After continual occupation with a number of side projects, the Beastie Boys return with To the 5 Boroughs on June 15 off Capitol Records. The release marks the group’s first album since 1998’s incredibly successful Hello Nasty and is billed to be a stripped-down return to old-school hip-hop with politically charged lyrics and, in large part, an ode to the group’s beloved city of New York.
In preparation for the record, the group released the album’s first single “Ch-Check It Out” to radio Wednesday, April 28 while also making the song available for download on Apple’s online iTunes store. The single, to be the lead track from To the 5 Boroughs, also appeared on the April 28 episode of the FOX network’s hit teen drama “The O.C.”
With DJ Mixmaster Mike behind the tables, “Ch-Check It Out” is a fast start-stop party starter much in the same vein of Hello Nasty’s “Three MCs and one DJ.” MCA (Adam Yauch) rips into the track with a call to arms, claiming “Blowin’ doors off hinges / Grab you with pinchers / And no I didn’t retire / I’ll snatch you off with the needle nose pliers,” and with that, the B-Boys are back from the dead and on the verge of a valiant comeback.
“Ch-Check It Out” is in fact very minimal in its production, a much different sound than the heavily layered and intricately produced hip-hop tracks of Hello Nasty. The rapping might be a bit lazy, and with age Adrock (Adam Horowitz) and Mike D (Mike Diamond) have settled into overly nasal voices, while MCA is reduced to little more than a raspy growl. Yet, as elder old-school statesmen and the fathers of mid-’90s alternative cool, the Beasties earn points for their dogged pursuit of an old-school sound that can still fly in 2004.
Weaving back and forth, the Boys trade rhymes in exuberant fashion. They sound excited and refreshed, buoyantly bouncing verbal jabs off of each other and stretching their rhymes in pursuit of as many obscure pop-culture references as they can possibly reach. Trekkies, Klingons, “Nick at Nite” and “The Cable Guy” are each cited in “Ch-Check It Out,” showing the guys haven’t stopped indulging their inner TV junkie and continue to delve into the same fodder as 1989’s Paul’s Boutique, the group’s first ode to New York.
The “Ch-Check It Out” chorus isn’t much outside of an old Kool Mo Dee party call, and the song doesn’t hold any of the overtly political content that the album has advertised. The Beastie Boys released “In a World Gone Mad” in the Spring of 2003 as a free download off of their website. An anti-war song brimming with anti-Bush sentiments, “In a World Gone Mad” compared the Commander in Chief to mentally challenged male model Derek Zoolander and vilified the war in Iraq. Similar content will follow on To the 5 Boroughs, which should challenge listeners more than the undeniable fun of “Ch-Check It Out.”
The Beastie Boys were wise to leave their first single to more universal fair, and just how political they will get on the rest of To the 5 Boroughs will weigh heavily on its success. In the meantime, it’s just nice to have the Boys back with a new album a mere six weeks away.
