The Beastie Boys are considered to be one of the most influential and ambitious groups of the '90s, cultivating a musical community not only through their music, but with their record label, Grand Royal, and their magazine of the same name. The group consists of Mike D (Mike Diamond), MCA (Adam Yauch), and Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz).
They returned to rap with Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1, parts of which were previewed during the band's performance at the 2009 Bonnaroo festival. The album ended up unreleased in the wake of Yauch's announcement that he had cancer. He underwent successful surgery and radiation treatment, and the band announced late in 2010 that Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2, including virtually all the material intended for the first volume, would be released in spring 2011.
To Purchase Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2:
2011 Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2
The Beastie Boys are back to doing what they do best: cracking wise and nearly camouflaging how kinetic, inventive, and rich their music is. Check out the latest video for "Make Some Noise", and see if you can spot all the celebrity cameos!
2007 The Mix-Up
An instrumental album, The Mix-Up, continued the band's prolific activity in 2007 and garnered a Grammy Award the following year. The album is a fusion of sounds -- cool organs, elastic guitars, looping basslines, rolling rhythms -- where all of the elements are integrated together, turning into a style that's recognizable as uniquely, undeniably the Beastie Boys, even if they don't utter a word on this record.
2005 Yahoo! Music Exclusives
Watch Mike D, MCA, Ad-Rock please fans with an exclusive Yahoo! Music performance and interview!
2004 To the 5 Boroughs
To the 5 Boroughs was hailed as a sleek and streamlined record, with all the loose ends neatly clipped and tied; even the punk influences are transformed into hip-hop.
1998 Hello Nasty
The Beastie Boys' fifth album is a head-spinning listen loaded with analog synthesizers, old drum machines, call-and-response vocals, freestyle rhyming, futuristic sound effects, and virtuoso turntable scratching.
1994 Ill Communication
The Beastie Boys confirm their signature aesthetic with a blend of old school rap, pop culture, lo-fi funk, soulful jazz instrumentals, Latin rhythms, and punk, often seamlessly integrated into a rolling, pan-cultural, multi-cultural groove.
1989 Paul's Boutique
Musically, few hip-hop records have ever been so rich; it's not just the recontextulations of familiar music via samples, it's the flow of each song and the album as a whole, culminating in the widescreen suite that closes the record. Lyrically, the Beastie Boys have never been better -- not just because their jokes are razor-sharp, but because they construct full-bodied narratives and evocative portraits of characters and places.
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