Beastie Boys Album Preview: Political Bleats And Old-School Beats

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Beastie Boys Album Preview: Political Bleats And Old-School Beats

04.09.2004 8:46 PM EDT

Beastie Boys' MCA (file)
Photo: Capitol


 Having fun in troubled times: That's the theme running through the Beastie Boys' new album, To the 5 Boroughs, due this summer.
Part love letter to New York, part political commentary and part, well, pop-cultural smorgasbord, the 15-song Boroughs is the trio's first new LP since 1998's Hello Nasty.
"The last album was a good album," Beastie Boy Ad-Rock said in a prerecorded video interview that accompanied media-listening sessions for the new album. "But coach felt we needed to work on defense and stuff in the off-season. So the past — I don't know, three years? — we've been working on defense."
Fans won't have much time to contemplate how different the older, ostensibly wiser Beastie Boys are from their younger selves. The album's first song, "Ch-Check It Out," also its first single, is a blast from the past, with Mike D, Ad-Rock and MCA mugging for the mic and weaving through a rumbling bed of throwback breakdance beats.
Boroughs has a distinctly old-school feel thanks to synthesized bass lines and scattered percussion laced with classic hip-hop samples. On "Triple Trouble" the Beasties flow into the harmonized rhymes of vintage hip-hop group Double Trouble. While DJ Mix Master Mike cuts up the song's extended rhythms, Ad-Rock rhymes, "Versatile like All-Temp-a-Cheer/ If you wanna drink, call Mr. Belvedere/ Run this rap game like a brigadier."
The litany of pop-culture references is matched, if not eclipsed, by the amount of politically and socially engaged lyrics. The Beasties aren't shy about who they fault for the chaos they see around them — and it's safe to say no one in the Bush family will be rocking this Beasties album in the limo.
"We've got a president we didn't elect/ The Kyoto Treaty he decided to neglect," MCA rhymes on "Time to Build." It's one of several songs in which he overtly, colloquially comments on the issues in the world today.
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[CalebHayes]

1. I heard they might headline Lala-plausa this summer????

anyone got more info on that?

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

2. news to me

would be cool

but i do know that sonic youth, the flaming lips, modest mouse, morrisey, and string cheese incident are confirmed