Beastie Boys : To The 5 Boroughs

[tamarisk]

http://www.undercover.com.au/reviews/urbeastieboystothe5boroughs.html

by Tim Cashmere

The Beastie Boys have come an incredibly long way since their 1986 debut, License To Ill. Despite just six albums in eighteen years, they have leapt from New York's punk underground to worldwide genre-crossing heroes.

Their sixth album 'To The Five Boroughs' is straight out hip hop with DJ Mix Master Mike truly launching his skills into another stratosphere. Thanks to tunes like 'Oh Word?' and the simpler 'Crawl Space' audiences can clearly hear why he was booted out of world DJ competitions (as a result of winning several years running.)

The boys add a strong political flavour to this album, 'Time To Build' states in the verse "We've got a president we didn't elect/the Kyoto treaty he decided to reject/and still the US just wants to flex/Keep doin' that wop we gonna break out necks" leading up to a plain and simple chorus; "It takes a second to wreck it, it takes time to build." Later in 'That's It That's All' they rap "George W. got nothing on me/we got to take the power from he."

Apart from just dedicating the album to their hometown of New York through the title, they also show their love of the city through 'An Open Letter To New York' where they make reference to September 11 and make sure they're welcoming to people of all cultures.

The Beastie Boys have done well for themselves. While on the odd occasion you hit something that perhaps could've been left out, their skills are still there. Even though it took five years, 'To The Five Boroughs' is well worth your time. Besides, they won't be selling out anytime soon if 'Triple Trouble' is right; "I'm a spacializer, rhyme reviser/ain't selling out to advertisers/what you get is what you see/and you won't see me out there advertising!"

Track Listing
Ch-Check It Out
Right Right Now Now
The Hard Way
Time To Build
Rhyme The Rhyme Well
Triple Trouble
Hey Fuck You
Oh Word?
That's It That's All
All Life Styles
Shazam!
An Open Letter To NYC
Crawl Space
The Brouhaha
We Got The

[mp3master1215]

i got an idea for you pic up mirc and go to an xdcc site and you can get it there its that easy. hehe who is your daddy!

[wingnut2600]

This album is rather disappointing to say the absolute least. I am a big B-Boy fan; hell, I started another thread here devoted to this and I have an alias that is an homage to one of their songs. This album loses what made the Beasties distinctive, their ability to interfuse rap with hardcore punk, playing actual instruments, and using ambient instrumentals to weave the album into a corporeal whole.

This album has a few songs that aren't too bad ("triple trouble" and "A Letter to NYC" stand out as not awful and I rather enjoy "Ch-Check It Out!"), but most of the songs have a sound reminiscent of groups that rely solely on canned beats. The beats kill this album. The rhymes are okay; these are the B-boys, I was not expecting Shakespeare for God's sake, but the background rhythms are electronic and boring as all hell. The electronic beats take away from anything good that this album tried to attempt. I am not sure if they are just lazy, or if they think this sounds good. I watched the interview on thei website and they spoke of how they could now do their beats on the computer at home; this makes sense with the lack of depth in the background.

Anyways, just search for some rare B-Boys stuff if you are looking for a fix... perhaps the French Root Down EP or Some Old Bullshit. At least with those albums you will be hearing the Beastie Boys instead of whatever abomination this album portrays.

This album makes me sad... perhaps they can look back at this album and realize that they fucked up and change what they did wrong. Perhaps these boys have finally become men and lost the youthful vigor required to start the party right.

Hmmm... since this seems to be looking like a review, I will give it a rating:

the 'nut gives it 4/10 and an upside-down, disappointed smiley :(