Waking Ear

So I came to music late-ish in my life. It was 9th grade before I started branching out from the unholy trinity of Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, and Phish. For whatever reason, the Beastie Boys were the guiding force that drew me out of the HORDE Tour extended-solo mindset. In fact, they are probably the band most responsible for the rest of my musical development.

During the mid-'90s, it seemed to me that the Beastie Boys were *the* arbiters of "what's really good" in music, style, and politics. They had a unique aesthetic - slacker skaters that built their own studio, goofballs who wanted to free Tibet, equally adept with an 808 bass kick or hardcore guitar riffs...they were the smart dumb kids. They did experimental lo-fi hip-hop, played whatever the hell they wanted, and sold millions of records. They were cool, but didn't act like they were cooler than you.

The Beastie Boys used their mainstream acceptance to provide bridges to other forms of music using the various styles and sounds they incorporate into their own work. Sure, if I was cool in 9th grade I would have already been listening to Bad Brains or Lee 'Scratch' Perry or Jimmy Smith, or what have you. But I didn't have an older brother to hip me to this stuff. Instead, I had the Beastie Boys - and through them I discovered NYC hardcore, dub reggae, Biz Markie. I mean, I was that kid that heard "When the Levee Breaks" on the classic rock station and was like, "oh shit, Rhymin' and Stealin'!"

So on the day of the release of their sixth studio album in what I think is 20 years (damn slackers), I wonder if the B-Boys are still fulfilling that role for the kids today. From what I've heard of the new album, they seem to be returning to the minimalist, drum loops & stabs approach of their earliest work. Is this going to catch people's ears the way that the wall-of-samples in Paul's Boutique, or the live-instrument mixtape approach of Check Your Head and Ill Communication did? All I know for sure is that I'll be sneaking out of work today at lunch to buy it - after all this time, I'm still psyched to find out what they're going to do next.