narrowcast: Deep Album Cuts Vol. 371: Beastie Boys

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 371: Beastie Boys

The longer this series goes on, the more it feels absurd that I haven't certain covered certain artists, and the Beastie Boys feel like one of them, but Licensed To Ill was released on this day in 1986, so it feels like a good time to look back at their catalog.

Beastie Boys album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Time To Get Ill

2. Rhymin & Stealin

3. Posse In Effect

4. Slow Ride

5. Car Thief

6. High Plains Drifter

7. Egg Man

8. B-Boy Bouillabaisse: Hello Brooklyn

9. Finger Lickin' Good

10. The Maestro

11. Stand Together

12. Live At P.J.'s

13. Heart Attack Man

14. Flute Loop

15. Alright Hear This

16. The Update

17. Super Disco Breakin'

18. I Don't Know featuring Miho Hatori

19. The Move

20. Just A Test

21. 3 The Hard Way

22. Hey Fuck You

23. B For My Name

24. 14th Street Break

25. Nonstop Disco Powerpack

26. Long Burn The Fire

Tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 from Licensed To Ill (1986)

Tracks 5, 6, 7 and 8 from Paul's Boutique (1989)

Tracks 9, 10, 11 and 12 from Check Your Head (1992)

Tracks 13, 14, 15 and 16 from Ill Communication (1994)

Tracks 17, 18, 19 and 20 from Hello Nasty (1998)

Tracks 21 and 22 from To The 5 Boroughs (2004)

Tracks 23 and 24 from The Mix-Up (2007)

Tracks 25 and 26 from Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (2011)

The Beastie Boys appeared on a 1999 episode of "Futurama" (which briefly featured "Super Disco Breakin'"), and I chuckled when Fry told them, "Back in the 20th century, I had all 5 of your albums," to which Ad Rock replies "That was a thousand years ago! Now we got 7." That line was kinda prophetic because, depending on whether you count the instrumental album The Mix-Up, they really did end up with 7 (or 8) albums before Adam Yauch died.

I feel like I sort of took the Beastie Boys for granted growing up, they were so ubiquitous and in some ways symbolized the commercial advantage that white rappers tend to have. But given that their music is so much better and more creative and fun than most of the white rappers that came after them, and they frequently returned to their roots as a guitar/bass/drums band and played all kinds of music, I'm a lot more fond of them in retrospect. The way they kept doing those old school back-and-forth flows and rapping in unison like the Treacherous Three or Funky 4 + 1 sounds cool as fuck sometimes, it's kind of shame that the rest of the hip hop world moved away from that kind of rapping decades ago.

There are so many Beastie Boys hits that I've heard so many times that I feel like I don't need to ever hear them again (which may be partly why Paul's Boutique is my favorite album, it doesn't have any overexposed singles). So I really liked just trying to put together a bunch of their best songs without the overplayed stuff and, The Mix-Up aside, without a lot of the jammy instrumental stuff that's all over the '90s albums. I think this might be one of the most enjoyable deep cuts playlists I've ever made. This might be one of the most enjoyable deep cuts playlists I've ever made, the tracks just keep coming at you with so much energy. I won't even get into all the samples the Beastie Boys used on these songs, but I will point out that "Car Thief" was sampled on the Faith No More hit "Midlife Crisis," and the "Hello Brooklyn" section of "B-Boy Bouillabaisse" was the basis for Jay-Z and Lil Wayne's "Hello Brooklyn 2.0."