731 Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty (1998)

 731 Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty (1998)

Studio Album - Hip-Hop/Rap



About the Act:

The Beastie Boys are a Hip-Hop/Rap group from New York, who have the distinction of being a white hip-hop group, and possibly the most commercially successful rap group ever. They were formed in 1981 as a punk band byt transitioned to hip hop in 1983. In 1997 they were joined by a DJ, Mix Master Mike. They have had 8 studio albums, a number of awards, and broke up in 2012.

About the Album:

This was the group's fifth studio album, and the first with their new member Mix Master Mike, a DJ (joining three rappers).

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

This is a rap album. Rap is one of my out-of-comfort zones. I am trying desperately with rap albums to be fair when I review them, to get over my prejudice and give them a good listen. In this case I didn't have to try very hard, I liked it. This confuses me, because there were elements in here that I may have disliked in other albums, but they were OK in this one. These are 1) it's mostly shouty rap, 2) some of the bass is that really room-shaking thick electronic bass and 3) some of it is just drum loops and rapping.

Why do I like it? I don't really know. I enjoyed the rapping which, I think, could be described as "Old School" or maybe even "Old Skool". It sounded like 1980s rap, fairly slow, shouty, and generally with everyone joining in on the last word of a line. This was to the extent that I was curious about how they had achieved some of the effects, and thought it really was from the 80s. It's not. 1998 - and it has scratching in it!

The rapping itself, well the lyrics, as with a lot of rap, kind of hard to follow, but there are some things I could work out, a) it is not Gangsta rap (thank goodness) b) the incidence of rude words is rare, c) it's not overtly violent or sexual, and d) some if it is the classic "we're the best rappers ever" stuff. I like their celebration of being joined by their new member in Three MC's and One DJ. As well as beats and rapping, there are a good number of musical elements, and while some are clearly samples, it is clear that not all are, and at least two of the rappers play instruments too, and I think they are used. There are certainly some bit of real instrument in here, and certainly some samples, including lounge music, classical, and speech snippets of various kinds. They do do that thing of having quite a lot of sound effects, especially in the transitions between tracks.

And the really surprising thing, the thing that knocked me off my perch, is the non-rap, non-hip-hop tracks. There are about 4 of them, and mostly they are kind of lounge Latino, imagine a bossa nova rhythm, plenty of percussion, a vibraphone and a flute. Imagine a 60s film, a cheap Bond-like adventure, and the sort of theme tune it might have, or a backing track for a song by Helen Shapiro.  Two of them are even (shock) songs. So there are little similar elements in the other stuff, but these are full-on non-rap tracks, that seem weirdly out of place amongst the rest of the stuff. Don't get me wrong, they were fine, especially the flute instrumental, but... why? Especially as I guess they are mainly done by guest musicians.

However, they are not the core of why I liked the album. The core was that I enjoyed the rapping, and the beats, and maybe there is such a thing as rapping I enjoy and hip-hop beats that I enjoy. Fair enough. Maybe the lack of focus on violence was all it took for me to open my heart a little and embrace the beat. And some of that scratching is fine.

7/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2cT6Yb6EWcBhyqGd7DXeL2

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs18g2iJu0yN3X5Lw9Zh84p1R1MVitD2b

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_Nasty



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