The Brag

Beastie Boys
Make Some Noise. Again.
By Matt Roden

“The title, we can’t actually tell you what it means. It is code for several different operative manoeuvres that we’re encountering at this particular time. All we can say at this particular time is that it’s hot and it is all encompassing.”

Oh – Beastie Boys back. New album Hot Sauce Committee Part II dropped on April 29. What did you want to know? Jam slamming, street-stalking single? Check. Avant-garde video accompaniment? Check. Nonsensical quote-filled press packs? See the comment from Ad Rock above… It’s the first Beastie Boys rap release in seven years with the same old gimmicks. So can we please stop taking them for granted now?

When the Beasties broke in 1986 it was with a whole new archetype: the kid brother who stole his sibling’s beers and smokes and headed out on the town. It’s no coincidence that MCA was dating Molly Ringwald – these guys were as faux-bratty as a pack could get, their antics playing like Ferris Beuller’s Day Of Burning Out. And 25 years since Licence To Ill introduced them to the world, it’s as good a time as ever to rethink the Beasties’ legacy.

Whether it’s the 25th anniversary or Ad Rock’s battle with throat cancer that’s made the Boys reflective, this new album reeks of nostalgia. “It was written as a prequel to Licensed To Ill,” explains MCA. “What is it all about? It’s like a rollercoaster ride. When you just get to the top and you about to drop off and boom! The person in the front row throws up, the throw up flies onto the people in the back. We’re sort of like guys in the front that are throwing up, and the people who are listening to us are like the people riding in the back.” Of course. It’s not like the Beastie Boys ever lost their delinquency, despite protests from the greying members. “I’m a grown-up,” declares MCA. “Look, I’m wearing a tie and a blazer and everything. I’m like set, I’m all adulted up.”

Hot Sauce is an album of old school released by a bunch of gracefully-aging whip-smart knuckleheads. With one foot in the Bronx and the other in the Borscht Belt, they’re back on old turf after years of polishing their shtick. Have a listen to the new old simple back-and-forths, the duck-call synth squawks and vaudeville honked melodies. There are the novelty songs, the self-hype, the cheap gags, the braggadocio. The Beastie Boys are rewriting their own history. “It’s set in 1985, 1986 – it’s a period piece. A missing link,” MCA continues. “Like if you’re an archaeologist or an anthropologist and you’re searching for the link between apes and humans and you couldn’t find that skull – maybe it didn’t exist and then you just wanted to make it and show it to people and be like, ‘Yo, this is the skull that proves the whole thing that I was talking about before.’”

The album sounds rushed in the best sense. It captures the nonchalance of their youthful recordings and punk rock roots; that unescapable feeling that while you’re picking away at each audible layer, the band has just laid this shit down between whippit hits and tag runs. “We wanted to keep it raw, which is a bit of work these days, because a lot of the machinery tends to be too clean,” MCA says. Soaked in heavy echoes and borderline-amateur sound play, you can hear that quality the whole way through. Album highlight ‘Nonstop Disco Pack’ shakes and reverbs like it was taped on some non-stop subway journey – NYC has always played a part in their sound, but this time the very pipes and stairwells bash around through the album like it was unavoidable. “I think we actually kind of moved somewhat on this record to find noises that really set a certain tone – noises that you could probably never convert into sheet music,” says Mike D. “Like in the song ‘Say It’ – it might be like a guitar feedback that’s looped and it’s building, it serves to build a certain tension, it actually makes your body feel a certain way, as much if not more than notated music ever could.”

None of which hits the heavy rotation auto-tune-chorus, after-school-brass-band or African-drum-sample buttons that we’re hearing in other notable recent hip hop releases. “I think that we’re kind of making our own thing and I think that’s kind of how we continue this band, to not follow what trends are happening. We make our own trends, for just the three of us… We’re kind of like Philippe Petit,” explains Ad Rock. Comparing themselves to an indecipherable tightrope artist is about right. Precariously walking the fine line between cutting edge and oldies act, serious musicians and prank-rappers, it’s a thrill to see the Boys wobbling along the path, delivering on what they’ve promised from their earliest releases.

And so: polite applause, stifled chuckles and unconscious head-bobbing as the Beasties serve up this dish again. As the willing and eager celebrity cameos attest in their latest video outing (check out YouTube for the full 29 minutes), The Beastie Boys are a pop-culture institution, whether they intend it or not. “I don’t think that we do. You can’t avoid it, culture is there, it’s out there. We don’t stay outside of culture, we’re in culture. We have videos on MTV and downloadable stuff. We certainly watch TV. I eat Haagen-Dazs Ice cream. I like most of the Haagen-Dazs flavours, I really do. They make a great vanilla, obviously.”

The Beastie Boys may seem as sweet and ubiquitous as that standby dessert, but even this far on they’re more like some ungodly concoction of pop-rocks and bourbon than straight-up vanilla. Make some noise.

What: Hot Sauce Committee Part II is out now on EMI