Dadrock Revisited: The Beastie Boys “Hello Nasty”

The Beastie Boys/Hello Nasty (1998)

Are the Beastie Boys overrated, underrated, or properly rated? Highly subjective, but I’m going with underrated, for these reasons:

• Every successful band falls into one of two categories: instant remarkable success, or a slow build to success over several albums. The Beastie Boys are the only band that I can think of that has done BOTH. And not in the order you’d expect. Consider this arc:
• Their debut Licensed To Ill (1986) is a cornerstone of my musical upbringing — the biggest, most groundbreaking and “of the moment” album of its time. I was a freshman in high school, one of all of our most important musical moments. Look up the top tracks of the year you were a freshman. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

….those tracks are pretty big in your life, amirite?

• Then after getting robbed blind by Def Jam, they jet to LA and sign with Capitol. They spend a fortune making Paul’s Boutique (1989). By the time it comes out, most of their beer soaked fans from the first go ‘round have moved onto NWA and the next generation of hip hop. Only their most strident fans hang around to witness the brilliance of this album — a sonic collage of so many samples there are multiple websites devoted to sorting it out. For everyone else, it takes them 2–3 years (my college years, BTW) to appreciate it.
• Just in time for their comeback, Check Your Head (1992) comes out. This time the Beasties are a band. As shitty as their timing was for the release of Paul’s Boutique, this time they arrive right on time. They’ve traded their soiled gym t-shirts and gold VW chains for Dickies and beanies. They open a hipster clothing store that sells Dickies and beanies. With “So Whatcha Want” and “Pass The Mic”, their second chapter is obstensably complete. This time slow and low that is the tempo. They were a flash in the pan, and THEN a slow train coming.
• Ill Communication (1994) just turned 25. Pardon me whilst I replace the tennis balls on my walker. A victory lap for them, but a compelling one. It featured their most iconic visual moment since Licensed To Ill, the Spike Jonze directed “Sabotage” music video. They were never big on collaborations or guest tracks with other rappers; Q-Tip joining them for “Get It Together” is a hip hop high point by any standard. This was the true end of Beastie Boys 2.0.

So what for Beastie Boys 3.0?

In the interest of full disclosure I’ve been on a bit of a Beastie kick recently (obviously), having attended their book tour which was so profoundly awesome I’d need a separate thousand words to describe it. Then I consumed the book in both printed form and as an audiobook. Both are equally great. I really suggest you invest in both. In it, Ad Rock makes his case for Hello Nasty (1998) being their best album. Part of his argument is the fact that it features the most disparate styles of music that shouldn’t be on the same album but are, and somehow work. It features “Intergalactic”, which is a pretty fucking awesome song, right? His words, and mine.

If you’re still here dear reader, perhaps you want to know what I think of Hello Nasty. Well I love it, primarily for these reasons (and because bullet points are our friends):

• If Licensed To Ill is their Beer Period, and Paul’s Boutique/Check Your Head/Ill Communication their Weed Period, Hello Nasty is their Coffee Period. The album opens with “50 cups of coffee and you know it’s ON!” The most memorable line of its most memorable song is “I like my sugar with coffee and cream!” So more accurately it’s their Sugar with Coffee and Cream Period.
• It stands as their most expansive album in that there are moments that would be at home on any of their albums.
• If I’m going to continue to relate their music to eras of my life, 1998 was around the time when I had moved in with my girlfriend who is now my wife. I remember having a pool party at my in-laws house and we were listening to it. Perfect pool party album.
• It is their weirdest album, which is worth something. Consider the “onandon” loop into the “El Rey y Yo” by Los Angeles Negros. Who would think to sample that track in the way it was sampled? The Beastie Boys, that’s who. An absolutely ridiculous moment.
• This album proves them being criminally underrated as MCs. “I’m the king of Boggle/There is none higher/I got 11 points off the word quagmire”. C’mon.
• All that being said, Hello Nasty is not their best album. Maybe for a pool party. Ad Rock hypes the fact that it has the most tracks of any Beastie Boys album; as a result it definitely has fluff. In the Beastie Boys Book, they recount recording their “Dr Lee, PHD” with “Scratch” Lee Perry at a studio in Manhattan. The story is 1,000x more interesting than the song itself, which is unlistenable. As are “Electrify” and “Dedication”.
• It’s 67 minutes long, which is almost long enough to be considered a double album, even though double albums weren’t really a thing in ’98. Like most double albums, you could distill it down to a single album of its best tracks and it would hold up better. If they went fully fluff free:

1. Super Disco Breakin’
2. The Move
3. Remote Control
4. Just A Test
5. Body Movin’
6. Intergalactic
7. Putting Shame In Your Game
8. Three MC’s and One DJ
9. The Grasshopper Unit
10. The Negotiation Limerick File
11. Song For Junior*

*Song For Junior is fluffy, but would made a nice coda to the album.

Now THAT is a fucking fantastic album.