Thoughts on the new Beastie Boys album

So I've stuck with these guys since I was 11 years old, and had saved my pennies to but a cassette of License to Ill. It was one of the first pop albums I found out about completely on my own. Through most of my youth, I mooched off of my older and wiser brother's musical tastes like a lot of younger siblings did. When I was 10, my Mom remarried, and for reasons that have nothing to do with anything relevant, my brother went to live with my dad, and I went to live with my mom. So I was kind of on my own to a certain extent.
As is every suburban kid's God given right, I lived in the basement of our house. I was lucky in that I had my own room, and my own living area, where my step dad eventually put a TV complete with cable. I think this was done specifically so that I would leave him alone. In the '80s, he was a very "beer and football" kind of a guy, where I was more of a "Dr. Pepper and Dr. Who" kind of a guy. So with a cable enabled TV and the '80s beckoning to me from the family room, I watched a lot of Bullwinkle, Robotech and MTV.
Naturally, MTV shoved the Beasties into my face, and I thanked them for it. I've kept up with them ever since, buying every album as it came out. This, in contrast to MTV itself, which I abandoned long long ago. I was one of the few who embraced Paul's Boutique whole heatedly, and Ill Communication and Check Your Head defined my High School years just as much as Nevermind or Pretty Hate Machine or The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste did. That was one of the wonderful things about the Beastie Boys. You could be a punky, little industrial boy and still be a fan. It was allowed because they were really doing their own thing. Sure, it was and still is deeply rooted in hip-hop, but the Beasties always managed to zig when everybody else zagged.
Their previous album, The Mix Up, an all instrumental done mainly I imagine because of MCA's throat cancer diagnosis, while not as good as the previous collection of Jazz-Funk tunes, The In Sound From Way Out, was nonetheless very good. Perhaps because I knew all about MCA's condition, the lack of lyrics added a slightly somber note to that album, and I could never get as into it as I could most of the others. It's like I could picture MCA back there on bass with a bandaged neck, and it just made me sad.
Now that I've had a few weeks to process this thing, I feel like Hot Sauce Committee is the exact opposite. This album exists to let everybody know that everybody is healthy and ready to party. A very nostalgic album, this thing could have been the follow up to License to Ill and nobody would have noticed. It isn't full of knock-outs, and I think they resort to their occasional use of a heavy, constant beat with almost whispered spoken word lyrics over the top a little too much, but what is good on this album is VERY good and very well made. Nothing seems over-mixed, which was the problem with a lot of To The 5 Burroughs, nor under mixed like the Check Your Head era. This is a party album, pure and simple. Just watch the 30 minute video for the Make Some Noise single if you had any doubt.



-JP