Beastie Boys
Ill Communication [Deluxe Edition]
GRAND ROYAL/CAPITOL/UME
After getting beat up for their sophisticated sampladelic colossus Paul’s Boutique, and rising to the call of their punk-rock boroughs’ roots with Check Your Head, Beastie Boys MCA, Mike D, and Ad-Rock—together with producer Mario Cataldo Jr. and their still-new keyboardist Money Mark—got back to the business of hip-hop eclectically tinged by modern jazz, clunky R&B, grooving Latin rhythms, and sweat-inducing hardcore. That raging return, spring 1994’s Ill Communication, is now the worthy focus of an all-vinyl box set and cassette that allows the Beasties room to breathe freely and weirdly, with everything from live recorded oddities (a gnashing take on “The Maestro”), to long-ass remixes, to a rare version of the same album with a radically altered track listing. Oh, and the whole new package gets a fun lenticular cover.
From the confident flute-filled punk-funk of “Sure Shot” to the aggro gut-shot “Sabotage,” from the Beat-gen jazz vibe of “Get It Together” (with Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest) to the street-rapping operatic “Do It” (featuring Biz Markie), everything about this 30th anniversary package (much of it was available in a similar though less-impressive 2009 collection) just sounds bigger and more epic in its new remaster than on its original version. Even the BB’s quirky “(Unplugged)” rendition of “Heart Attack Man” and the blunt crunch of the rare, lo-fi frizzy “Mullet Head” sound oversized, as does the intimate, summer-breezy instrumental “Ricky’s Theme.”
In fact, 30 years later, what initially seemed kinda-sorta meh—the Latin percussion-laced “Shambala” co-write with rhythm machine Eric Bobo; the swirling, near-holly “Bodhisattva Vow” led by MCA; the once-confounding, now-cascading closer “Transitions”—suddenly comes across as classic Beasties boisterousness with a sense of wonder and a drive toward pushing the sensoriffic boundaries on what hip-hop could be, vocally and musically. Suddenly, in this 30th anniversary re-shuffle of the deck, every song here is as towering as the dusty, gutsy funk of “Root Down” and the wiry, spit-hard-and-fast rap of “B-Boys Makin’ with the Freak Freak.” And did I mention that the whole new package gets a fun lenticular cover?
