Well, it appears that the new Beasties album art coulda used a few more hues...
Nah. That's enough colors....
Above is the cover of their new album, which comes out May 3. I like this jazz album approach, better than the insipidly lazy and cheesy cover art they threatened to put out with the unreleased Part I (which is actually Part II with a slightly different title....it's Beastie humor, folks...):
I've reluctantly come to accept that they're a long journey away from the band that recorded the classic LICENSED TO ILL and the masterpiece PAUL'S BOUTIQUE. In fact, in subsequent interviews, they've become apologists for those albums, which I not only feel are a career peak they will never achieve again but two of the greatest albums I've ever heard. I put them up there with the best work by the Beatles, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Run-DMC and Public Enemy.
If you've heard the leaked tracks from HOT SAUCE, they're kind of automatic-pilot Beasties and most of them sound like tracks left off of TO THE 5 BOROUGHS from 2004. Of the four tracks, I guess I like POP YOUR BALLOON best. I understand that artists can't stay in the same place and must evolve, explore and change. But we can debate whether they've become a better or worse group as a result of the experimentation. My opinion? Like I said, nothing beats LICENSED TO ILL and PAUL'S BOUTIQUE...
It's been kind of annoying. Ever since CHECK YOUR HEAD, they've become this weird hybrid group that's hit or miss and often preachy. Of the hit and miss albums, I probably dig ILL COMMUNICATION and TO THE 5 BOROUGHS as overall albums over CHECK YOUR HEAD and HELLO NASTY....Even though HELLO NASTY has two of their most ass-kicking tracks ever, INTERGALACTIC and BODY MOVIN'...Look, it's complicated....
That said, I always get the new Beasties album because they're still better than most of the stuff out there on any given year. So May 3rd, I plan to buy the jazz album.
No comments:
Post a Comment