- Polish
- Canadian Brass
- Children's Educational
- Barber, Samuel
- Turkey
- Caprices
- Easy Listening
- Soul
- Musicals
- Cutout CDs
- Revival
- Godowsky, Leopold
- Locatelli, Pietro Antonio
- Chamber Music
- Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth
- Warlock, Peter
- Gheorghiu, Angela
- Chatham Baroque
- China
- Oldies & Retro
- Borodin, Alexander
- Upshaw, Dawn
- Compilations
- Holiday
- Alternative Styles
- Podles, Ewa
- General
- General
- Traditional Blues
- Trip-Hop
- Some of our other sites:
- Books
- Clothing, Shoes and Accessories
- Baby Clothes and Accessories
- Cosmetics, Beauty Products and Fragrances
- Cellphones, Call Plans and Accessories
- Video Games
- DVDs
- Electronics, Gadgets and Computers
- Health and Personal Care
- Home and Garden
- Home DIY
- Jewelry
- Magazines and Newspapers
- Music Downloads
- Musical Instruments
- Office Equipment and Supplies
- Software and Games
- Sporting Goods
- Toys and Games
- Watches
- UK Books
- UK Video Games
- UK Home and Garden
- UK Electronics, Gadgets and Computers
- UK Baby Clothes and Accessories
- UK Software and Games
- UK Sporting Goods
- UK Toys and Games
Music : Styles : Rap & Hip-Hop : Old School
-
The joke of Licensed to Ill's cover--that the Beasties could crash their jet into the side of a mountain and keep on tickin'--serves as a good metaphor for a career that even some of their 1986 admirers thought might be over after the one-time-only shock of this full-length debut. That thousands of funk-junkie wannabes have since failed at re-creating its groove, breaking-the-law vibe, and ear-splitting mix of rock and rap is an even better joke. And funniest of all is the record itself, which packs dexterous boasts, aural puns, and lots and lots of yelling into a disc that can still be listened to with as much pleasure as it gave in '86. --Rickey Wright
-
-
-
After he gained legendary status rapping on Doug E. Fresh's "La Di Da Di," it was only a matter of time before the world would clutch British-born Ricky Walters to its heart. Rick had already fancied himself a rabid storyteller (and a mighty good one) on Fresh's track "The Show," and Great Adventures became Slick Rick's novella. Not content with one perspective, Slick Rick often employed tag-team rhyming with himself as his own partner ("Mona Lisa," "Teacher Teacher"). His cautionary tales ("Hey Young World," "Children's Story," "Teenage Love") work much better than his freaky tales ("Treat Her Like a Prostitute," "Indian Girl"). Still, it doesn't take a musicologist to appreciate the complex rhyme schemes and scenarios of "The Moment I Feared," "Children's Story," and "Mona Lisa," and his slight accent heightened his distinctiveness. Despite lukewarm response to his follow-up--as well as a stint in the pokey--Slick Rick will always be remembered for his Great Adventures, an essential B-boy document. --Todd Inoue
-
The very epitome of "been there, done that," LL Cool J also has the distinction of having originated (or, at least, being the most proficient at) half a dozen rap styles. On the hits collection All World, all the phases are represented: he was "hard as hell" on 1986's "Rock the Bells" and again on 1991's "Mama Said Knock You Out"; on 1987's "I Need Love," he was the painfully sappy precursor to Boyz II Men, but he had the formula down pat for 1990's "Around the Way Girl" (and then he went sappy again on 1995's "Hey Lover," a collaboration with the Boyz); and 1988's "Going Back to Cali" found him stylin'. He's had his ups and downs and managed to produce only a couple of truly killer albums, but LL's first dozen years show that he's left his stamp on nearly every facet of the hip-hop world. --Randy Silver
-
-
"Brilliant." -- URB"A masterpiece." -- Salon.com
"Jaw-dropping. Perfectly paced, clever, funny, and down-right funky." -- The Wire
Steinski (advertising writer, DJ, and record collector Steve Stein) produced his first record in 1983. In response to a nationwide remix contest by Tommy Boy Records, he and partner Double Dee (engineer and studio wizard Douglas DJ Franco) produced "The Payoff Mix." A panel of ten judges--including Afrika Bambaataa, Shep Pettibone, Jellybean Benitez, and Arthur Baker--unanimously chose the mix as the winner. Within two weeks "The Payoff Mix" became a Top 10 request on urban radio nationwide, but the release never saw official status and was subsequently bootlegged countless times. The Payoff Mix became the first record in a series now known as The Lessons. Double Dee and Steinski followed up with cut-and-paste landmark Lesson Two: The James Brown Mix, which Fatboy Slim called "the record that always gets the crowd going." Then came Lesson 3: The History of Hip Hop. The series quickly became highly sought after collectibles and led to homage records by DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, DJ Format, and , Steinski has produced a variety of tracks, and this Illegal Art retrospective collects everything from his hip-hop narrative about the Kennedy assassination (originally a white-label promo, also issued as a Flexi-disk for UK music magazine NME) to the 1998 remix of Afrika Bambaataa's "Jazz" with Double Dee. Besides the completist archive, the release will also includes the critically acclaimed "Nothing To Fear: A Rough Mix," an hour-long mashup that was produced for Solid Steel/BBC London, described by Salon as, "the closest thing to a masterpiece the genre has yet produced" and perhaps the most obvious precursor (along with The Lessons) to Girl Talk's Night Ripper.
-
-
With their third album, the Beasties transformed themselves from smart-ass punks with a hip-hop jones into a playful live funk band with some solid rhymes, assisted by the extraordinary keyboardist Mark Ramos Nishita. A couple of tracks look back to their old school rap roots, and they still deploy goofy samples like nobody's business, but they're mostly making their own grooves (including some instrumentals worthy of being sampled in their own right). Their universalist world-view results in some excellent, off-the-wall fusions--the metalloid bump that forms the funk pulse of "So What'cha Want," Sly Stone's "Time for Livin'" transformed into a hard-rock bomber--but they don't have to prove how clever they are any more, and they're stronger and more humane for it. --Douglas Wolk
-
Imagine a time in history when artists didn't have to clear any samples in their music. EPMD's 1988 debut, Strictly Business, like the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique, was recorded during the clearance-free sample heyday, and we're all a lot better off because of it. Long before Dr. Dre and Digital Underground were doling out legal cash to George Clinton and Kool and the Gang, EPMD was sampling them--and others--brilliantly on tracks like "You Gots to Chill" and "It's My Thing." (They even double-sample "Jungle Boogie," using it on both "You Gots to Chill" and "You're the Customer"--that takes some damn nerve.) The EPMD production sound gets in your pants and moves things against your will, making Strictly Business an essential time capsule from the Wild West-era of sampling. --Todd Levin
-
In celebration of Beastie Boys' 24th anniversary, Capitol Records has decided to pay tribute to Michael "Mike D" Diamond, Adam "Adrock" Horovitz and Adam "MCA" Yauch-- known collectively as Beastie Boys, with the release of Solid Gold Hits. (No, the group is not breaking up.) The infomercial-worthy 15-track compendium distills the NYC trio's storied career into an ADD-friendly digest format: Covering the Boys' first platinum-mining expeditions with "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn" and "Fight For Your Right" through west coast detours "Shake Your Rump," "So What'cha Want" and "Sabotage," up to last year's return to #1 with the million-plus-selling To The 5 Boroughs' "Ch-Check It Out," "An Open Letter To NYC" and "Triple Trouble" -and all points between.Beastie Boys Photos
More from Beastie Boys
Pauls Boutique
Check Your Head
IIll Communication
Licensed to Ill
Awesome, I Shot That
DVD Video Anthology - Criterion Collection
-
-
American bands have never gotten in the habit of their British counterparts, who tend to release lots of extended singles filled out with not-meant-for-prime-time experimentations. If the Beasties had gotten into that habit, this would be their B-side compendium: a dozen instrumental tracks showing off their groovier side, complete with plenty of wah peddle on the guitar and prominence given to frequent Beastie collaborators "Money" Mark Nishita (keyboards) and Eric Bobo (percussion). It's tough to believe that the same band is responsible for this and the Aglio e Olio EP, but it goes a long way in explaining how they've remained viable for so long. --Randy Silver
-
-
-
With Yo! Bum Rush the Show, Public Enemy introduce a new kind of bravado that's not just directed at other players and sucker MCs but is an out-and-out middle-finger challenge to the whole world, as these serious brothers roll right over you in a slow-moving convoy of 98 Oldsmobiles ("You're Gonna Get Yours"). PE crowd these tracks with disparate sounds that move your butt while they buzz from every channel. Despite their serious posturing, you'll be grateful for the sloppy bass line in "Timebomb" and Terminator X's brilliant tone experiment, "Public Enemy No. 1." Yo! isn't PE's masterpiece, but it's a truly standout album, a warning shot for the full-scale assault they would later initiate on It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. --Todd Levin
-
-
-
-
