I’ll preface this article by saying that the Beastie Boys are my favorite musicians of all time. I’ve been a fan as far back as I can remember. My friend’s sister had Check Your Head, and he had Licensed to Ill. I started buying all of their albums in the mid 90’s, and I made many mixtapes with their songs. When we got dial-up internet at my house, I used to print and read all of their interviews and articles. In high school, I joined an early iteration of their message boards when Hello Nasty came out. I even corresponded with other fans via email and letters (yes, handwritten letters). Suffice it to say that I hold them to a bit of a different standard!
The Beastie Boys have such a huge catalog of music spanning three decades. It would be impossible for every song to be a 10/10 or even a 6/10. I’m in agreement with The Brouhaha podcast that it doesn’t feel right to call this type of list the “worst” Beastie Boys songs. Everyone has a different opinion, and these songs are ten of my least favorite.
10. The Larry Routine
The Larry Routine is the 10th track on Hot Sauce Committee Part Two. I wasn’t going to include skits and interludes on my list, but this song actually has its own beat and lyrics. I think it’s fair game! The Beastie Boys, in their whiniest of voices, yell out that they have new names: Larry, Harry, and Gary. They end it by saying that their DJ’s name has stayed the same, because his new name is Barry? I’m not sure what any of this means. It must be an inside joke.
9. Picture This
Hello Nasty is quite possibly my favorite Beastie Boys album. It’s a long album that meanders through a lot of different musical styles. They were definitely trying a lot of new things. Out of 22 long tracks, the song that I skip the second most is probably “Picture This.” I don’t mean to criticize the effort of guest vocalist Brooke Williams. This song just isn’t my style with the fuzzy guitar screeching. It has a lot of moving parts, and they don’t always sound in sync to me.
8. All Lifestyles
I’m sorry to be picking on To the 5 Boroughs so much on this list. It’s really not a terrible album. Out of all of the Beastie Boys proper albums, excluding the all-instrumental The Mix-Up, it’s my least favorite. In 2000, Noreaga once rapped, “I can't believe I f**ked up and made a half-ass album. My excuse is, my pops just died, and I ain't wanna make music, my pops just died.” In a similar way, maybe the Beastie Boys were really affected by the September 11th attacks that occurred a couple years earlier and drastically altered their hometown. They even dedicated the album to New York City and included the World Trade Center on the cover. Maybe they weren’t in the mood to write and record music at this point in time. “All Lifestyles” is the one of the poorer tracks on the album.
“We gotta keep the party going on,
All lifestyles, sizes, shapes, and forms.”
This song’s lyrical content could be summarized in two simple words: be yourself. “Be yourself,” in my opinion, is some of the vaguest advice you can give someone. It doesn’t get any better when you stretch it out over three verses and a hook either. Sizes, shapes, and forms – it just sounds really corny.
“All you spazzes and you freaks,
Go and do your thing 'cause you're unique,
If it don't hurt nobody else then,
Don't be afraid to be yourself and…”
The word “spaz” is now considered an ableist slur because the word disparages people who experience actual spasms. Just this week, Beyoncé removed the word from her new song after causing an uproar. It’s kind of ironic that the Beastie Boys were trying to create an inclusive song but ended up including a slur anyway. Not their fault – times change, quickly!
7. Dramastically Different
Admittedly, several songs on The Mix-Up album are a bit milquetoast. They’re nice instrumentals, but they’re not something I would listen to very often. “Dramastically Different” seems like the weakest song on the album. It’s four minutes long and doesn’t seem to go anywhere. The bass is decent, but the sitar-like guitar sound with the bongo drums doesn’t do it for me.
6. What Comes Around
On the Paul's Boutique audio commentary, the Beastie Boys laugh about this song. In a 2019 interview about Paul’s Boutique for the album’s 30th anniversary, Adrock confirmed that the song “kind of sucks,” and Mike D holds a firm position that the song is the dud of the album. The song starts out by sampling the very recognizable opening drums of Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick.” After that, it goes downhill real fast.
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
So I can climb up and get into your underwear.”
“Bum cheese on rye with ham and prosciutto,
Got more Louie than Phillip Rizzuto.”
That line always made me cringe. Rapunzel is a character from a children’s fairy tale. I don’t want to think about Rapunzel’s underwear, Minnie Mouse’s underwear, or any of their underwear! Phil Rizzuto is a former New York Yankees player and announcer. Rhyming prosciutto with Rizzuto was pretty clever, but the lines don’t make any sense. Did anyone figure out what they meant by him having more Louie?
“And kick it, And I'll f*** your gramma,
And slam her, slappin' hamma.”
The song ends with a lot of weird ramblings like that. The most positive spin I could put on this song is that it’s somewhat like the Beatles’ “Get Back” in that it includes random references that may or may not make any sense. Even if that’s the case, it’s a poor homage and has a forgettable instrumental.
5. Dr. Lee, PhD
Dr. Lee, PhD is probably the song I skip the most on Hello Nasty. Lee “Scratch” Perry, who is featured on the song and in the song’s title, is considered a pioneer of dub reggae music, a genre with which I am admittedly unfamiliar. This might be a controversial pick since some Beastie Boys fans really enjoy this song. I’m not sure how fans of the reggae and dub reggae genres view this song, but it didn’t appeal to me.
“Science machine and science dream,
This is a living dream from the Beastly Brothers,
And the Beastly Boys with their beastly toys,
To give you some beastly joys.”
Lee Perry seems like he was an eccentric character. He handles all of the singing here, but I’m not sure what he’s talking about most of the time. I guess that is part of the appeal to some fans. The reggae-tinged backing music is pretty repetitive for five straight minutes. I think MCA was inspired by Dr. Lee’s production tricks because he seems to employ some of the same dub techniques on the Bad Brains’ Build a Nation album which he produced a decade later.
4. It Takes Time to Build/We Got The (TIE)
“It Takes Time to Build” and “We Got The” are very similar songs. They have comparable lyrical content and tinny, uninspired beats. I’ll just group them together. Unfortunately, the Beastie Boys were still stuck on the same themes that were included on “In a World Gone Mad” from a year earlier.
“Stop building SUV's strung out on OPEC.”
“The Kyoto treaty he decided to neglect.”
“Environmental destruction and the national debt.”
On “It Takes Time to Build,” the Beastie Boys return to the environmentalism theme that was present 10 years earlier on Ill Communication’s “The Update.” Here, they decry gas-guzzling vehicles and President W. Bush ignoring the Kyoto agreement to reduce greenhouse gases. While protecting the environment is a noble cause, it seems kind of forced here.
“We've got a president we didn't elect.”
“So let's calibrate and check our specs,
We need a little shift on over towards the left.”
“Maybe it's time that we impeach Tex.”
“By the time Bush is done what will be left.”
The Beastie Boys take several shots at George W. Bush in “It Takes Time to Build.” They reference Al Gore winning the popular vote in 2000, impeaching Bush, and shifting political leadership to the left.
“Who got the chance to make things right?
Why the politicians always want to fight?
The Christian Coalition and the right wing ooh,
Let me tell you what you can do.”
In “We Got The,” the Beastie Boys pick up where they left off by criticizing Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition and the political right.
“Who got the power to make a difference?
Who got the power to make a change?
Who got the power to make a difference?
We got the.”
The hook for this song unfortunately comes across like a children’s TV show: You have the power to change the world! Unfortunately, this sentiment, as grandiose and empowering as it sounds, isn’t realistic.
“We can work, walk, march, and protest,
Think about how we approach this,
Ask questions but they keep frontin',
Due time we change a little somethin’.”
The post-9/11 era was a terrible time to live through. Once again, I’m sure that some protest songs are considered timeless period pieces that historians would look back upon as culturally significant. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be either of these two songs. The beats are plain, and the rhymes are mediocre at best. It’s really hard to get myself to listen to these songs today because they didn’t age well. If I had to choose, “We Got The” is the better song.
3. The Update
It’s a slow-moving song with distorted vocals that are hard to understand. The percussion sounds a little too click-clacky. MCA handles all of the lyrics for this track, and they focus on taking care of the planet, environmentalism, and being a global citizen. I’m sure that he had good intentions, but in my opinion the words come across as kind of lame and elementary (sorry MCA).
“We're all citizens of the world community,
All here together and we're searching for unity.”
“The waters are polluted as the forests are cut down,
Bombing and drilling deep below the ground.”
“Because the Mother Earth needs to be respected,
Been far too long that she's been neglected.”
Actually, Resolution Time, an Ill Communication b-side, is another MCA song with similar lyrical content but a much better beat. In that song, MCA raps, “Actin' like the last generation on earth. You're gonna f*** up a place for new birth.” Even though that song isn’t among my favorites, I’d take it over “The Update” any day!
2. In a World Gone Mad
After Hello Nasty was released in 1998, the Beastie Boys went on a bit of a hiatus. Sure, The Sounds of Science anthology had a few new songs in 1999, but they took six years to release a follow-up album. In April 2003, Rolling Stone released a glowing article about a brand-new Beastie Boys song called “In a World Gone Mad,” and it was described as an antiwar tirade that slams Bush. I remember hearing about the song, and I found it on one of the numerous file-sharing programs that were available at the time (probably LimeWire or Kazaa).
“Now don't get us wrong cause we love America,
But that's no reason to get hysterica.”
I didn’t disagree with their stance against the Iraq War, but this song contains some of their lamest lyrics ever recorded. Rhyming America with hysterica, whatever that means, is going too far!
“In a world gone mad it's hard to think right,
So much violence, hate, and spite,
Murder going on all day and night,
Due time we fight the non-violent fight.”
Even the hook seems like a contrived and simplistic way of commenting on the war.
“Well I'm not pro-Bush and I'm not pro-Saddam,
We need these fools to remain calm.”
“People watch your back,
Cause I think they smoke crack,
I don't doubt it, look at how they act.”
I’m not a big fan of songs that comment on politics in general. They typically seem so forced and in-the-moment just to get across the political opinion du jour. I’m sure that there are most tastefully written or effective songs, like something from Bob Dylan or Rage Against the Machine. This song really falls flat.
1. Hail Sagan
“Hail Sagan” is a b-side song from the album Hello Nasty. It was included on the “Intergalactic” single which I purchased on CD. I didn’t even get my first CD player until like 1998. I never understood the point of this song. I’m pretty sure the title is referencing famous astronomer and scientist Carl Sagan who MCA hilariously referenced six years later. On the song “Hey F*** You,” he rapped, “I've got billions and billions of rhymes to flex, Cause I've got more rhymes than Carl Sagan's got turtlenecks!”
The first part of “Hail Sagan” sounds like something you would hear in an old-time horror movie with a creepy organ. It makes you picture a haunted house or something of that nature. It doesn’t really have lyrics. You can hear unintelligible voices in the background making crow sounds. Then, a very odd and repetitive beat kicks in, and it has noises that sound like someone gurgling bubbles.
Many years ago, on the Beastie Boys BBS messaged board I chose this song as the worst song the Beastie Boys ever released. A couple people disagreed with me, with one person even saying they actually like this song. I don’t know if there’s an inside joke that I’m not getting. Regardless, I can still confidently say this is my least favorite Beastie Boys song of all time!
