60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Sabotage”—Beastie Boys

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

Rob dives into the Beastie Boys' evolution from frat boy rap group to enlightened men while he looks back at the anthem that is “Sabotage.” Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Jane Coaston Producers: Justin Sayles and Devon Renaldo Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Additional Production: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Charles Holmes, the Ringer Music Show. And I'm Cole Kushner from Dysect, and Charles and I are teaming up to create Last Song Standing, a new show where we determine an artist's single best song by debating our way through their entire catalog. And for our first season, we're covering Kendrick Lamar. We're talking good kids, a pimple butterfly, Dan, Mr. Morow, the mixtapes, the Lucy's, and the features. Listen to Last Song Standing on the Dysect podcast feed only on Spotify. See, but they meant it as a joke. They meant it as parody. If you'll give them a little credit, a little agency, they meant it as rye social commentary.

They are mocking. They are criticizing. They are interrogating the concepts of boorish rock star, sexism, and brainless frat-boy kegstand misanthropy by embodying. They throw an extra stupid party to underscore the vapid stupidity of all the partying. They become the stupid thing and cleverly heighten this stupid thing and deliver such an over-the-top exaggeration of the stupid thing that it's clear to everybody how stupid the thing is and also how stupid they think the thing is. Right? The video especially for MTV, let's make the video so stupid, so crass, so exploitative, so sophomoric that nobody can miss the point that the dudes on screen who are pretending to revel in all this crap. ass sophomoric exploitation.

The dudes on screen are really cleverly making fun of that sort of exploitation. That's the idea. That's the joke. You watching MTV, you get the joke, they get the joke, you get the joke. You get that they get the joke. But that's where it really got fucked up. That's not what happened. What happened instead?

MTV plays the shit out of the stupid video. It's a huge hit. And the wrong people love the stupid video. Sorry, but people love the stupid video because it's stupid. Not because it's a clever interrogation of stupid. There's a fine line between stupid and clever. And what's wrong with being sexy? Don't get me started quoting this as Spinal Tap.

I will quote Spinal Tap for the next 45 minutes straight. I will become tiresome. What's the difference between golf and miniature golf? Don't get me started. Just don't. Too clever. The stupid video was too clever to achieve escape velocity. to resist the gravitational pull of just being extra stupid.

Way too clever. How's that working out for you being clever? That's a fight club reference. Speaking of failed attempts to satirize macho bullshit, that instead inspired a bunch of extra macho bullshit. Bluh. And result here, the boys have a huge hit song, a career-defining hit song and hit video

that makes them look like infantile, stupid assholes. And the boys are horrified. and then they got to spend the rest of their careers trying to convince everyone that they were only playing infantile stupid assholes on TV to make fun of other stupid assholes. We are what we pretend to be, so we must be very careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut said that.

Do you think these poor guys had even heard of Kurt Vonnegut? Don't be rude. Probably they had. And result here, it's a pretty good song, and it's a pretty funny video. but it's also a colossal disaster. I regret to inform you that I do remember the first time I saw the video for Warrant's Cherry Pie from their 1990 album, also called Cherry Pie.

Warrant were hair metal hitmakers from Los Angeles. The Cherry Pie video co-stars the model actress Bobby Brown, just Bobby Brown, Bobby with an I-E. not to be confused with any other pop cultural Bobby Browns before or after 1990. Bobby plays a scantily clad waitress on roller skates, a clumsy waitress. A piece of cherry pie falls into her lap. You get me? I had actually never noticed that Cherry Pie album cover is a different clumsy, sexy waitress on roller skates, and she's dropped a piece of cherry pie and it's hanging there in midair right at the level of her lap.

Oh, God, do I regret remembering the first time I saw this video? No, I don't think, I'm fairly certain that I didn't have like a humiliating total 12-year-old horn dog reaction to the cherry pie video. It's not like I became like, you know, the cartoon cat sitting in the nightclub and the sexy lady nightclub singer appears on screen and the cat's bow tie starts spinning. And the beanie propeller on his head starts spinning also. And the cat starts jumping up and down and clapping and whooping and his giant tongue unfur. unfurls out of his mouth and like becomes stairs. That's not what I did. Give me some credit.

A little credit. I don't think I thought, well, this is a clever send-up in rock video sexism. Don't give me that much credit. Realistically, best case scenario, I was probably like, well, this is excessive. All right. She licked the beater is a metaphor. Okay, everyone relax. Here is Jeff Stein who directed the Cherry Pie video.

defending the poor reputation of the Cherry Pie video in a 2020 chat with Yahoo Entertainment. He says, it was a parody. So I guess if people don't get that it's a parody, I don't know. Is that on me or on them? I mean, it's so over the top. How could anyone think it was anything but a spoof of other hair metal videos? You know, if people think it was sexist, it was only sexist as a parody of sex. I am the least sexist slash misogynistic person and I know who I am, so I stand by that.

And quote, can I read you one more thought from Jeff addressing a specific element in the cherry pie video? I am going to read this without laughing because I am a professional. Here we go. This is Yahoo Entertainment talking. Quote, as for the fire hose scene, as for the fire hose scene, Stein admits now that that one is a bit problematic. End quote. Jeff explains. He says,

honestly, this is just recent, but I was watching it again, and there were some stills of it. It looked phallic, right? There's like water coming out of the hose. All they were doing was spraying her with water, like it was fun, and she was having fun.

But the way he was holding it, I think, ended up looking phallic. I just realized that now, end quote. Actually, all four men, members of Warrant are holding the fire hose. It was a real fire truck. I was not prepared for all four members of Warrant to be holding it. And they spray the sexy lady with water from the fire hose. Is that even a metaphor? Cherry Pye was Warrant's second album. They'd already blown up on MTV, etc. with their debut album, Dirty, Rotten, Filthy, Stinking Rich from 1989. That's the record with Heaven on it.

Heaven is an all-time hair metal power ballad. That's junior high, slow dance canon. Heaven. heaven unironically kicks ass. Heaven is Warren's highest charting song ever. Number two on the Billboard Hot 100, beaten out by Millie Vanilly. That's too bad. Warrant were already quote unquote legit by the time the cherry pie video premiered.

But cherry pie, and more specifically the radiant stupidity of the cherry pie video, would define warrant forever, according to Warrant. Here is fairly infamous footage of Warrant frontman Janie Lane. discussing this song's legacy on VH1.

And Donnie I know called up and said, I don't hear the single. You got to give me a single like Lovin and an elevator. I need something like that. So that night I wrote Cherry Pie. Lovin and Elevator is an all-time Arrowsmith Jam. Of course, Donnie Iner is a famous record executive U.S. President of Columbia Records at the time.

I don't hear a single is something guys like Donnie. Johnny Einer say to everybody, including like waiters. Janie also complains that at this point, Warren's album was finished and was called Uncle Tom's Cabin. After another song in the album. Just to clarify, the 1990 Warrant song, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a gritty murder mystery and has no connection, thematically or otherwise,

to the 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin of Summer Reading List, renowned. Someone in the warren camp really should have checked to see if the name Uncle Tom's cabin had ever been used for anything else. This is why I ask if they'd heard of Kurt Vonnegut. Did they have to call him Uncle Tom?

Any other one syllable man's name would have worked there. Uncle Phil's cabin. Not that either. But you get me. But forget it because now the next Warren album is called Cherry Pie. And according to Janie Lane, Jane Lane's life is ruined.

And my legacy's cherry pie. Everything about me is cherry pie. I'm a cherry pie guy. I could shoot myself in the head for right. That's all. Just to keep the regret loop going here, Janie Lane would later say that he regretted

saying that. He blamed VH1's producers for that one. He says, they just caught me on a bad day. It was a bad moment. I was going through a divorce. My mom had just passed away. All this stuff was going on.

and they sit me down in a chair and want to start grilling me with questions, and I didn't want to be there. So, you know, push that interview to the side. I'm happy as a clam to have written a song that is still being played and still dug by so many people. It's hard enough to write a song, let alone one that sticks around. End quote. He said that in 2007 to a radio station in Kalamazoo, after performing Cherry Pie with a band called the formerly ofs.

at the Winter Circle Lounge in Speedway, Indiana. That is factually accurate, but also snarkier than I intend. Listen, I can't look you in the eye and tell you that Cherry Pie, the song or video is some huge anomaly in the otherwise sophisticated and Pulitzer Prize-worthy Warrant catalog. Warrant were a very good, pretty stupid hair metal band. And that's a wonderful thing to be. And that's a much harder thing to be than a very good, pretty smart.

Rock band. Chuck Closterman has written very smart and very sympathetic things about Warren. So is Chuck Eddie, the great critic and author Chuck Eddie. There's a power ballad on the cherry pie record called I Saw Red, which Chuck Eddie once described as Nerf Meadows, all time, most chilling, cheated on betrayal ballad. That's Nerf hyphen metal. That's a fantastic phrase and a sincere compliment and take my word for it that you can take Chuck's word for it. Warren contained multitudes. warrant embody both comedy and tragedy. It is somewhat tragic that Janie Lane's other famous on-camera anecdote, a story he told during an MTV documentary

was about how in the early 90s he knew that Warrant were toast and Grunge had vaporized hair metal when he went to his record label office and where they used to have a giant blown-up Warrant album cover on the wall. Now it was an Allison Shane's album cover. That story has come up several times on this show. Janie was probably too honest in interviews.

That's very sad. Warren ultimately put out nine full-length albums, if you even count the two albums that did not include Janie Lane, one of which was released after Janie Lane's death in 2011 from alcohol poisoning. He was 47. He was a rock star once. And once you're a rock star, you're always a rock star. Nobody can take that from him, even if he insisted on camera that they took that from him. He married Bobby Brown from the Cherry Pie video. They divorced after two years, but nonetheless, Being an MTV staple rock star who marries the sexy lady, you sprayed with the fire hose in your big hit video, if that's not living the dream, then it's certainly living a dream. But it's heartbreaking to me, truly, if Janie Lane felt that Cherry Pie betrayed him and misrepresented him and in a sense doomed him, or at least sullied his legacy. It's heartbreaking that warrants substantial catalog aside the band never quite got to redeem themselves or put out another song that big that made them a little prouder. It's heartbreaking that we never truly heard Warrant the way Warrant heard themselves. It's heartbreaking that we never got to hear Warrant's version of this.

My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 71st episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s and just take my word for it that this week we are discussing sabotage. by the Beastie Boys from their 1994 album Ill Communication. So let's say you're thinking about major bands, big famous artists who very publicly denounced or at least clearly have major misgivings

about their biggest song or their first big song or their first few records in general. Bands are artists eager to wall off to excommunicate some percentage of their early catalog. Also in 1990, the same year as Cherry Pie, the beloved Texas groove metal band Pantara released their album, Cowboys from Hell.

Pantara's first big album. If you're streaming Pantara's music, often you are led to believe that Cowboys from Hell is Pantara's first album overall. It's the oldest Pantara album available on, say, Spotify, which owns The Ringer. But in fact, Pantara put out four previous albums in the 80s, between 83 and 88.

Those first four albums are not widely and or officially available and are not highly regarded by Pantara themselves. These guys are teenagers when they start out. The classic lineup with lead singer Phil Anselmo isn't quite set yet when they start out. They sound like teenagers trying to sound like kiss or deaf leopard when they start out.

Here's a Pantara song from 1983 called Ride My Rocket. That's Terry Glaze on vocals. That's a metaphor. Pantara's bass player, Rex Brown, in 2021, he told Eon music that Pantara, will never reissue those first four 80s albums. He says, this is like going back and looking at your old high school notebooks and going, look at how far you've come in between.

He says, once we got Philip in the band, it developed into something else. And that was the Pantera that we know now. And that's why we never talk about those old records. Phil Anselmo did sing on the last 80s Pantera album, but forget that one, too. Pantara starts in 1990 with Cowboys from Hell, according to Pantara. Pantara. That's how they want to be heard. And as time passes, how they want to be remembered. But that's more about the sound than the lyrical content, right? That's Pantara disavowing their warrant-esque glam rock past. And for Pantara, anyway, MTV ubiquity didn't factor into their 80s shit

at all. So who else? Radiohead, of course, had a fraught relationship with their bonkers huge debut single, CREP, which we've discussed in detail. And the crepe video is all over MTV. But the divide here is more about how quickly and severely radiohead evolved musically on subsequent albums like OK, Computer and Kid A and on and on. To whatever extent Radiohead were ever embarrassed by creep, it wasn't moral embarrassment. They didn't spray a sexy lady with a fire hose in the creep video, which is too bad, actually. I also think of Loser by Beck as a potential albatross for Beck from his perspective, just based on how huge that song and video was, how one hit, one shaped loser seemed for a second there back when it was first on the radio every 10 minutes, but then Beck too almost overnight evolved severely and wonderfully. And he's got a discography

now that's huge and splendid and chaotic enough that it's okay if loser is still the first Beck song you think of. What I'm looking for, at least, is very specific. It has to be a huge song, an MTV hit with what? Fine. A problematic, it's sexist as a parody of sexism-type vibe that the band in question organically and spiritually outgrows. We're talking more of a soul deep sort of embarrassment. There aren't many semi-abandoned hit songs like that, by my reckoning, at least. Cherry pie is one, and this is another. Kick it. I shouldn't have said, kick it. I'm sorry about that. All questions of virtue aside, I sound ridiculous. It sounds like 50,000 times better when he says, kick it. I do concede that. I don't.

I apologize. It won't happen again. If you're looking at a physical copy of the first Beastie Boys record, licensed to ill, released in 1986, or if you're streaming this record now, this song is called Fight for Your Right. But if you bought the single way back in 86, this song's full title is, you got to fight for your right to party. That's parentheses, you got to close parentheses, fight for your right, parentheses, to party, exclamation point, close parentheses.

The aggressive punctuation there gives you some idea of the epic battle between stupid and clever that Clever loses on this song. Stupid kicks Clever's ass up and down the street. On parentheses, you got a close parentheses, fight for your right parentheses, two party exclamation, boy, close parentheses. Just an epic beatdown visited upon Clever by stupid. Let me say several things right off the rip. Number one, this song kicks ass. It's awesome. It's phenomenally stupid, but it's awesome. It's awesome because it's stupid. I totally get why the Beastie Boys decided it was dangerously and unforgivably stupid, but nonetheless, it's awesome. Number two, the video is hilarious. When's the last time you watched the fight for your right video? I just put this thing on before anyone even says anything other than kick it. The Beastie Boys strut into this lame-ass party. In order of appearance, you got Adam Yowke, otherwise known as MCA. You got Michael Diamond, aka Mike D, and you got Adam Horowitz, aka Ad Rock. And immediately, Yowk grabs a beer out of some dude's hand, pounds it, boxed the dude in the head with a beer can.

The can goes, boing, and flies off screen. And then Yowk turns around and spits the beer out into another dude's face. That dude's wearing a beret. The whole sequence takes five seconds. I've rewound and rewatched it now like 15 times. Incredible. Number three, one of my favorite things about listening to rap groups. duos, trios,

Wu-Tang size, conglomerates, whatever, is learning to tell the individual rappers apart, right? Differentating their voices. And as you keep listening

in the days, months, years, decades to come, you further differentiate them. Their personalities, their vocal tics, their lyrical preoccupations, etc.

I love that sense of character development. I love that it never ends. Like 35 years later, these characters are still developing, hopefully in real life, but definitely in your head. So way back when I first heard the Beastie Boys,

Adam Horowitz, Ad Rock dominated. He's the highest, brattiest, pinchiest voice. At first, the Beastie Boys just sounded to me like Ad Rock and then the two cops on either side of him tossing Ad Rock into the back of a police car. Right? So he goes, you wake up late for school, man. You don't want to go on Mike Dees.

Just like, watch your head, asshole. And he shoves Ad Rock into the back seat and slams the door. I swear I'm not going to just sit here and describe to you. everything that happens in the fight for your right video. But Adam Yauk, MCA, is the gruffer, horser voice. And as he says, you miss two classes, no homework. He approaches two partygoers, a man and a woman who are sitting and reading together an issue of popular science magazine. And Yowk pulls out a lighter and lights the magazine on fire. Revisiting it now, this video is way more benign than I feared. It's almost sweet. There's a lot of semi-awkward kissing.

It ends with a pie fight. The gnarliest thing that happens is when MCA waxed a TV with a sledgehammer. Also, this is one of those deals where I don't have anything to say about the chorus to fight for your right, but at this point, it feels willfully obnoxious not to play you, the chorus. You know what I mean? Much better. Okay, let's compress a goodly amount of timeline information heading in both directions, past and future from this moment.

The Beastie Boys formed as teenagers in New York City in the early 80s. This is bizarrely romanticized barbarian wasteland era in New York City. You've seen the movies escape from New York, the Warriors, still a lot of taxi driver. The Muppets take Manhattan. Not that last one, but you get it. That New York City. Originally, there's other people in the band. They're called something else, and they're a hardcore band, inspired by bad brains, the misfits, and what have you.

Character development ensues. The first even remotely successful Beastie Boy song from 1983 is called Cookie Puss, and consists, mostly of Ad Rock prank calling a secretary for Carvel, the ice cream company. Cookie Puss has no particular redeeming cultural value, and playing it for you would be willfully obnoxious, right? Right. Hello, Carvel. Yo, man, cookie puss there. Who?

Cookie Puss. I want to speak to Cook. Yeah, so on drums here, you got Kate Schellenbach, who's not going to be around for much longer because the Beastie Boys also meet Rick Rubin. At the time, NYU student and rap music. recessive Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin, future mega producer and rockstar whisperer and hearsuit horizontal guru. He lies down a lot in the studio.

It's very amusing to me. Rick Rubin and fellow budding rap mogul Russell Simmons, whose brother Joseph Simmons is, of course, and run DMC, whom Russell is managing and whom the Beastie Boys, of course, idolize. Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons have formed Def Jam records. The Beastie Boys signed to Def Jam. And at Rick Rubin's behest, they refashion themselves. as charismatic asshole frat rappers, and they kick their dear friend Kate Schellenbach out of the band.

So now it's just MCA, Ad Rock, and Mike D. And their debut album, Licensed to Ill, comes out in 1986 and just absolutely blows the fuck up. First rap album to top the Billboard album chart. Eventually 10 million copies sold in the United States alone. It goes Diamond. The Beastie Boys are the first rap group and the cover of Spin Magazine, et cetera.

Look out. Here comes Brass Monkey. Brooklyn Heights, but fair enough. Somewhere in there, the Beastie Boys open some shows from Madonna and shout obscenities at Madonna's audience of largely preteen girls. Somewhere in there, the Beastie Boys headline their own tour with a goofy and boorish stage prop situation. That includes a 20-foot-tall inflatable penis that's unfurls climatically during the song, you've got to fight for your right to party. If you've ever listened to this show before, you may be amazed that I did not lead with the 20-foot-tall inflatable penis. And to you, I say that I've written multiple articles about the Beastie Boys over the years, and at least one of those leads with the 20-foot-tall inflatable penis.

Specifically, I clarify that it was, in fact, not inflatable, but a hydraulic 20-foot penis. Do not ask me to articulate the difference between inflatable and hydraulic with regards to 20-foot penises, because I will say, simply stall for time while repeating the phrase 20 foot penis as many times as possible. Remarkable character development ensues. Their character development, not mine. Clearly, remarkable. For the next two decades and changed, the Beastie Boys put out eight albums total or closer to 15,

depending on how you count compilations and EPs and so forth. And they are beloved elder statesmen as rappers and as rockers. And yes, as statesmen, headlining massive festivals and what have you right up to the moment when adam yowk is diagnosed with cancer in 2009 they never play another show adam yowk dies of cancer in 2012 he was 47 he was and will remain a rock star he became a rock star the moment he looped the drums on lead zeppelin's when the levy breaks on a reel-to-reel tape machine with the tape itself wrapped around two mic stands and a chair for the first song on license to ill called rhymin and stealing. In 2018, Adrock and Mike D collaborate on a career retrospective book called Beastie Boys Book.

Full color, tons of lush photographs. It's fantastic. This book is biblical in the sense that it's Bible-sized. It is enormous. I got my copy right here, and it frees me out to even look at the strained binding on this giant-ass book. It's quite stressful.

One of the primary motives of this book is to separate the licensed to ill album and the overall boorishness of the license to ill era from everything that follows. The Beastie Boys stopped performing Fight for Your Right live after the 20-foot penis tour. Adam Horowitz in this book apologizes for several things. He apologizes for prank calling the cookie-puss lady. He apologizes for the way the band treated Kate Schellenbach.

He writes, We kicked Kate out of the band because she didn't fit into our new tough rapper guy identity. Maybe Kate would have eventually quit the band because we were starting to act. like a bunch of fucking creeps, but it was just shitty the way it happened, and I am so sorry about it. End quote. Kate herself gets to write something later in the book.

Adam apologizes for the infamous and indefensible working title of license to ill. If you know it, you know it, if you don't know it, forget about it. He writes, It was Rick Rubin's idea. It was meant to be a joke about jock frat dudes, but homophobia is not funny, and we are truly sorry.

In 2020, AdRock and Mike Deebate collaborate with director Spike Jones on a movie called Beastie Boy Story. It's on Apple TV. It's a live staging of a brief theater tour they did to support the book. Just Ad Rock and Mike D prowling a stage, talking, joking, high-fiving. It's truly lovely. Beastie Boy's Story is also a career retrospective deal. Beastie Boy Story is also an excellent and endearing and wildly entertaining series of sincere sheepish apologies, including this one. from Adam Horowitz. We had a song on our first record

that was supposed to be this stupid and ironic joke, but understandably it wasn't that funny. Now, I'm going to tell you the lyrics to that song. Not that song. Another song like that. Girls. To do the dishes.

Girls. To clean up my room. Girls. To do my laundry. Girls. and in the bathroom, girls. And here is how Michael Diamond summarizes the clientele

of the 20-foot hydraulic penis tour. Now, we had no idea who is going to show up to see us play. We definitely didn't think that the party bro frat dudes that we were making fun of were going to come. The license to Ilsaan playing in the background here, as you might be aware, is called

She's Crafty. It's semi-unlightened. but the Led Zeppelin sample, this one from the Led Zeppelin song, The Ocean is fantastic as well. Okay, carry on. But it turns out that they love to fight for your right to party. And you know what?

We liked being loved. So fuck it. Pass me to 40. Let's get fucked up. And then the Beastie Boys burn out. It gets sick of partying and sick of the party dudes they're partying with. And they get sick of playing the song, you got to fight for your right to party.

And so they stop playing that song. and they break with Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons and Def Jam, and they put the 20-foot hydraulic penis in storage in New Jersey, where it apparently remains to this day, and in phases the boys move out to L.A. and hook up what the production crew called the Dust Brothers and start working on their second album. And now, when you picture the Beastie Boys' discography,

the Beastie Boys' Timeline, you are encouraged to confine all those not clever enough stupid asshole antics to the Licensed to Ill album and the License to Ill era. It's sort of a permanent discography quarantine, right? AdRoc sums it up in the movie like this. And we made a very conscious decision moving forward. No manager, no producer, no record label would call the shots. It would be just the three of us.

Probably. I'm not looking it up. And somebody on that tour, I don't know if it was an opening actor, a crew member or what. He described a prank they pulled where they got little toy crabs and stuck them onto the 20-foot penis so that on stage, when it unfurled, it looked like there were crabs on it. And what I remember specifically, what this dude says, I took the liberty of retaining this phrase. He says, we adhesed the crabs to the phallus without anybody's knowledge. That's what I remember or how I chose to remember it. We adhesed the crabs to the phallus

without anybody's knowledge. That melifluous phrase is part of my brain's permanent record. I keep talking about this to hopefully make clear to you that I am not assuming a position of moral superiority here. This is now one of those deals where enlightened mature 2022 guy impresses you with his maturity by denouncing the unenlightened antics of immature 1986 guys. I am super immature and I am legitimately fascinated by the, last five years or so of Beastie Boys brand management. I don't mean that ugly or cynically or critically. I am fascinated by how hard Ad Rock and Mike D. are working, how earnest and penitent and tender and charismatic they've been in talking about their past and apologizing for the

uglier aspects of their past. They don't want their legacy to be fight for your right. Everything about us is fight for your right. We're the fight for your right guys. We could shoot ourselves in the head for writing that song. They are making absolutely sure that fight for your right and license to ill does not define them. That doesn't make license to ill radioactive or unlistnable now. And it never did. In college, in the late 90s, I took a public speaking class. That was a whole class. We just gave speeches to each other. It was a state school. A lot of Greeks, a lot of fraternity and sorority action in that class, as I recall. They were all pretty cool. During my speeches, I would drum on the podium incessantly due to anxiously.

in effect drowning out my words, which was for the best. But so this dude gave a speech that was just Paul Revere, a dramatic reading of the licensed to ill song Paul Revere. It was fantastic. Everyone loved it. That's from the actual song. That's not from the dude's speech. I didn't tape his speech.

I'm sorry. Because I didn't tape his speech, I cannot 100% swear to you that he didn't say the line about the wiffle ball bat in Paul Revere, but I'm like 99% sure he didn't say the thing about the whiffle ball bat. Okay, the surviving Beastie Boys now spend a lot of time talking about License Dale. And it's not that

they want you to forget their first record, but they want to make very clear that they like every subsequent record they made way more. They like all their other records more and all their other records are more them. And that starts, of course, with their second album,

Paul's Boutique from 1989, produced by the Dust brothers, there's like 20,000 ridiculous and sublime samples on this thing. Permit me to be the eight billionth white guy in your life who's raved to you about how fantastic Paul's Boutique is. Yeah, that's right. My name's yow. That's from the sounds of science. I just love the Beatles sample there so much. When the Beatles crash into that song, that's one of my favorite moments on Paul's Boutique. You know what I also love? That's right. My name's Yowk. I love it when the Beastie boys rap their full names or I guess interact with their full names. I can't explain this,

but I feel this profoundly. I love that is your name Michael Diamond guy on Shake Your Rump profoundly. Is your name Michael Diamond? No, mine is Clavitt. This strange preoccupation of mine means, of course, that I also love this part of Shake Your Rump profoundly. I love it. You know what I love even more when the bass comes in on Haley? Ladies. No way we're having this conversation and not playing this. I don't know who you take me for. Paul's Boutique. Pretty great record. That's my opinion. I'm not afraid to say it. I'm swimming against the current here. I'm an iconoclast. Everyone loves Paul's Boutique now. Nobody bought Paul's Boutique in 1989. That's another focus of the recent Beastie Boys book and movie. Ad Rock and Mike D would like you to know that the Beastie Boys fucking loved Paul's boutique. And we're is so psyched for this record to come out and wipe the floor with license to ill, and it flopped. Nobody bought it. Nobody bought into the group's reinvention. Their partial reinvention. It would be a

disservice to say that the Beastie Boys cut out all traces of boorish frat party talk on Paul's boutique. I took her to my place. I threw the mattress in her face, et cetera. Again, I don't bring that up for purposes of moral superiority. I just mean that their evolution, their slow enlightenment was a process. fits and starts, a spectrum, the gradual dawn of a higher consciousness. I would argue that it's all the more striking and endearing that evolution for how long it really took. But however you feel about it, the Beastie Boys limp into the 90s, right? They stagger into the 1990s as the very successful fight for your right guys and they're not

at all successful. We're not the fight for your right guys, guys. And everything's changing. Everything's evolving and getting bigger and bigger. and more commercial, rock and roll, punk, hardcore, hip hop, all of those words, those genres, those lifestyle conceits mean something very different by 1992 compared to 1986. The Beastie Boys in 92 have got to grow up fast, but also simultaneously and paradoxically, they got to get cool again fast. I got no idea how you grow up and get cooler at the same time, and I still don't.

even after watching the Beastie Boys actually do it. That's so what you want off the third Beastie Boys record. Check your head, released in 1992, deceptively challenging rock band song. So what you want?

Rock band the video game, the guitar hero-esque video game where you play songs on plastic instruments. Tough song. Two quick obligations here. First, I have to cede the floor

to our old friends Beavis and Butthead. These guys are cool because they can like jump around real slow. Yeah. that would be cool if we could go to this forest and hang out with these guys jumping slow is cool i filed away that lesson into my brain's permanent record as well that solves this band's we got to get cool

again problem the other obligation once again we're in it's obnoxious not to play the chorus territory and i have no intention of being obnoxious or that's the guitar break i guess when he says so what you what you what you want that's technically the chorus I guess. Let's not get bogged down in semantics. Another check your head song. I have this vivid memory of my freshman-year-of-college. I'm a freshman. I'm hanging out with this girl from my Philosophy 101 class.

And we walk into the coolest campus record store, school kids records. Not my first time in this store, but very early on. And I'm surrounded by all these cool CDs and all these cool college students and all these bongs, probably. This song is blasting and I exchange a knowing look with the Philosophy 101 girl. And I vividly remember having the tangible ecstatic thought, dude, I'm in college. That song's called Funky Boss. And one reason I was so ecstatic in that moment is that I misheard that phrase in that moment. I thought they were saying something else.

You read the Beastie Boys book. You watch the Beastie Boys movie. And Mike Dian Ad Rock described, check your head as the group's, back to our instruments album. For Paul's Boutique, they spent way too much money on fancy studios and spent way too much money on like Beatles samples. And so for Check Your Head,

they build their own studio in an uncool part of LA. And this studio's got a skateboard ramp and a basketball hoop in it, crucially, but they just jam. Man, typically Mike Dian on drums, MCA on bass, add rock on guitar. Here's a song that gestures quite emphatically toward where we're going.

It's called gratitude. The baseline there is so rad. That's a sophisticated musical logical term. The baseline's so rad, you're forgiven if you don't focus on the words there. Adrox's voice is still so brady and pinchy that maybe you're not supposed to notice that he's saying, it's so free, this kind of feeling. It's like life. It's so appealing.

When you've got so much to say, it's called gratitude. And that's right. The words themselves aren't terrifically poignant, but the overall sentiment somehow is terrifically point in. Right? I say this with respect. I say this with caution. I sense a vibe shift in gratitude. The music gets even cooler or cooler in a totally different way while the lyrics subtly start getting deeper. And the Beastie Boys, as a three-man entity, their friendship is such a vital element. And the joyous interplay between them is so fluid and volatile and alive necessary. The you generally don't want to pin one specific attribute onto one specific member. But with

regards to the lyrical depth here, it seems relevant that Adam Yowk in this moment is getting deeper and deeper into Buddhism. Quite famously so as the 90s go on. In 94, he co-foundes the Miller Repa Fund, a nonprofit to raise awareness of the Tibetan independence movement. Starting in 1996, he and the Beastie Boys throw a series of Tibetan freedom concerts, huge festivals built around the push for a free Tibet. In 1998, Rolling Stone interviewed him about it, asked him how that spiritual process first began. And he said, It built gradually. The more I studied, the more I started finding different parts of it that made sense to me. Things like reincarnation or karma. I took a trip to Nepal in India and Bali. On a second trip to Nepal, I met some Tibetans and I started getting interested in Tibetan Buddhism. Then I went to a teaching that Dalai Lama gave and he was amazing. From about 92 on, I studied Tibetan Buddhism exclusively. I became a Buddhist around 96. So here on the Check Your Head album from 1992, Adam Yowk still just a student.

The spiritual awakening is also a slow dawning phenomenon. But he gets the last word on this record on a song called Namaste. And a voice spoke in my head. Dark is not the opposite of it. It's the absence of life. And so on. Maybe you wouldn't have guessed, vibing to that song in 1992,

that Yauk was on the path to the Tibetan freedom concerts, to taking Tibetan monks on tour. tour with the Beastie Boys when they headlined Lollapalooza. But in retrospect, now that we know the full arc, going back through the Beastie Boys catalog now, Yauk's spiritual journey is a wild and enormously heartening thread to follow, one of several enormously heartening threads to follow. In fact, the fourth Beastie Boys album released in 1994 is called Ill Communication. Same general recording approach, the home studio, the jamming, the camaraderie, the winsome looseness. A few major themes have crystallized, though.

The first song's called Sure Shot. It includes, I think, pretty objectively, the most important lyrics Adam Yauk ever wrote. Not those lyrics. Sorry, those just jumped out of me recently. MCA in 1994 talking about his gray hairs.

Unpleasant sensation. He turned 30 in 1994. He started going gray prematurely. Don't read too much into it. No, no. Okay, so Kate Schellenbach, former Beastie Boys drummer, they kicked her out of band for Licensdale came out at the dawn of the stupid asshole era and they pretty much immediately felt terrible but she returns to the band's orbit in 92 the beastie boys start a record label and magazine

called grand royal and they signed the great new york city band luscious jackson an all-female rap rock band featuring kate schellenbach on drums calling luscious jackson rap rock perhaps gives you very much the wrong idea but there's a familiar genre fluidity and a looseness and a joy and a palpable camaraderie to Luscious Jackson. Real quick, my favorite 10 seconds of a Luscious Jackson song is just this from the song Under Your Skin. I'm so jealous of you that you're about to hear this. I can't exactly explain why I love just that so much, but what's there to explain?

There's just a warm, gorgeous sunset feeling to those chords and those drums and that little keyboard whoop brewing at the end. Don't overthink it. So Kate Schellenbach writes one chapter in that giant biblical Beastie Boys book, the chapter is called the girl in the band or goodbye to you and your inflatable penis. That's what the chapter is called. It was hydraulic. Sorry, I just mansplained a penis.

That's amazing. And Kate writes, near the end, she says, people sometimes ask if the guys made any kind of formal amends. But I never felt like they owed me an apology. We were kids. We were all assholes. We've always loved each other. And this went a long way for me personally.

And then she quotes these MCA lyrics from Shershot. Put these on the short list of the most significant lines in a rap song from the 90s. Calling them bars gives you the wrong idea, maybe. In the movie Beastie Boy Story, Ad Rock says that every journalist who interviewed him and Mike about the book asked about those lines from Shershot. The massive impact those lines had on everybody. Ad Rock says, not only did he speak to a lot of people, he spoke to the two of us. Part of what makes those lines so impactful is that they can coexist with what is, otherwise, a buoyant and rambunctious Beastie Boys album. You don't lose your edge or your credibility as a rowdy rap rock crew if you stop saying stupid shit about women.

Sincerity can coexist with other forms of stupid frivolity. When I was a teenager, my favorite 10 seconds on ill communication world. a song called B-Boys Making with the Freak Freak. Can you guess what those 10 seconds are? If this gonna be that kind of party, I'm gonna stick my dick in the nice potato. You guessed it. I've matured since then.

My favorite 10 seconds of ill communication now are totally different and more sophisticated. That's still my favorite part of the album. I'm sorry. I picture heaven as a guitar center. If you ever worked at a guitar center, to a guitar center. I'm guessing you don't picture heaven as a guitar center, but I never worth there. I don't have that problem. So I die, right? And I wake up in a guitar center.

And I'm like, hmm, nobody in the place that I can see. But I hear, you know, noodling off in a far corner over by the electric basses, the basses, the bass guitar is that section. So I head over there. And I turn a corner and there's Jesus. It appears to be jeez. You got the long hair, the robe. the sandals. I'm speculating. This doesn't fit with the Buddhist theme, I realized, but I was raised Catholic. I can't help it. So Jesus is sitting alone on a bass amp, and he's plugged into it. He's noodling on a bass. The bass is, I don't know, a music man, an Ibanez. What's the number one bass in having a rickenbacker? I don't know. He's sitting on the bass amp that he's plugged into so he can feel the rumble beneath him as he plays a bass. It's not sexual feeling. It's just a cool

feeling. And Jesus sees me and he stops noodling and he just looks at me. And I ask, am I dead? And he says, yep. And I say, oh. And I ask, are you Jesus? And he says, yep. And I say, oh. And I ask, uh, what are you doing? Jesus? And he says, this is what I'm fucking doing. My mom is big mad right now. With all my rambling and digressions and so forth, sometimes people suggest that I do an entire episode of this show without actually addressing the song the episode is about. like as a bit. And this may be the closest I ever come to doing that because what do you want me to say about

sabotage? What precisely do you need explained about this song's appeal and lasting impact? MCA on the bass riff Ad Rock's lyrics or a goof basically he's pretending to be rate beloved Beastie Boys producer

and cohort Mario C. Trivia feels insufficient in the face of this baseline. You don't need anything for me. You're waiting for me to shut up and play the wow already. You make an excellent point. Here you go. You want me to attempt some insight. Sabotage to me is the enlightened you got to fight for your right to party. Or at least the non-stupid, you got to fight for your right to party. It reverses the doomed pretzologic curse of becoming the thing you're pretending to be to make fun of it. Sabotage has the ferocity, the distortion,

the screaming, the wanton, pinching, braddiness of the ad-rock vocal experience. But it also has the sense. no matter who you are or how you're listening to it, of an arena full of jubilant bros and eminently respected ladies and everyone anywhere along that spectrum, all jumping in unison. It's this fantastic sense of aggression, drained of menace,

of ugliness, of steakheaded gatekeeping assholery. I still remember the Beastie Boys doing sabotage live at the MTV Video Music Awards. They were in suits and sunglasses. And I try not to throw around this word, but it was badass, right? It was tough.

It was loud. It was hard. It was hardcore in the vague teenage emotional sense. But there was a sense of play to it as well, a sense of welcoming, a sense of inclusion. And that's the difference. That's the evolution. Those are guys who can kick ass, but they also know that dark is not the opposite of light. Those lines from Shurshot, the disrespect to women has got to be through.

That's obviously a huge emotional mile mark. That's very arguably the single, exquisite moment when the Beastie Boys grow up. But Sabotage works too. Shut up, Rob. You're waiting for me to shut up and play the buildup. You got it. I get that despite Jones video for Sabotage, the 70s cop show spoof is a huge part of this song's appeal and the apotheosis of all the Beastie Boys' lyrical references to goofy 70s shit like

CoJack and whatever, super charming. I get that sabotage is emblematic of how important the Beastie Boys videos always were. In general, shout out Nathaniel Hornblower, another visionary Beastie Boys video director. But I'm stuck in this very unhelpful mental loop of wondering what a sabotage-esque video would look like here in 2022. Right? What's the 70s cop show spoof equivalent of 20 years ago now? Do not answer that. I, too, will not answer that.

I will resume distracting myself to prevent myself from answering that. Very late on-no communication, you get a song called, Bodhisattva vow in which we find MCA, to our great delight, farther along on his spiritual path. If you can make out every word he's saying they're great. If you can't, don't worry about it, you still get the point. 90s Beastie Boys albums tend to be 20 tracks long, 20 or 22 tracks long. In the first half, you get a handful of monster hits, right? So what you want on Check Your Head, Sabotage and Sure Shot and Rout Down on Ill communication.

And then the second half of the record is way looser and jammer. And the natural tendency is not to skip anything, but you might zone out a little, not unpleasantly, but a deep, deep cut like Bodhisattva vow is worth looking out for. Their next album, Hello Nasty from 1998. The first half, you get intergalactic and body moving, right? But stick with the back half in a song like, I Don't Know, might snap into focus and reveal itself as the single prettiest song, The BC Boys Ever did. That's MCA singing, of course, Miho Hatori of the great Chibomato on backing vocals there.

Pretty a song the Beastie Boys ever did. While we're making sweeping statements, let me tell you about the single greatest live music moment I have ever personally experienced. Best thing that ever happened to me at a concert. In 2009, I went to a music festival in New York City called All Points West. Another noble failure to whip up a New York cocella out on an island somewhere. The Statue of Liberty was visible in some direction. To my left. I don't know.

Three day festival. First day is like vampire weekend, then the national, then the yeah, yeah, yeah's, then the headliner. I remember really viving with the national, right? At one point, this dude was playing violin. He's got a T-shirt on, but an open button-down shirt over it, and the weather was rough. So the button-down shirt is billowing behind him as he plays violin. This righteous, wo-dood rock concert moment. And my good friend, Zach, turns to me.

he says, see, this is why I can't handle this band. This shirt tails blowing in the wind business. And I go, oh, totally, dude, that's so pompous and lame. And then I felt really stupid for viving so hard with it. Anyway, Jay-Z was the headliner. He was not the original headliner. He was the last second replacement for the original headliner. And he started his set with a tribute to the original headliner.

The Beastie Boys were supposed to headline this festival. But a few weeks beforehand, they dropped out after announcing that Adam Yowk, MCA, had been diagnosed with cancer. So Jay-Z stepped in last minute and started his set with the Beastie Boys No Sleep Till Brooklyn. It was fucking unbelievable. However many thousands of jaded New York City festival goers just levitated, just spontaneously combusted. I just about floated off into space. Everyone did. Best single moment from a single concert in my whole entire life.

No sleep till Brooklyn is off license to ill. Of course, it's early Beastie Boys. Less enlightened, more disrespectful. But part of what was so beautiful about Jay-Z doing this song in this moment was he didn't redeem the song or anything that corny. But this song off that album from that thorny era, now serving as this massive, thrilling, heartbreaking, communal moment of ecstasy and tribute, that's such an overwhelmingly lovely and inspiring thing. So much love and respect in that moment for everyone. Everyone at that festival, we were denied sabotage live,

which also would have been incredible. The Beastie Boys, and I suspect we all knew this, would never play Sabotage Live again. But Jay-Z doing no sleep till Brooklyn was a pretty tremendous consolation prize. And it did. Consol us. It was an action for the good of all beings.

It was everything Adam Yowke and his two dear friends that ever wanted and everything they'd worked so hard for. Our guest this week is Jane Koston from the New York Times. She hosts their weekly podcast The Argument. She's the former senior politics reporter at Vox, and she's written for everyone from CNN to NPR to the ringer. Jane, welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

I apologize, Jane, for not having you on the Nine Inch Nails episode. That was an oversight on my part. I regret it. I'm very sorry. It's okay. I'll handle it the way Nine Hatch Nails would, which is that I will just sieve about it for 20 years.

You know, I'll have like snarky little references and songs to my record album that I'm fighting with. That's how Trent would do it. That's right. You'll save that for your own Starfuckers Incorporated, I guess. It's true. Jane, am I correct in stating that Hello Nasty by the Beastie Boys was the first

CD you ever owned? It is. It was actually a gift. My older sister is, hang on, I actually have to do the math now. She's six years older than I am. And she was dating this guy named DJ. And if you've ever had an older sibling who starts dating someone, you look at them with like, who are you and why are you in my home? Right. But DJ was smart. And that for Christmas, the year that Hello Nasty came out, which I believe is, is at 98 or 99. He got me that CD and he got me two shirts from Pacific Sunwear. And at that point, I was like, I'm in, locked in. You guys should get married because I, you know, I was 11.

So I just kind of assumed like, well, that's, you know, that's how it works. You know, your 17 seems great, amazing. And yeah, so that was like, I was actually trying to remember my first three CDs that I owned were Hello Nasty, rage gas machines battle of Los Angeles and Ridgegous machines renegades funnily enough the two rage CDs

were gifts from my dad but I just simply remember him giving them for me for Christmas the next year and the timeline might not entirely match up because I don't remember when renegades came out

but I remember that he asked my sister because they both have parental advisory stickers on there and for the first and only time my dad was like is this okay is this okay and I'm like Like, my dad who is, you know, I grew up in a very musical household.

We listen to music all the time. My parents are extremely opposed to censorship in any way. But for some reason, that was a moment. He was like, wait, wait. Like, hey, the battle, when we're talking about the battle, I'm like, you know, it's ironic because RaziaGust Machine just made me Google like Zapatista is a bunch. Like, it all worked out great. But, yeah, so it was Beastie Boys and Razia Gets Machine.

And that was like, I was off to the races at that point. You were the coolest 11 and 12 year old on the planet. Well, the challenge is, no, I wasn't, because I remember the Beastie Boys performed at the VMAs after Hello Nasty came out in 98. They performed Intergalactic, which is actually not my favorite song on the album. And I remember people making fun of me of like, how do you like these weird band, like these weirdos? We only know about this. like, and it's, I feel as if this has been entirely retconed, but like, I had amazing musical taste, but everyone else had trash musical taste. And until I got to college.

And then it's like, oh, because I grew up listening to like talking heads. And, you know, if my parent, like, I'm sure, I think my dad, like, there was like a brief new or, like, my parents were really into, I believe they used to call the category world music. So we were really into, like, Felacuti. and like all this other stuff. But none of my, I went to, I was in Catholic school in Ohio in the late 1990s. Yeah, yeah. So basically it was just like,

Britney versus Christina death matches every day. And then me listening to the Beastie Boys by myself on my little like disc man. That's, that's very sad. Too cool for your own good. I know. But then like, you know,

I think it's, I think it was helpful. There's something really helpful about growing up being deeply unpopular. Absolutely. Because at a certain point, like, you just come to be like, I'm very good at, how best to put this? I am good at entertaining myself. And I am very, very happy. I know people for whom they consider like ninth grade to be their peak.

Exactly. That's not me. The 50 cent line. Yeah, you felt, yeah, right. I'm very interested in Hello Nasty as a starting point for the beat. I feel like most people who love the Beastie Boys like started with them, right? Licensed, like they grew up with them. It's very like.

Like how, what did you think of them? Like, how did they strike you on Hello Nasty as an 11-year-old? Well, I thought Hello Nasty was the coolest thing that had ever happened. I was actually just thinking, like, there's something about those early bands or early albums that you own because you don't, you know, in an era in which you have a sleeve of CDs, you might end up listening to the same things over and over and over and over again. So I think I listened to my favorite song of the album was Body Moving. Sure. And I think I listened to that so many times that if I were ever in a, if someone, if I was in a coma, completely unconscious for years and someone played that, I think you could get me out. I'm going to remember that.

I will file that away. I'm glad. And so it was interesting also because my experience of the Beastie Boys, and I think that this is, you know, this is an age thing, is that, like, that was my starting point. And then I go back and it's, you know, I listen to, like, fight for the right to party. but it seemed to me, and I'm sure we could talk about it, the band that did fight for the right to party or girls or Brass Monkey and the band that made Hello Nasty set our entirely different entities. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like they are, and I think that that's something I really appreciate about the Beastie Boys is that they existed in so many, there were so many different iterations of them. Like, I actually, the Beastie Boys of Licensed to Ill, I was like, I don't think I would like these people.

And I mean that in like, I, you know, I think Brass Monkey is fun as hell. Like, these are fun songs. Yes. And like, it's amazing to me that fight for the right to party, like, it's still, if you hear that at a party or something to this day, it's still people who still love it. Yeah. But they sounded like assholes. They did. And I feel like even, you know, when they.

They were supporting Madonna on the Virgin tour in 1985. Like, every story about them sounds like these were jerks. And it's understandable. It doesn't sound supportive, yeah. No, it's understandable because, you know, they would have been pretty, like, comparatively young. They had started out as kind of like a hardcore punk band that became ironically hip-hop and then actually hip-hop. Right. Exactly.

Yes. And I think that that's... why, I mean, I actually really like Paul's boutique, which I know, like, it's funny because I feel like that's the very, like, hipster album to like, but I just do enjoy it, especially because they worked with the Dust Brothers who did so much interesting stuff with Beck, and, you know, they had so many, the back and forths that they've had is interesting, like, I think that that's really interesting, but it is funny to go back, because, you know, when I was 11 or 12, you couldn't really do the same sorts of like,

like if I wanted to get another Beastie Boys CD. First, I had convinced my parents to drive me to the, to the everybody's records in Cincinnati, Ohio. And if anyone's listening, like, that is a record store that's been around since 1978, and I would defend it with my life because that is where, like, they had everything that was cool. It's beautiful.

And everything that you'd never heard of. But it would have still been, like, me Clarence darrowing myself an argument to get my parents to drive me to everybody's records. And then you would get like, you know, I don't know how much money I had as a kid, but the answer was not much. And you'd have to be like, well. No, and I did not have $20 for an album that is like, you know, I do. And that was also a thing, because you may have heard like one or two, you may have heard one or two.

songs off the album. And you may have like, it's interesting to me that, you know, all of these decisions were so difficult to make. They were. At one point where it was just like, I really, like, each album that I purchased in the beginning was made, was, each purchase was made with such care. Absolutely. That, like, I remember, you know, I didn't buy Paul's.

boutique because I was just like, I don't even, how would I even know if I liked it? What if this sucks? Yeah. It's a disaster. Because, you know, and I do like, like now going back, one, I love, like, the samples they use. Of course. I think that, like, Shadrack or something like that, and, hey lady. Again, fun, but not over.

Like, it's not as like, I don't get the feeling that, like, the feeling you get through licensed to ill is that these are the dudes. who made fun of me in grade school. Exactly. And I don't get that from Paul's boutique, which I liked. No. And then, you know, going back to, you know, some of the, like, ill communication. I think that these are those, like, we get, the closer we get to Hello Nasty,

it's interesting because it's the same way that people feel about, like, if you spent a lot of time listening to New Order, and then you listen to Joy Division, there's, like, this weird moment where you're, like, Like, this doesn't sound anything like I'm used to, and the closer it gets to new order, the more you're like, oh, I love, love will tear us. Oh, I get it. I get it. I get it. And I think that that was kind of the moment I had of, you know, waiting to recognize something, waiting to understand, like getting closer to understanding this. And I think that's where, like, ill communication is probably my second favorite Beastie Boys album, probably because it sounds familiar to me. Yeah, that's the closest to hello nasty.

Right. Okay, so let me ask you in that context then about SureShot, about MCA's lines, about how the disrespect for women has got to be through. I think that was really moving for women, especially who'd grown up with them, right? Who dealt with all the asshole years and understood what MCA was basically apologizing for. I'm very curious how you take that as someone going from Hello Nasty backward. That was something because I didn't at the time really know what he was talking about. Like, it didn't strike me as an apology. It just struck me as, like, him reacting to hip hop at the time.

You know, this album comes out in 1994. Right. And it's coming out at the same time that, like, we're in the middle. Like, hip hop has shifted and changed. And I think that that is the moment for me in which you can see the Beastie Boys being like, we are in the same genre, but we're not in the same category. Now, I don't want to make that, I think that there are sometimes people who do this thing with musical categorization where they're like, ah, this is morally superior to another form. And I don't think that's necessarily true.

But I took it at the time as being like, you know, this is a reference to things that are taking place in the culture. Only later did I realize that what they were reacting to was themselves. Themselves. That was something that was interesting to me. because my experience, again, this is my first hip-hop album is Hello Nasty. So I had no, I mean,

it's a very funny thing to say. Sure. But like, I, my experience of hip-hop had been like fairly, you know what? Like, it was listening, occasionally hearing stuff at school or on the radios, which is how I think, like,

I, along with, you know, every child of my example, exact age, like, you know, I had, you know, I heard hypnotized by notorious B.A.J. Like, there were just, like, my experiences of. Right. Actual hip hop as a genre was so limited at the time. Yeah. That, like, I could have given you more of a treatise on how, you know, Mr. Jones by the Talking Heads is the worst talking head song. Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah, I like it, but I can see that argument. There's just this, I really am, like,

I realized actually, only as an adult, and I'm like, oh, it turns out I'm just like a giant Brian Eno stand. Because everything, every band that works with Brian Eno, I'm like, greatest album ever. And then the moment Brian Eno leaves, I'm like, who are you? He destroys, he builds them up. Like, Road to No, yeah, Road to Nowhere is a great song. And especially because I think that it's very helpful.

It's like, but it, yeah, but that's a side note. So, but I think going back to your original question, I think that for me, it seemed to be commentary on hip hop as a whole and not a commentary on themselves. And only later did I realize like, oh, they're talking about themselves. I'm curious in this vein about the MTV aspect. Like, did the sabotage video mean anything to you if you weren't like a fan of them in real time when ill communication came out? again, this is one of those, you know, age questions. So the sabotage video comes out in 1994.

I was seven years old in 1994. Okay. So again, my experience of this is watching it later on VH1. I don't know if you recall this, but there was an era of VH1 when all they did was talk about things that had happened before you care, you like paid any attention. I remember that era very well. Yes. And I will say it was very helpful for me because I was able to become, it was like I was able to speak adult because I could talk about these things. And it was just because I'd watched I Love the 70s for an entire afternoon.

Very informative. And so, you know, it's like school. It's just being able to know what the plot of Three's Company was. That's very important information for the Beastie Boys in particular. But yeah, so sabotage was something where I was like, oh, this is a super cool music. music video, but sort of in the way that like a hard day's night is an interesting movie about the Beatles. It just existed for me at like, oh, that's an interesting historical document.

A thing from the past. Yes. Right. Okay. Okay. If you'll forgive the personal question, who is your favorite? Who is your favorite Beastie Boy? MCA.

Okay. Me too. I've been thinking about this and I think I'm with you. I will say I really appreciate that lines like my name's Mike D and I'm the lady's choice I want to get next to you like roles

especially because I think one of the other things that the Beastie Boys did for me is that I growing up in Cincinnati Ohio in the late 1990s my experience of culture was so like it had to eat that didn't happen in Cincinnati

or like I remember being really Like, there were moments when I was in 2001, an unarmed black kid was killed by the police and there were riots afterwards. And I remember distinctly thinking, this is the only time I've ever seen anyone talking about Cincinnati and the national media that I could remember. Yes. Over the ride. And it felt, you felt kind of isolated from culture. And so I spent a lot of time trying to understand culture through culture. And so there are moments in like, Hello Nasty, where if Wikipedia, would have existed in 1990. I would have,

that would have been so great because I remember there was just little things, like going off the hook like Latrell Spreewell. My mom hates sports. My dad doesn't watch the NBA. And so I was like,

who the hell is LaTrell Spreewell? It's a reading list, right. Yeah, it just is like this entire like New Yorkies. Even just little things, there are samples only now. Then I'm like, oh my God, this is from that.

It all makes sense now. It's like when you find out that like, um, there are people, like, I do this all the time where I'm like, hey, you know that like, deaf punk, they're harder, better, faster, stronger, uses a sample from the song called Cola Bottle Baby. And if you say dead people are just like, what?

I'm like, yeah, no, they did not come out of that. Like, it didn't come out of the clear blue sky. Right. But yeah, like, there was the New Yorkies. And I think that that was something that, like, MCA really got across to me. was this, this is a band that was about New York. It was about reacting to events that happened in New York, about culture in New York.

And I think that it's very, I remember thinking it was very impressive to me that you could have an entire cultural environment that didn't require you to leave New York ever. Which is still like kind of wild to me. Not a Cincinnati thing. No, no. You got to leave.

No. We can come back, but you got to leave. And it's interesting to me that they're in L.A. for a lot of the record. I can't really articulate this, but it sounds like guys from New York who love New York, who live in L.A. now, but miss New York. It's like that tone and that level of lyrical reference. It's very clear to me, even if I can't really point to what exactly. But like, you can hear how homesick they are on Paul's Boutique, you know, on L. Communication, on Check Your Head.

Yeah. And they're talking about a New York that, it's not just New York. It's a New York that existed for them at a specific time. Right, right. Where, I mean, I think that that's something that must be really challenging once you get famous because you'll never experience New York or wherever you're from the way you did before. Of course.

And that's why like every song about Los Angeles by a famous person always sounds like, you're like, okay, like, you know, maybe you should have talked about this with someone else, someone who cared about you. But like, there's something really about that, that, that, longing and for a time that you can't go back to. And in reality, you don't want to. No. The Beastie Boys probably do not think, like, oh, if only away could be shitty-ass poor.

And I like experimental hardcore punk band called the Young Aborigines. Like, you know, that sounds interesting, but also like, probably not. Probably you don't want to do that. So that, but it's interesting. because I spent a lot of my youth listening to this, listening to Hello Nasty over and over and over again. And then being like, I thought in many ways that that's what New York was, that New York was a combination of like big,

like big budget movies and the B.C. Boys. Yes. That's, it's, that's not untrue. Right. Necessarily. I don't know is the song on Hello Nasty that always jumps out to me. Like, that's just, it's, And it's part of that is that MCA passed, right?

Like, it's such a beautiful. It's a beautiful song. Yeah. And it's so striking. Like, there's nothing quite like it in the entire Beastie Boys catalog. No. And I think that that's why I'm really glad that, um, one of the things I love about Hellenasty are the, like, instrumental tracks.

Like, there's like sneaking out the hospital. Right. Which I'm kind of super. Like, they're like, they're like, they're, like, they're, instrument i know they have an entire essentially an album of instrumentals but i love how that was something where it's so different especially because i don't know is right before the negotiation lemuric file which is just like this it's like a little banger yeah like it's a banger and then you've got like electrify which also and unite which again is how i weren't who lettrell spraywell

was but um yeah there's just something about that like their use of instrumentals and also their willingness to break with forum. Right. Like they knew by the time Hello Nastya comes out, the BC boys know who they are and they know what they are. Right. And they know that they are not. They cannot pretend.

Like, no one would buy it if they tried to be anything other than what they are. Exactly. Exactly. And what I love about those records is like the first 10 songs, there's like a handful of like radio hits. And then the second half of the record is like, and now we're going to be ourselves. Now we're going to just jam for 45 minutes.

And you're not going to get all of this right away. But as you say, like 10 years later when you listen to this again, you're going to get that sample. You're going to get that reference. This is the part of the record that's going to grow with you forever. Right. Right. And those are the songs you're going to listen to a million times.

Like, you know, that's also the time when they can, they're clearly having a good time. Like 3MCs and 1 DJ. We'd be getting down with no delay. Mix master mic, what you got to say. God damn that DJ. made my, like, even that sample, I did not know. It was like, who on, what is happening here?

Yeah. But like, the fun that they seem to be having. And then ending with instant death, which is like the weirdest song in the world. Like, it's up there. It kind of reminds me how the Talking Heads album, Remain in Light, ends with the overload, which if you ever put the overload on at like any event, maybe don't. Don't do that.

Don't do that. Yeah, if you ever do that, don't. It's up there with Joy Division's The Eternal. Like, hey, do you want everyone to feel real bad right now? Yeah, that's, you're going to clear the wound. Like, they're out. They're done. No one wants to hear this.

But, like, I appreciate that they were like, this is our album. You're getting 22 tracks. And this is what we're doing. And this is the 22nd. Yeah. So ill communication is your second favorite. Like, do you enjoy that in the same, like, holistic overall way? Like, what are your favorite songs on?

Is it sabotaged and then everything else? or is it the whole thing? I think that that's one where it is the whole thing, especially because actually sabotage is not my favorite song of that. It's flute loop because I just think it's like, I'd never heard, this is going to sound weird. I mean, sure shot's fun. But flute loop, it was like,

I'd never in my life conceived of the music, the instrument I played very badly in bands being used in a hip-hop track. Cool, right, yeah. I also like heart attack. man because that was just like, you know, this punk rock song that I, I believe distinctly that I think I like, you know, that my specific age is that I owned a disc man, but I hated my disc man and was like someday there would be something better. That is a very specific age. Yes. It was because you couldn't jump around to heart attack man without it skipping and it would be this whole thing. And then I actually

didn't like through it somewhere and ugh. Oh no. But like, I think flute loop. It just was a song where I was Like, at no point would I ever get tired of it. I think that's the thing. Like, there are certain songs on that where I'm just like, this is more soul on this train than Don Cornio. Like, again, all this, if I could have, if I could have looked all this stuff up at the time, like lead my team to 60 wins like my man, Pat Ewing. Again. Again. One, man, the Knicks have been real down.

for a real long time now. That's tough. It's real tough. I'm sure somewhere there's like a hidden Beastie Boys track that's about how much they hate Reggie Miller. Just like. It's probably not even hidden. It's probably in plain sight.

Yeah. Yeah. Just determined hatred. But yeah. So I think that that was something like I love their creativity. I love that they seem to be having a good time. I love that they were just like make like they were just talking about sports and like culture that they had experienced because they were the age.

to like Soul Train references made very little sense to me. Of course. But that's because, you know, these are men, these are men who are now in their late 50s who are, who would remember Soul Train because they were seeing it like. Yes. I'm just double check like Mike D was born in 1965. And so he would have seen Soul Train on television when he was like 12 or 13. When he was 11, correct.

Right. And so all of this is like, it's just all of our 11 year olds. Like an 11-year-old listening to the memories of someone else's being 11. Right. That's beautiful. What a beautiful thing. I was listening to the new Lizzo record this morning, and she's got a song called Girls, G-R-R-R-R-R-L-S. That's built on the Beastie Boys girls.

Right. That's the song. And like the documentary that the Beastie Boys did either last year or the year before, you know, AdRock recites the lyrics to girls, like to point out how stupid they are. He's like, girls. to do the laundry. Like, I'm really sorry about this stupid song. Like, is early,

knuckle-headed, cuddly, chauvinous, Beastie Boys, like, this sort of thing that could ever come back in style?

Like, how do you think people look at their earliest stuff now? I mean, I think that there's a combination of kind of this weird,

um, internal irony. Like, girls, to me, is the most, as we were saying, 11-year-olds

listening to experiences of 11-year-olds. Girls is the most, I, would have written this rap when I was 12, but I didn't have time because I was 12. You were busy. Like, it's very much of like, especially because of like it being to that like dinkly, like the kind of piano you have when you're, you know, the one that has preset like tracts. There's always like a preset mamba sound. That's a great sound though.

But yeah, I get it. Actually, I'm kind of surprised that there haven't been more samples that just use like the stuff that comes with the shitty little electronic piano. that casio, that casio, that someone, everyone regrets purchasing that for their kid because you just hear that terrible mom that sound everywhere. You hear the demo over and over. Yeah, exactly. But like, I think that there was kind of a, like, this is, like, fight for your right to party is in the same way, where it's like, this is an experience.

One, it's an experience of being in a high school that I never. I went down to all girls Catholic high school in the early 2000. Yeah, in Cincinnati in the early 2000. This was not my experience of being like this is not. Yeah. I remember distinctly that when I was in eighth grade, we had this like eighth grade dance. And for some reason they put on a fight for your right to party.

Yeah, I know the reason. And everyone lost their minds despite the fact that we had at no point one, like all of these problems were not our problems. Right. Yeah. Your dad caught you smoking. It's like, no, no, he didn't. Yeah, like, but also like the whole thing about, you know, he's a hypocrite. Like the whole like your parents are hypocrite.

Like I'll kick you out of my home if you don't cut that hair. I will say that my mom has actually walked into our house and been like, what is that noise? But it wasn't the Beastie Boys. It was nine-age nails. And it was because I was listening to, I was listening to the fragile. And she did not appreciate the soundscapes created on the fragile. Oh, no. Which, I mean, that's beautiful.

My mom being a Philistine is neither here nor there. But like there was something like this was not my experience of being in high school. But I did appreciate that the Beastie Boys, it's funny now with realizing that they would have been in their like late 20, like mid 20s-ish when they're like almost 20. Yeah. I think about that for a second. but like, you know, yeah, they would have been, let's see, if he's born in,

that's 65, yeah, they've been like almost like 20s, but like. He was 21 and 86. Okay, that makes sense. He was 21 and 86, and yet he's writing about all, I mean, it's kind of a stunted rap environment.

Yeah, you think? But at the same time, like, at the same time, it's writing about, it's not me, He's writing about you. And so it's like, yeah, you wake up late for school and you don't want to go. You ask your mom, please, but she still says no. Like, I'm like, yeah, that is something I have experienced.

But I think that for me, like, a lot of these songs seem to be, like, they were performing the character of being assholes in high school. Right. And there's some, like, I kind of enjoy, like, I actually think girls is kind of a fun song. Yes. But it is extremely stupid. But it is also written from the perspective. Like, it's like if Bart Simpson had a rap career.

Which he did briefly. We don't need to talk about it. But yes, I get you. Oh, Mom, you're just jealous. It's nine inch nails. Right. That's an incredible. Your mom walking in the door and like you're blasting.

So she was, I mean, she was like, she kept going on about how like, oh, I thought something was wrong with the speakers. And I was like, which actually I was like, no, that's way more offensive to me. That's art, mom. No, like, um, I'm sorry. The man you're listening to. soon, he'll have won two Oscars for, I mean, yes. Like, I just, I remember like being like, this is, like, but that's the closest

I ever came. And so I think that, that was something, they seemed to be, and I think that that would have been, and I'm very impressed that they broke out of that because they stopped being kind of one, like a satirical hip hop group. Then they became an actual hip hop group. And then they realized they didn't have to keep satirizing themselves. Like they did not have to keep being what they were like when they were 14 or 15. They could actually just be like.

30. Adults who watch sports and have a lot of cultural references. Yes. Like do yoga and have a lot of thoughts on like, have a lot of thoughts on Tibet and a lot of like a lot of interests and they have a lot of interests and things that are way. beyond just being annoying. Some people never get beyond being annoying, but they do. It's true. It's great. But Jane, this has been wonderful. Absolutely. Thank you so much.

I've really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Jane Koston. Thank you to our producers, Devin Ronaldo, Kai Grady, Jonathan Kerma, and Justin Sales. And thanks very much to you for listening. And now, without further ado, here are the Beastie Boys with Sabotage. We'll see you next week.