heavy stock type of paper that folds out from the CD case. This helps me (and no doubt many others) to catch a lot of the references they make. Now I can follow along as I hear it, which is much appreciated.

The single, Ch-Check it out, is far from being the best track. If you judge the whole CD by the single you hear on the radio, you're not doing yourself any favors. Buy the whole thing and see for yourself.

I like the message on a lot of these tracks. An Open Letter to NYC (track 12, maybe) is a testament to the diversity and dynamics of the city, which no other place has or ever will have. There's a song Right Right Now Now that says we should work together because we haven't for too long (and has some pro-gun control sentiment). It also has a "fuck the KKK" line thrown in for good measure. Some of it's silly or just out there, but on the whole they seem to have a philosophy most of us would agree with.

Track #4, Time to Build, is very catchy and the most anti-bu$h track on the whole thing. A couple of the rhymes are in my tagline. It's not an entirely anti-bu$h tirade, but there is no question where they stand, which is not in disagreement with any true blue DUer here.

I would recommend it, but that's just one opinion. If you should pick it up, happy listening.