Beastie Boys - Ill Communication (May 31, 1994)

1994’s Ill Communication, the fourth full-length album from New York City-based, Carvel-loving “rap” group the Beastie Boys, pushed the act further down the path that its predecessor, Check Your Head, began traversing two years prior. Famously known as a punk band before switching genres and signing a deal with Def Jam Records in the late 1980’s, the trio, made up of Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz, Michael “Mike D” Diamond, and the late Adam Yauch (also known as MCA, among other pseudonyms he hid behind for various creative tasks), began their careers within our chosen culture as an outfit that leaned very heavily on samples (see: 1986’s Licensed to Ill and 1989’s masterpiece and I will not be accepting any questions at this time Paul’s Boutique) before drifting away from sonic collages, challenging themselves to play more of their own instruments, although obviously sampling is a huge part of hip hop they’d never be able to leave behind permanently.

Check Your Head was the Boys’ first major label attempt at blending their hip hop influences with their punk roots, resulting in a project that combined multiple genres in a way that seemed obtuse at first, but still proved that the Beasties sought their respective solace from a wide array of artists across the musical spectrum, and also there were legit rap songs that banged. It isn’t my favorite album from the trio (see: my comment above about Paul’s Boutique), but its ambition is impressive, and it was clear at the time that the Beastie Boys weren’t interested in being labeled as simply a hip hop act, and that they considered recording the same type of songs every album to be a non-starter.

Enter Ill Communication, an album title that shares a word with their Def Jam debut, but not much else. At this point in their careers, the Beasties refused to remain stagnant, driven by the idea that they needed to make music that was interesting to them, and hopefully others would fall in line. While the project contains several outright rock songs, including its mega-popular first single “Sabotage”, Ill Communication has more in common with jazz fusion, as its numerous instrumental offerings will attest. (Our hosts were also heavily influenced by trumpeter Miles Davis at the time.) Their playful shit-talking remained in the forefront (to a point, anyway – more on that later in the review), as did their clear appreciation for the hip hop culture that they were now considered to be forefathers of. (To a point, anyway.) The hip hop tracks presented on Ill Communication do not resemble anything from their previous efforts, the Beasties’ ongoing evolution of their sound being the lone constant of the group, and the non-rap songs featured helped open the door a wee bit for multiple side hustles and diversionary tactics, confident as the group was that their fanbase would follow them wherever the Grand Royal label appeared.

Ill Communication debuted atop the Billboard charts upon its first week of release, and has sold over three million copies to date. While its sales figures (which don’t really matter, I’m just trying to make a point here) may pale in comparison to Licensed To Ill’s diamond certification, Ill Communication has played a bigger role influencing the future moves the Beasties would make. And also, it produced one music video that frequently comes up in conversations about the greatest in the history of that particular advertising medium, so.

1. SURE SHOT
Ill Communication kicks off with a fucking bang with “Sure Shot”, which appears in my personal top five list of Beastie Boys bops. This shit is just fun as hell: Mike D, Ad-Rock, and MCA pass the mic around over a hodgepodge of samples that form a punk-edged boom bap sound that slaps. The rhymes are happy and infectious, too – the Beasties’ particular brand of boasts-n-bullshit has always been less antagonistic than most of their peers, although they, too, aren’t immune to our chosen culture’s yearning to be treated with respect when it comes to skills. (Ad-Rock: “Fresh like Doug E. when I get my specs in / On the microphone I come correct!”) MCA is responsible for two memorable moments on “Sure Shot”: his brief verse that walks back all of the group’s previous behavior that could be construed as misogynistic, and the line, “I keep my underwear up with a piece of elastic”, which is a hilarious flex for a rap song and one of my wife’s favorite bars from the group, so. Yeah, this song is great, even more so than its various remixes, including one famously handled by Large Professor, which is fine, sure, but the O.G. is the move for a reason.

2. TOUGH GUY
The Boys waste no time reminding hip hop heads of their punk roots, throwing “Tough Guy” into the mix immediately following “Sure Shot”, and it isn’t as significant a tonal shift as you’d think. Running less than a full minute, “Tough Guy” finds our hosts aiming their collective rage against… their opponents in a pick-up basketball game. Which sounds silly as shit – who would write an entire song about trash-talking the players on the other team? The Beastie Boys would, obviously. Thoroughly goofy, but otherwise not lengthy enough to warrant much of a discussion.

3. B-BOYS MAKIN’ WITH THE FREAK FREAK
Splitting the difference between the two worlds the Beasties simultaneously inhabit, “B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak”, a title I understand but hate writing out like that, is a straight-up rap song unleashed through fuzzy altered vocals and a kitchen sink’s worth of noise. Our hosts use the track to trot out their hip hop bona fides, using their history within the culture to mark various points in time they were present for, occasionally making off-hand references that you wouldn’t have expected such as, “Got fat bass lines like Russell Simmons steals money” (just wait until the Boys find out what he’s been up to lately). “I’m Ad-Rock, I’m lit like a motherfucker,” an early bar offers the listener, and the fund to be had here is contagious even if some of the lyrics are fully garbled in the various filtering software. The trio’s weird, oddly golf-focused bars during the last verse notwithstanding, this isn’t a bad way to spend your time, although it sure as shit ain’t no “Sure Shot”. However, you also don’t get a joke about mashed potatoes on “Sure Shot” either, so.

4. BOBO ON THE CORNER
A funky, jazzy instrumental interlude.

5. ROOT DOWN
The fourth single from Ill Communication, one I never could really get behind, although there are a couple of things from it I do enjoy. There’s the organ-laced breakdown in between triptychs of verses from our hosts, and, or course, Ad-Rock’s famous, “Oh my God that’s the funky shit!” line that The Prodigy turned into a whole-ass song in 1997. But I’d always felt underwhelmed by “Root Down” in general, and that feeling remains unchanged with today’s listen, as the subdued drums clash with the Beasties’ hyperactive deliveries throughout the track, and not in a pleasing manner. The lyrics themselves aren’t bad, offering more autobiographical touches from our hosts (and another reference to underwear from MCA), but that just isn’t enough for me. It is what it is.

6. SABOTAGE
I’ve always wondered how producer and engineer Mario Caldato, Jr. (the “Mario C” that “likes to keep it clean,” as mentioned on Hello Nasty’s “Intergalactic”) felt about a playful dis record directed at him becoming a fucking monster hit globally, a dis record coupled with one of the best music videos in existence. Because that’s what happened here: Ad-Rock’s lyrics all point to an antagonistic relationship with an adversary, who was later revealed to be Mario C., which is why the bar, “You’ll shut me down with the push of a button,” suddenly makes all of the sense. (The Boys were annoyed with their engineer for trying to provide some semblance of direction to their recording sessions when they were merely interested in fucking around and letting things happen organically.) Regardless of its origin, “Sabotage” is fantastic, a speedy, crunchy rock song that gains even more of a theatrical quality when one recalls the Spike Jonze-directed clip that accompanied it, the 1970’s cop show aesthetic parodied perfectly. “Sabotage”, an iconic Beastie Boys landmark that may only be rivaled by “Fight For Your Right To Party” when it comes to a single’s importance within the catalog, does happen to be one of my wife’s faves from the crew, but that isn’t why I love it – this is genuinely a fucking great song, one that puts me in a legitimately good mood whenever I hear it play, despite its goofy negative intentions. God damn.

7. GET IT TOGETHER (FEAT. Q-TIP)
Something I hadn’t noticed before today is how “Get It Together” is the longest song on Ill Communication. This is by no means a complaint: I fucking love this song, as I find its freewheeling, stream-of-consciousness freestyle session-feel to be refreshing and honest, the goofy flubbed lines that don’t actually rhyme (mostly coming from guest Q-Tip, who is at his most playful and playfully obscene) adding to the authenticity of the spontaneity wherein. Far from just being the sample source for Blahzay Blahzay’s most well-known song, of the home of a reference to Ad-Rock’s ex-wife Ione Skye that sounds incredibly awkward today, “Get It Together” is instead a fun four-minute romp where the Beasties seem to fluster Kamaal, who spits the word “fuck” so often that it’s obvious he was caught off guard by the assignment, and yet the man still sounds terrific here, as do MCA, Mike D, and Adam. There’s a Buckwild remis to “Get It Together” which is fine, but, similar to “Sure Shot”, I vastly prefer the album cuts over the remakes from hip hop royalty. Sue me.

8. SABROSA
Another funky-ass instrumental interlude.

9. THE UPDATE
An MCA solo effort that just sounds… bad. Which sucks for me to write, because it’s clear that his heart was in the right place. “The Update” features a distorted MCA making his two-verse pitch for Buddhist values and environmental protection, but his words are indecipherable because of the multiple filters his voice is strained through, and the underlying music is fucking weak, unfortunately overriding his positive intent. All in all, the entertainment value just isn’t there. That’s all I got.

10. FUTTERMAN’S RULE
Yet another funky-as-hell instrumental, although this one could also be utilized as proper ring entrance music for any professional wrestlers you may know.

11. ALRIGHT HEAR THIS
Pusha T fans may understand this – remember when you first listened to the final Clipse album, Til the Casket Drops, and you noticed that, while Terrance was still on his coke-rap bullshit, his brother Malice (which didn’t yet have the ‘No’ affixed) seemed to be reconciling his career choices with his lifestyle in real time, looking to his faith for answers that didn’t yet exist? That’s exactly how MCA sounds on Ill Communication overall, but especially on “Alright Hear This”: he isn’t exactly exasperated at the lack of apparent growth from his bandmates or anything, but Ad-Rock and Mike D’s respective choices in lyrical content are worlds away from his deeper thoughts and homage payments (“I know this music comes down from African descent”, MCA says, a thought which is immediately followed by a discussion about asses from Horowitz just because). “Alright Hear This” sounds like a tip of the hat to the hip hop roots of the project, but the Boys’ distorted vocals quickly kill that theory: the music underneath is fine, but while the performances were lively enough, the song itself wasn’t all that memorable, and most likely anybody following along with the album throughout this review will have forgotten what this track even sounded like before this paragraph ends.

12. EUGENE’S LAMENT
A down-tempo instrumental that is the worst of these thus far, although it does seamlessly connect with the vibe of the previous song.

13. FLUTE LOOP
Errant flute samples in rap songs aren’t exclusively the domain of modern-day artists such as Future, of course: many many other rappers have used them first, including the Beastie Boys on the hilariously-titled “Flute Loop”. Like most of the group’s other rap songs (a weird distinction to have to make on a hip hop blog, but here we are), the Boys pass the mic around every four bars or so, each member happily shouting their braggadocio into the ether. “Flute Loop” isn’t bad, actually: the sampled, er, loop is pleasing to the ears. But there really isn’t all that much to this track specifically, which ultimately sounds like a song-length interlude that allows everyone involved, from the artist to the listener, the time to take a breather or to maybe get a snack or something.

14. DO IT (FEAT. BIZ MARKIE)
Surprisingly bland, even with the participation of the late Biz Markie. “Do It” is a thoroughly boring affair, measured from the guest’s lazy intro/outro/chorus to the uninspired verses from the Boys, which sound like various catchphrases loosely knitted together into a rap song structure (although I may only be remembering Ad-Rock’s contributions, as he uses “listen all y’all”, which instantly reminds me of “Sure Shot”, fucking twice on “Do It”). Given the pedigree of artist involved, and the fact that Biz Markie already had a working relationship with the Beasties, “Do It” is immensely dissatisfying, although MCA’s closing verse is rather interesting in how disconnected it feels from the rest of the proceedings: “I step from minute to minute, lifetime to lifetime / Step from stage to stage to see it all unwind / Slowly but surely I seek to find my mind / And every wall that I face is of my own design.” It kind of hits you hard, right? Unlike the rest of “Do It”, which sucks.

15. RICKY’S THEME
A pleasantly chill instrumental interlude that lasts longer than a lot of Beastie Boys songs, to be honest.

16. HEART ATTACK MAN
Another punk song in the vein of “Tough Guy”, except twice as long and much bleaker. The music itself is pretty fucking great, but the lyrical content plays like a song-length criticism of overweight men (read: our hosts are making fun of fat people)… until an accusation of sexual assault is thrown in completely out of nowhere, which muddies up all of the waters. If I had to compare the two, I much prefer “Tough Guy”, as that level of shit-talk feels generic and vague, relatable in its way, whereas the oddly specific “Heart Attack Man” and his “stomach full of Spam” feel kind of gross.

17. THE SCOOP
The rare rapped track on Ill Communication that isn’t filtered to within an inch of its life, but it also feels at least eight times its fucking length, it takes soooooooooooooooo long to finish, a description of a piece of music that you never want to read. Meh.

18. SHAMBALA
Once again, another funky instrumental interlude. I do appreciate that the Beasties isolated all of these onto separate audio tracks.

19. BODHISATTVA VOW
The final song of the evening is MCA’s “Bodhisattva Vow”, a solo effort eschewing his Buddhist faith that sounds rather dull on record, but probably has a much different energy when it was being performed live. I have no reason to doubt MCA’s sincerity, both here and on Ill Communication as a whole – this doesn’t feel like a Jesus Is Ye power play. The care he put into his writing is also very noticeable. “I strive for a happiness of mental wealth,” our host offers, and although the vehicle used to transport this message to the masses (read: the beat) is kind of wack, the philosophy is solid, even if the song itself isn’t what we would call “entertaining”.

20. TRANSITIONS
One final instrumental track, and then it’s time to go home.

FINAL THOUGHTS: So here’s the thing: I like the Beastie Boys. I like their style, their goofiness, the way they take hip hop seriously without taking it seriously. Their whole general demeanor I enjoy. But I do not love Ill Communication. There are definitely aspects of this album that I carry with me as some of the finest moments in any musical genre, but taken as a whole, it’s a disjointed journey with far too much baggage for me to enjoy entirely. There’s only so many times these guys should be able to run back to the “distorted rap vocal” well, you know? Musically, the Beastie Boys are always willing to take chances, as witnessed in both the instrumental selections and the beats behind their vocals, but while Ill Communication contains many of the group’s wilder moments committed to wax (looking past their punk albums obviously), there are too many songs that are simply boring, whether that issue is caused by lyrical content (by which I unfortunately mean MCA’s performances – I respect his choice in subject matter, but sometimes it’s too much of a contract with what Ad-Rock and Mike D are doing, and his solo efforts here , while admirable, aren’t exactly entertaining), or if the dullness is coming from inside the house (see: the muted boom bap of “Root Down”).

Truth be told, Ill Communication was a project I had always kind of dreaded revisiting for this site, because I knew how it was going to go down – for me, the project always fell apart after “Get It Together”, so I’d only listened to the back two-thirds of the project a handful of times prior to this write-up. I’m sorry to report that I was absolutely correct: there wasn’t a lot beyond the seventh track worth recommending unless you’re a die-hard Beastie Boy fanatic that absolutely must listen to all of their output. Hip hop heads need only pay attention to the tracks listed below, and as for everyone else, just know that what’s interesting to Mike and the Adams isn’t necessarily going to be interesting for everyone. Ill Communication features some fucking fantastic songs, but overall it holds up the worst out of all their full-lengths up to this point, and I say that fully aware that some of Licensed To Ill is cringey as fuck. Ah well, onward.

BUY OR BURN? Again, I should probably rename this to “Stream or Not?”, but I like retaining the history of the blog. I would definitely recommend a stream, especially of the tracks listed below. But would I encourage you to spend your hard-earned money on a physical copy? Honestly, yes, but only up to twenty bucks or so, since “Sure Shot” and “Sabotage” are absolutely worth the price of admission. Everything else, though: ehhhhhh.

BEST TRACKS: “Sure Shot”; “Get It Together”; “Sabotage”; “Tough Guy”; “Flute Loop” is also okay enough, I guess

-Max

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