Hey all, if you are west of Colorado and it's still Tuesday night... get up right now and put Letterman on. The Beastie Boys just did the coolest music performance I have ever seen in 32 years on earth. If you still have the chance to see it, stop reading now for spoilers. When Letterman introduced the band, only the DJ was on stage. Then, they cut to an outside camera focused on a subway entrance. All of the sudden the Beastie Boys come bounding out of the entrance and start their song on wireless microphones. The whole performance was done as they walked and rapped down the streets of New York until they got into the Late Night studio. Their performance was top notch, never missing a beat. On the downside, though, it did sound like every other Beastie Boys song.
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jim Carruthers
That was a great performance, especially in contrast to the rather lacklustre performance by the Beastie Dads at the MTV Movie Awards thing.
Letterman has been doing some really interesting street things in the Greatest City In The World (tm) such as the guided tour by Amy Sedaris at 4:30 am of her neighbourhood.
2 - Shark
Jeezus, they make Milli Vanilli look like Lennon - McCartney.
The Beastie Boys are the two biggest poseurs in musical history -- went to Ivy League Schools to learn how to appeal to drooling morons who dance to their partying house-ape soundtracks.
These two spoiled rich brats from upper Manhattan are posing as hard-core, left-wing, power-to-the-people ghetto thugs: What a fuckin' joke!
But I think it's appropriate that most of their music is ripped-off, um I mean "sampled" -- and that at least one of them grew up in his little NY penthouse on money stolen from the American taxpayer via the IRS.
Mike Diamond (Mike D.).
Adam Horowitz (King Ad-Rock).
What a fuckin' joke.
3 - Joe
Did something happen to MCA?
4 - Eric Olsen
Nothing happened to MCA, and they haven't ever pretended to be thugs and being leftist is hardly unusual in Upper Manhattan. And after 20 years, I don't think it's reasonable to impugn their integrity. No one has to like them but if you reject the entire concept of sampling then you reject hip-hop and much of electronic music - that's a pretty broad condemnation.
5 - Shark
I reject criminals parading as artists.
6 - Johno
Shark, then you'd better reject all bebop, which took pop chord progressions whole and just extended them into dissonance.
Jazz standard writers hoisted Cuban changes all the time. There's a track on "Buena Vista Social Club" that's harmonically identical to "All of Me"... guess which was written first?
Bach stole from himself all the time. You have to to write a cantata every week. Ditto James Brown.
How about Keef Richards, who stole Chuck Berry's every move, or Elvis, who some claim hijacked black music whole?
Or all the 10,000 Beatles-inspired bands out there. Every time a band plays a b7-V-I progression with sweet vocal harmonies, they're ripping off Paul.
Johnny Cash admitted to stealing songs, from Irish ballads like "Clancy Lowered the Boom" ("Don't Take Your Guns to Town") to the English folk song "Barbara Allen" which he recast as "The Ballad of Barbara" with nary an apology or acknowledgement.
Robert Johnston practiced in the woods so his peers wouldn't steal his songs... Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, etc.
Damned criminals all. Thieves!
7 - The Dude
Good artists borrow
Great ones steal
8 - BRICKLAYER
Uh, dude, there's 3 MC's and one deejay, and they rock the house parties 'til their hair turns gray.
"These two spoiled rich brats from upper Manhattan are posing as hard-core, left-wing, power-to-the-people ghetto thugs"
Uh, dude, they may be spoiled rich brats, but I don't think anyone who doesn't get their hip hop updates from Fox news would be under the impression that they are attempting to pose as "ghetto thugs". In fact, these blokes have made quite lovely development both musically and personally, and make terrific role models to their many adoring fans. They have grown up to be fine adults, and are concerned with making the world a better place for you and me.
You seem to be quite hostile and bitter towards these fellows. Maybe you have been slighted by them personally. Maybe the last time you paid attention to their musical creations was when the jocks were dunking your head in the toilet as they chanted the lyrics to "You've gotta fight for your Right". Maybe you hate the player AND the game. I cannot speak to these things. They are your own personal demons, and you will need to work them out.
However, they indeed have a magnificent body of work, with "Paul's Boutique" being my personal fave, followed by the wonderful "Ill Communication" and "Check your Head". I recommend you stop by the local public library and at least give them a cursory listen. In the meantime, I will purchase 2 of the new album. One for me, and one for you, which I shall symbollically leave unwrapped in the package, to mourn your lack of musical taste.
9 - Shark
Johno, it's not about stealing music; it's about stealing money.
See IRS vs Daddy Horowitz for more.
10 - Shark
And I still say it's music for morons, but to each, his own.
xxoo
11 - Mark Saleski
shark, rent yerself a copy of the movie "Scratch". tons of background info on the birth of hip-hop, turntablism, etc.
signed,
Moron
12 - Chris Kent
Scratch moves at a pretty fast clip. Can Shark's old bones keep up with such a pace?
13 - Mark Saleski
oh yea....he'll be saying "Yo!" pretty soon.
seriously, i had to run out and buy a Dj QBert after seeing that movie.
14 - Ms. Tek
"Paul's Boutique" is my favorite as well.
15 - Jim Carruthers
Obviously one of the Beastie Boys has done the dirty on Shark, since if being suburban was a crime, then, he would be giving the smackdown to Carl Ridenhour.
"To the 5 Boroughs" isn't a great album, but it is pretty good old school hip hop, and a welcome relief from most of the limited thug rhymes (though they can't match Kellis' Milk Shake). I'd say it was as good as "Straight Out The Basement Of Coolie High".
16 - visualsimplicity
Sounds like Shark is condemning a man for the sins of his father.
17 - Shark
yah, whatever.
Can't wait to check out the history of morons who scratch records.
zzzzzzz.
I'm old school: prefer music.
18 - Mark Saleski
I'm old school: prefer music.
what? and i don't??
alright! we haven't had a good 'ole "is this music?" thread in quite a while.
19 - Johno
Shark, regardless of the saga of Horovitz vs. IRS, I don't see how that applies to the Beasties. Their first two records were made in before sampling was covered by copyright law, and indeed "Paul's Boutique" with its Beatles samples was one of the reasons the law was changed. Since that time, I can't recall a single incident in which the Beastie Boys were sued by someone for not clearing their samples and paying their royalties. Moreover, the recent Beasties stuff is sampled mainly only in the sense that Ad-Rock writes his own music, records it, and then samples/processes it. Is he therefore stealing from himself in the same sense that John Fogerty or George Harrison were accused of doing?
You can like or hate hip-hop and sampling, and opinions are an inalienable right, but so far you haven't presented a case for your accusations that the Beastie Boys are, to coin a phrase, rhyming and stealing. Your argument that rap isn't music is as threadbare as Jerry Lee Lewis' wedding suit.
How "old school" are you? Do you reject electronic music because it's not tonal and usually rejects Western harmony completely? Like Webern did? Or do you reject music that has a tonal center but no explicit harmonic movement, a la Miles Davis post- "Kind of Blue"? Do you reject amplified instruments and blues changes, such as Elvis, Muddy Waters, or BB King? Or do you prefer "music" from back when it was more than three chords, e.g. prior to about 1937? Glenn Miller's "In The Mood" really shut the door on key changes, I tell ya. Do you reject art music that closed the door on melody, rhythm, and harmony, like Schoenberg, Berg, and the aforementioned Webern, not to mention Babbitt, Xenakis, Sampen, Penderecki, or Paderewski? Or is it farther back, to when Beethoven and then Mahler, Sibelius, Strauss, and Wagner destroyed the mathematical purity of Bach's system of harmonic voice-leading? Do you yearn for the days when I-6 could only lead to IV?
Again, I respect your opinion, the foregoing snark notwithstanding (you've hit a nerve), but if rap/electronic music isn't "music" then neither are the drum ensembles and chants of the Dahomeans or Yorubans, Balinese gamelan, Pakistani sufi music, raga, nor the 1000-year tradition of Tibetan throat singing.
Where do you draw the line?
20 - bhw
Music is noise. Noise is music. Taste alone defines which noise/music we like or don't.
21 - Johno
BHW, nice. Much more concise than I could say it.
To paraphrase Frank Zappa, music is just decorated bits of time.
22 - Shark
Johno, et al, thanks for asking!
1) Music is defined as "what I like."
2) When a genre becomes popular with both the drooling masses and the corportate honchos, it goes on Shark's Shit List, ie. if it's popular, it sucks, ie. everything "they" say, do, and perform is suspect.
Those are the rules, 'kay?
* * *
Okay, Boyz, 'll admit it: I'm just jerkin' yer chains about yer over-rated yankee poseur DJs. Life is short, and one has to prioritize one's listening schedule.
...Plus -- I'm a reactionary elitist... what can I say...?
And Johno, thanks for the history lesson. Mem-O-ries...
I must say I'd take Xenakis and Cage over two domesticated primates in baseball caps any day.
And for the record (vinyl?) -- Schoenberg, Berg, and the aforementioned Webern should be taken to the musical history "de-lousing" center and then buried in an unmarked grave.
BTW: Johno, since yer gettin' all pedantic on me -- I studied music at UNT, one of the best music schools in the world, (studied with Merrill Ellis, was classmate of Lyle Mays, learned on the second Moog ever made) and was one of the first performers of "electronic avant garde music" to play at the San Franciso Art museum, so it ain't that I'm not open to new things. It's just that the Beasties won't even be a footnote in in the overall musical landscape of the future.
Maybe we should discuss the Art of Madonna or the Lack of Integrity of Bob Dylan???
: )
23 - Mark Saleski
yea, my favorite Zappa quote about music distills down to "if you perceive it as music, it is music":
"Anything can be music, but it doesn't become music until someone wills it to be music, and the audience listening to it decides to perceive it as music."
which kind of implies an open mind on both sides.
24 - Johno
Shark, nice credentials. North Texas, eh? My own music education was accidental, in the sense that I started taking theory courses alongside chem and bio, until one day I woke up to discover I had a major in music and was earning honors, and had a C in chemistry. One of my professors once played trombone for Guy Lombardo. As for pedantry, it's my natural mode and I hope I at least do it fairly well.
What we have come to is an aesthetic divide which, though legitimate on both sides, allows very little crossover. Although I enjoy Xenakis from time to time, I can get the same pleasure from sticking my head in a working air duct. Ditto Cage, who I revere as a genius for having the insight that anything can be music. Ives, same deal, except more playful and fun.
Although I own Gorecki's 1st symphony, when he was still crashing giant blocks of sound together, I usually listen to his 3rd, or forego Gorecki altogether in favor of Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash, or the Beasties.
It's hard to say what will be "remembered" in 200 years. Outside the academy, where you are comfortable, how many people know the names Palestregna, Purcell, Paderewski, or Part? I daresay more people know folk tunes like Greensleeves or Barbara Allen, even third or fourth hand, or hymns inherited from the public domain, than remember the opening notes to Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony. I daresay the Beatles will still get play two centuries from now (and they, at least, get a nod in New Grove if I'm not mistaken). Although the academy disdains the Beastie Boys as it has disdained popular music all along, it's not fair to claim that the academy is the official repository of musical memory.
I do have to ask-- what's your problem with Schoenberg and Berg? Wozzeck kicks all ass!
25 - BRICKLAYER
"2) When a genre becomes popular with both the drooling masses and the corportate honchos, it goes on Shark's Shit List, ie. if it's popular, it sucks, ie. everything "they" say, do, and perform is suspect."
Unless it's Avril Lavigne. She's the next Joni Mitchell!