Over 25 years have passed since the release of ‘Licence To Ill‘ and the Beastie Boys still sound as exciting as ever. In today’s musical landscape their shared delivery style is almost singular and on ‘Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2‘ the true New York kings are as good as they have ever been.
Cougar regular Thom says ‘you’d expect the Beastie Boys to be out of touch by now but I can safely say I have not, and don’t think I will tire of their unpredictable nature. ‘Hot sauce committee part 2′ is sophisticated and balls out cool‘
Best still the Beasties have the power to make illustrious guests shine. There are few groups around today with as distinctive vocal styles of Mike D, Ad-Rock and MCA. The latter in particular sounds as hungry as ever following the cancer scare which practically shelved ‘Hot sauce committee pt 1‘. We are glad to have him and his partners back.
Quite some time has passed since I first mentioned Santigold as part of the Cougar Microbes 2008 end of year breakdown. Those were the early days of this blog (judging by my writing) and while the songstress has drifted in and out of the public eye, wetting our appetite with a hundred amazing collaboration, I think it’s about time to hear a new album.
Having recently dropped the track ‘Go‘, featuring none other than Karen O, my interest has peaked and while she keeps hinting through her twitter account I’m curious to hear what she has come up with.
In the meantime here are some recent and not so recent tracks with N.A.S.A and Cougar idols Beastie Boys as well as her the aforementioned Karen O collaboration.
Following a prolonger absence, largely due to this massive undertaking, Weekend Videos is back with a few of my favourite music videos from the golden age of MTV.
First up is the BeastieBoys amazing 70′s cop show mocking video for ‘Sabotage‘. I must have seen this video thousands of times back when it first emerged and I’m pretty sure I can watch it a thousand more.
Since I featured 5 Alive‘s remix of the Beastie Boys‘ ‘Roots Down‘ back in July I’ve been keeping tabs on the New York remix artist. I’ve been sitting on these mashups since the end of the Summer but figured now is a good time to reintroduce his stuff.
Love his treatment of the classic Santana moment to celebrate Woodstock’s 40th anniversary.
Mash-up artists would be forgiven for steering well clear of Jay-Z samples after the bar was set so high by Danger Mouse‘s seminal ‘Grey Album’. Still, this didn’t deter Max Tannone for unleashing his superb Jaydiohead remix album a few months ago.
Now he is back with his personal re-working of the Beastie Boys‘ classic ‘Check Your Head‘. This ambitious project takes the instrumental parts from the album and reworks the lyrics over them breathing new life into the classic album.
Last week’s ‘All Points West’ festival was an opportunity for a bunch of artists to wish MCA a quick recovery and celebrate the music of the Beastie Boys.
Jay-Z’s, who replaced the Beasties headline slot on Friday, covered ‘No Sleep To Brooklyn’. Not one to be outdone, Chris Martin offered a reworked piano led version of ‘Fight For Your Right‘.
Once again, get well soon MCA!
TRACK:
Coldplay – Fight For Your Right To Party (live @ All Points West)
Beastie BoyAdam Yaunch (AKA MCA) has been diagnosed with cancer of the preaortic gland and lymph node. The rapper, flanked by friend and bandmate Ad-Rock, took a novel approach to breaking the news to fans by broadcasting it to the world via a youtube video and added that he expects to fully recovery. However, inevitably their tour schedule and imminent album ‘Hot Sauce Committee‘, due in September, will be delayed until he gets better.
I was lucky enough to catch the Beastie Boys in September 2007 at Brixton Academy in what was a stellar performance and I can’t wait to see them again. Here is to a speedy recovery to the man who has got more rhymes than he’s got grey hairs, “and that’s a lot because I’ve got my share“.
to feature an array of amazing releases and artists (past, present, old and new) with the goal of promoting them to anyone interested and anyone who stumbles across this site.
If you like any of the tracks, please go buy the albums and help finance the artists producing this great music.
If there are any issues with the tracks featured do not hesitate to contact: "team (AT) Cougar Microbes (DOT) com and we will happily oblige.
Over 25 years have passed since the release of ‘Licence To Ill‘ and the Beastie Boys still sound as exciting as ever. In today’s musical landscape their shared delivery style is almost singular and on ‘Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2‘ the true New York kings are as good as they have ever been.
