Ill Communication
	1994

Ill Communication review by CDNOW

Ask any record-collecting beat-head, and they'll undoubtedly tell you that their favorite Beastie Boys LP is Paul's Boutique. Underrated from the day it was released, that album is a beautiful mix of samples and sounds, ill b-boy rhymes, and witty punchlines. (And don't fool yourself -- it was sonically revolutionary.) Ask anyone what's the most popular Beastie Boys album, and they'll answer it's the first one, Licensed to Ill. The album most responsible for the Beastie Boys' resurgence? Check Your Head. Most recent album? Hello Nasty. So far so good, right? Well, what about the Beastie's fourth LP, Ill Communication. Is it the forgotten Beastie Boys album? Well, not really. Many hard-core Beastie Boys fans cite Ill Communication as not being either the Beastie Boys' best or most cohesive album, but it was indeed the biggest, selling the most of any of their albums. It pulled the Beastie Boys into international super-stardom, transporting them from large auditoriums into even larger stadiums. And, of course, with a hit record -- and an amazing video -- for "Sabotage," it earned the Beastie Boys legions of MTV-fed fans who were probably in diapers when the Beasties first debuted (cha-ching!). When "Get It Together" was released to college radio as a "teaser" single, it was an odd entrance: Q-Tip and the Beasties freestyling irreverently over a chilling beat. This contrasted with the slick, refined sound of "Sabotage" (did we mention the video was pretty good?), and other hip-hop songs like "Root Down" and "Flute Loop," but what was not to like? Ill Communication provided the most diverse selection of Beasties songs up to that date, because it also mixed in cerebral instrumentals like "Sabrosa" -- which alluded to Adam Yauch's Tibet fetish -- and the throwback punk ditties like "Heart Attack Man." That this album topped the charts from the get-go when it was released at the end of May 1994, is a testament to how much music has changed in only five years. 1994 was the beginning of the end for alternative rock's rule of the music kingdom, and the beginning of the beginning for hip-hop's ascension to commercial success. So Ill Communication was released at just the right time. Who knows what the album would have done if it was released today; it probably would not have made a dent on the top spot thanks to highly stylized pop stars like Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez. Which only goes to show that even though this wasn't the Beasties' best, it was bigger than the rest.

Ill Communication review by Rolling Stone

Why not a Beastie revolution?" proposed the B side of the Beastie Boys' first 12 inch back in 1983; 11 years later, it has happened – it's time to get ill in '94. Since their comeback in 1992 with Check Your Head, the Beasties – Mike D (Mike Diamond), MCA (Adam Yauch), Adrock (Adam Horovitz) and various cohorts – have bum-rushed nearly every media outlet, starting their own studio, record label, magazine and line of merchandise. Still, the core of the Beasties' appeal remains their music – as funky as the Ohio Players', as experimental as Sonic Youth's. Ill Communication continues the formula established on Check – home-grown jams powered by live instruments; speedy hardcore rants; and insane rhyme styles buried under the warm hiss of vintage analog studio equipment. (An old-school distrust of the digital age pervades Ill: As Mike D states on "Sure Shot," "I listen to wax/I'm not using the CD.") Since the Beasties' earliest recordings, recently compiled on Some Old Bullshit, their mission remains intact: to explore the unifying threads between hip-hop and punk, taking their basic elements – the scratch of a needle across a vinyl groove, a pounding snare-bass thump, the crunch of a power chord – and slicing them up with a Ginsu knife. The resulting B-boy bouillabaisse blends both genres, living up to Mike D's boast that he'll "freak a fucking beat like the shit was in a blender." Ill maintains the Beasties' consistency of style, but underneath its goofy, dope-smokin' antics lies – gasp! – an artistic maturity that reveals how the Boys have grown since they began as pimply New York punks making anarchic noise. The Beasties' fourth album lives up to its title – layers of distortion and echo often render the vocals unintelligible, reducing them to yet another rhythmic element. A reggae influence also pops up on Ill, but instead of the stuttering dancehall pulse pervading hip-hop, the Beasties look to the reverb effects of dub innovators like Lee "Scratch" Perry (name-checked in "Sure Shot") for sonic inspiration. Elsewhere, the Beasties show their roots in "Root Down" – in this case, the strutting bass undertow, organ fills and wah-wah, chicken-scratch guitar of '70s blaxploitation-era funk. Throughout, the Beasties demonstrate their musical diversity, ranging from the Gang Starr-style minimalist piano loop of "Get It Together" (featuring a virtuoso freestyle cameo by Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest) to "Sabotage," a bass-driven metallic rapfest. Only on the hardcore punk of "Tough Guy" and "Heart Attack Man" do the Beasties falter. While these tracks have visceral power, they ultimately show the Beasties to be punk classicists, unable to transcend the now reactionary sounding influences of '80s thrash pioneers like Black Flag, Minor Threat and the Germs. Indeed, if the Beasties gave their hardcore the same sonic complexity they give their funk, they would prove truly dangerous. The Beasties' funk emanates from the flow of their call-and-response rhymes, from the play of MCA's rasp against Adrock's freaky nasal cadence. Unafraid of the ridiculous, the Beasties remain masters of the absurdist rap lyric, such as when Adrock comes "steppin' to the party in the Fila fresh/People lookin' at me like I was David Koresh – yeah!" ("The Scoop"). The Beasties detail their expected obsessions with basketball ("Tough Guy"), golf (Mike D's "wearing funky fly golf gear from head to toe") and smoking pot ("Legalize the weed, and I'll say, 'Thank heavens,' " proclaims Adrock on "Freak Freak"). Ill also conveys the Beasties' more serious side as they pay homage to hip-hop's New York roots. Constantly hyping that "motherfuckin' old-school flavor," they drop references like Busy Bee and the Zulu Beat show, romanticizing New York as a mythic rap Mecca. Despite their current status as residents of Los Angeles, MCA states in "The Scoop" that "New York City is the place that I feel at home in," while Adrock claims in "Do It" that he "got the beats in Manhattan/You can hear the texture." Even more surprising is MCA's growing role as the Beasties' social conscience: On "Sure Shot," he states that "disrespecting women has got to reduce" and details his interest in Buddhism on "Bodhisattva Vow" and "The Update." Amazingly, the early-'80s material compiled on Bullshit prefigures nearly every musical development on Ill, moving from the blaring hardcore of "Transit Cop" to "Jimi," an anti-drug song (!) whose narrator moans, "Let's, like, get my bong and do up some heavy weed" over midtempo funky drums and psychedelic guitar. "Cooky Puss," the Beasties' first hip-hop release, sounds remarkably contemporary – its references to women as "bitches" predate gangsta rap, and it was a successful phoneprank record long before the Jerky Boys. Bullshit ultimately demonstrates the nascent Beastie philosophy, which Adrock articulates for '94 on "Alright Hear This": "I brought a microphone/And I pick it up/And then I fuck it up/And then I turn it up ... with the mighty rockin' sound/And you know my culture – I came to get down." (RS 683) MATT DIEHL

Ill Communication review by CMJ-NMR

To summarize the latest mountain of old-school jabbering and funkpacked beats in the Beastie's own vernacular: "I've got mad hits like Rod Carew." The Beastie Boys (MCA, Ad Rock and Mike D.) have come a long way since the snot-nosed-days of Licensed To Ill and a shorter way since Check Your Head, but there is little in their repertoire that can reach the level of experimental brilliance and both metaphorical and metaphysical verbal weight they achieve in yards on Ill Communication. If there's one thing the Beastie know how to do better than almost every hip-hop group out there it's to constantly sample and search for something different or unheard (getting doper along the way), resulting in a sound and vibe they can easily call their own. The trio's brand of hip-hop will always be in fashion sans the use of the hottest DJ or sample loop because everyone loves to hear lines like "I get my hair cut correct like Anthony Mason," and anyone with an ounce of funk in them will be happy to be immersed in the blissfully hard-rocking (occasionally punky) `70s-styled funk (the instrumental cuts "Sabrosa" and "Futterman's Rule" are godhead), created with samplers and live instruments. Q-Tip throws down on the radio-celebrated "Get It Together," while old-school prankster Biz Markie freaks the funk on "Do It." The Beasties toss in a few trashy punk stomps to break up the funk color ("Tough Guy" and "Heart Attack Man"). The end of the disc sees the crew exploring spiritual highs on "Shambala" and "Bodhisattva Vow," while the soothing instrumental "Transitions" helps it all soak in. Still ill after all these years: "B-Boys Makin' With The Freak Freak," "Sabotage," "Alright Hear This" and "The Scoop."

Ill Communication review by NME

Boy, did we need this boot up the backside! Just as it looked as if we’d hit dead end, with some fools even touting Kurt Cobain’s death as justification for installing suicide as the final rock’n’roll option, along come the Beastie Boys to drag us hooting an screaming back into the light. ‘Ill Communication’ is exactly the album we need right now - joyous, celebratory, jumping with life. Maybe it’s coincidence, or maybe the Beasties could sense which way the dreadful wind was blowing, but it’s a real heart-leaper to here them declare during ‘Sure Shot’, the opening number, "You say I’m twentysomething and I should be slacking/But I’m working harder than ever"". At last someone’s declaring that action, ambition and outright love of life is cool. Whoever would have thought it would be the Beasties? Way back in ’87, when ‘Licensed To Ill’ was the world’s party album, most had them marked as a gimmick - white boys poaching the black street sound, a caucasian rap cash-in destined for Porkies-style fame then oblivion. But the Superfly follow-up ‘Paul’s Boutique’ introduced an exciting retrofunk agenda and, although the sales refused to reflect it, respect became due to Adrock, Mike D and MC Adam Yauch. They were actually leading the rap pack, and where they ventured into territories flared and stoned, the likes of Cypress Hill and The Pharcyde followed. Far from being a one-off cheapshot, the Beasties were proving themselves true innovators. ‘Check Your Head’, 1992’s funkpunk psychedelic frenzy, hinted that there was more and better and wilder to come. And this is it. On just about every level you care to fall for it, ‘Ill Communication’ is a get-up-and-get-going, do something and make some fucking noise about it monster of an album. Musically, it recognises no boundaries or boxes or labels, breezing about all over the place, juiced on the unadulterated joy of invention. Whether they’re rampaging through the scalding punk speed metal of ‘Tough Guy’ (a nasal rant about a basketball bully!), grooving on the deep dub Miles Davis jazz of ‘Bobo On The Corner’, or getting downright dirty, Isaac Hayes back alley funky with ‘Root Down’, the Beasties are having big fun fucking with the formula. Moreover, the album’s 20 ‘songs’ aren’t just gestures at collision pop, aren’t wilful mergers for merger’s sake. There is a truly organic feel to ‘Ill Communication’, a real affection for the vibe that allows the mellow jammed instrumental ‘Ricky’s Theme’ to co-habit happily with tape-looped sheep and scratchy samples from such diverse talents as pioneering black comedian Richard Pryor and white cosmic ‘60s bluesman Al Kooper. "I’m still listening to the wax/I’m not using the CD" boast the Beasties on "Sure Shot", in what amounts to the same criticism of modern digital recording techniques that haggard old Neil Young keeps banging on about: digital rips the very soul from the music. ‘Ill Communication’ sounds strictly analogue. Which is just about all it strictly is. The songs are a veritable cornucopia of trivia, a rich roll call of enthusiasms. Those honoured by the Beasties, if you can negotiate your way through the gutbucket bass and distorted, static vocals, include baldy TV detective Kojak, ace hardcore action movie director John Woo, Bob Marley, Elvis Costello (!), forgotten soulman Lee Dorsey, top dub producer Lee Perry and, with a truly wacko sense of the absurd, the druids who built Stonehenge. The natural, rootsy, hang-loose atmosphere ("I know this music comes down from African descent" -‘Alright Hear This’) totally reflects the Beasties’ new found maturity. "Ill Communication" is a deliberately positive noise that encourages us to start taking responsibility for a change. Among all the expected references to golfing wear, legalising weed and sticking your dick in the mashed potato, the Beasties rap about giving women "love and respect" (‘Sure Shot’) and come down heavy on rapists (‘Heart Attack Man’). Incredibly enough, there is even an anti-pollution hymn to nature called ‘The Update’ and ‘Bodhisattva Vow’ is, of all the extraordinary things, a paean to buddhism! ‘Ill Communication’ is one hell of a long way down the road from laughing at spastics. The Beastie Boys got life if you want it..