When "Fight For Your Right" and "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" were red hot on MTV and every jock in my junior high had a Licensed to Ill shirt I thought the Beastie Boys were a goof, soon to be a mid-80's novelty band relic. While I listened to RUN DMC's Raising Hell on a daily basis, I never bothered getting that Beasties cassette and it wasn't until the summer of '88 that a friend of mine gave me his copy along with a bunch of other stuff he'd deemed uncool as we entered high school. Now I was hearing "Hold it Now, Hit It" and "Paul Revere" for the first time and understanding that there was real hip hop on this LP. The jocks had all moved on to NWA and Too Short, shattering the rear windshields of their Datsun trucks with their Alpine woofers and I was just finally discovering the joy of "The New Style" two years too late.
I figured the Beastie Boys were history at that point but one day on Yo! MTV Raps there they were. On top of the Capitol Records building talking about this new album they were about to release and debuting the video for "Hey Ladies". That video blew my mind and the way they were dressed and the energy they had in that segment got me excited to get this new music. I'd just bought a VW Beetle and drove it to the Westminster Mall to check the Sam Goody (I didn't know there were independent record stores then) and was told the LP wasn't out for a few weeks but I was directed to the rack of "cassinlges" where they had copies of the Love American Style EP, containing "Shake Your Rump" and "Hey Ladies" along with the Dust Brother derived instrumentals "33% God" and "Dis Yourself in '89 (Just Do It)". As I walked back to my car I saw my cousin Julie and some of her friends hanging out by the Orange Julius and she asked me what I got. When I showed her the tape she told me the Beastie Boys were lame and I was a dork, but I didn't care. I played that thing over, and over, and over, and over until the actual album was released and then that tape didn't leave my deck for months. I remember being in science class after that and hearing an older jock talking to his buddy about Paul's Boutique, saying it was "disco" and the other guy saying he'd already gotten rid of his copy, he thought it was so bad. Hearing that emboldened me to like the album even more - if the jocks hate it, it must be really cool.
Not being completely clued into the music world at that point I had zero frame of reference for what was doing well on the charts other than MTV play, and the Beastis Boys basically dropped off the face of the Earth then. I saw the "Hey Ladies" clip maybe one more time after that initial showing then caught "Shake Your Rump" at some random hour but they seemed to be done. If MTV wasn't playing your videos, you were more or less finished it felt like to me. One day in art class I threw on "5 Piece Chicken Dinner" followed by "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" and one of the other guys said it sounded really heavy and cool but the second AdRock let out his "IIIIIIIIIIIIII'M rollin' down the hill..." this kid curled up his nose and said "Ugh, is this the Beastie Boys? I fucking hate these guys. Why are they still making music?" Again, I was getting the sense that I was intensely into this thing that was seemingly reviled by everyone around me and felt glad that I was picking up on something that normal kids hated.
Of course, within a few years that all changed and the Beastie Boys were re-embraced by that segment of the world that had written them off briefly but for a little while there I got to have this feeling like I'd connected with something most everyone else thought was trash.
I figured the Beastie Boys were history at that point but one day on Yo! MTV Raps there they were. On top of the Capitol Records building talking about this new album they were about to release and debuting the video for "Hey Ladies". That video blew my mind and the way they were dressed and the energy they had in that segment got me excited to get this new music. I'd just bought a VW Beetle and drove it to the Westminster Mall to check the Sam Goody (I didn't know there were independent record stores then) and was told the LP wasn't out for a few weeks but I was directed to the rack of "cassinlges" where they had copies of the Love American Style EP, containing "Shake Your Rump" and "Hey Ladies" along with the Dust Brother derived instrumentals "33% God" and "Dis Yourself in '89 (Just Do It)". As I walked back to my car I saw my cousin Julie and some of her friends hanging out by the Orange Julius and she asked me what I got. When I showed her the tape she told me the Beastie Boys were lame and I was a dork, but I didn't care. I played that thing over, and over, and over, and over until the actual album was released and then that tape didn't leave my deck for months. I remember being in science class after that and hearing an older jock talking to his buddy about Paul's Boutique, saying it was "disco" and the other guy saying he'd already gotten rid of his copy, he thought it was so bad. Hearing that emboldened me to like the album even more - if the jocks hate it, it must be really cool.
Not being completely clued into the music world at that point I had zero frame of reference for what was doing well on the charts other than MTV play, and the Beastis Boys basically dropped off the face of the Earth then. I saw the "Hey Ladies" clip maybe one more time after that initial showing then caught "Shake Your Rump" at some random hour but they seemed to be done. If MTV wasn't playing your videos, you were more or less finished it felt like to me. One day in art class I threw on "5 Piece Chicken Dinner" followed by "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" and one of the other guys said it sounded really heavy and cool but the second AdRock let out his "IIIIIIIIIIIIII'M rollin' down the hill..." this kid curled up his nose and said "Ugh, is this the Beastie Boys? I fucking hate these guys. Why are they still making music?" Again, I was getting the sense that I was intensely into this thing that was seemingly reviled by everyone around me and felt glad that I was picking up on something that normal kids hated.
Of course, within a few years that all changed and the Beastie Boys were re-embraced by that segment of the world that had written them off briefly but for a little while there I got to have this feeling like I'd connected with something most everyone else thought was trash.
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