I figure there's enough people here who are going to buy this, that it deserved it's own thread for posting reviews, etc. I plan on getting it at lunchtime. To those who already have it, how much of the album is simply Bush-bashing? I have a feeling that's really going to turn me off.
It's incredibly medicore. The lyrics are mostly laughable and the politics are sophomoric. Oh how the mighty have fallen. The only good thing about it is the track with the "Sonic Reducer" sample.
Well, the lyrics have always been pretty laughable and sophmoric, which was fine because the songs usually weren't really about anything; they were, for the most part, just energetic and fun. I don't see how they can pull it off while trying to be serious. It seems like that could turn out embarassingly bad. But, I should probably listen to it before making a judgement.
I got it...love it. Only 2.5 songs could be catergorized as "Bush Bashing." It sounds like if you transported today's technology & sensibility to 1986. If you only like the Beasties "rock" stuff do not buy this album. That's partially why I love it. The fat is trimmed (though I do love the Santana-eque intrumentals of their 90's albums) Pure hip hop. Samples from LLcoolJ, rapper's delight Chuck D, Nas, 50 cent, I think Jay-z. About the lyrics: 85% of the beasties has always been their humor. A taste from the new album: What the falafel, you got to get up awful early to fool Mr Furley. I'd buy it...I did, infact. $10 at the Target store in Austin.
I pre-ordered it months ago. Thanks to Faos, however, I'm listening to it right now. Sounds good to me (but I'm an unapologetic Beasties fan, too).
Listening to "The Brouhaha" now I went to a midnight record release sale at Tower records in Greenwich Village last night and came home with the album, a T-Shirt, and a few stickers. "An Open Letter to NYC" is my favorite track on the album by far Dear New York this is a love letter To you and how you brought us together We can't say enough about all you do Cause in the city we're ourselves and electric too I am loving this album, produced entirely by the Beastie Boys anyone post on the beastieboys message board?
I didn't know it had Bush-bashing in it, I will get it first thing in the morning, or my morning which starts at about 2pm since I'm on vacation.
To The 5 Boroughs has grown on me in the last week and it could be my favorite Beastie Album of all. To me its a hybrid of old school License to Ill and Paul's Boutique with the intergalactic breakbeats of Hello Nasty. rolling Stone gave To the 5 Boroughs five stars... These are some things that have changed since the Beastie Boys' last studio album, Hello Nasty, was released in 1998: There is no Grand Royal Records; the trio shut down its eccentric custom label in 2001. Adam "MCA" Yauch's deep, rough growl is now an even deeper, stranger weapon of taunt; he now fires boasts and insults like a hip-hop Tom Waits, in a smoker's-cough harangue scoured free of melody. And there is no World Trade Center. This may seem like a weird time -- wartime, everywhere you look -- for Yauch, Adam "AdRock" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond, all on the cusp of forty, to make a record that in its gibes and hyperspeed is the closest they have come to their old-school fight and comedy on 1986's Licensed to Ill. Actually, it is the perfect time. To the 5 Boroughs is an exciting, astonishing balancing act: fast, funny and sobering. "I bring the **** that's beyond bizarre," Horovitz asserts against the quick hop and spears of sampled brass in "Ch-Check It Out." "Like Miss Piggy," he adds, apropos of nothing, to which all three respond in idiot falsetto, "Who moi?" In "Right Right Now Now," the Beasties lament Columbine and call for "more gun controlling" over tense rolls of Muzak harpsichord, then twist the chorus of their biggest hit into a free-speech cheer, retrieving Public Enemy's inversion from 1988: "We're gonna party for the right to fight." The Beasties pour the Pink Champale and Riunite here, but they're not drinking to forget. They turn the dis on "a president we didn't elect" in "It Takes Time to Build": "Is the U.S. gonna keep breaking necks/ Maybe it's time that we impeach Tex." It's risky business -- odd, at first, to hear social protest in Horovitz's cutting nyah-nyah-nyah or, in "All Lifestyles," Diamond's high, shrill yelp: "Walking down the block, you say, 'Yo, D! When you coming out with the new CD that spreads love in society?'" But To the 5 Boroughs is a full-service gas. The Beasties produced the album themselves, spiking stark, muscular beats with incongruous cool, like the Brazilian rain-forest buzz of the berimbau in "Hey **** You." You also get an encyclopedic torrent of cheesy-TV citations, as if the Beasties have spent the last six years sucking up nothing but Nick at Nite. And two decades after turning from hardcore punk to homeboy jollies, the Beasties are still the best rap band in the biz -- three voices swinging like a jazz trio, racing like Bad Brains -- and they don't have big patience for the gold-plated phooey currently passing for gangsta. "I know you're sitting pretty in the Hampty-Hamps/Posing like you're rolling with the camp," Yauch croaks in "Shazam!" That photo of P. Diddy on a jet ski, in his polar-bear beach robe, comes to mind. More than anything, To the 5 Boroughs is the Beasties' valentine to the city where they, and rap, were born. It is a brash, passionate toast to what we lost on 9/11 (in the cover illustration, the Twin Towers are still standing) and what survives: in memory, on the ground. The raps are packed with local cuisine (Blimpies, Murray's Cheese Shop on Bleecker Street) and nostalgia (Yauch: "Used to ride the D to beat the morning bell at Edward R. Murrow [High School] out on Avenue L"). And in "An Open Letter to NYC," the Beasties celebrate the city "that blends and mends and tests," mixing prayer and pride with sampled shots of 50 Cent, RZA and Nas over the killer riff from the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer." It's a dark whirl, but never maudlin: "2 towers down but you're still in the game," Diamond crows, a line that also has everything to do with the state and fate of the nation. The Beasties are New York from head to heel, but they've made To the 5 Boroughs for the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island in all of us. DAVID FRICKE (Posted Jul 08, 2004) To The 5 Boroughs review
I listened to this again and it's still pretty embarassing. Once innovators and now rehasing the same played out schtick.
nahhhh, they have to constantly reinvent themselves to avoid becoming stale. youre just a hater, but that's cool, your entitled to your opinion. To The 5 Boroughs is like fine 18 year old wine, you have to savor it
its not a bad album, but i think that personally ive outgrown them or something. i used to be a huge fan but i cant really listen to any of their stuff anymore except for pauls botique every once in awhile. just my opinion, but these days i find them to be a bit too cheesy for my refined tastes. i also dont like the politics they try to put into their music. madonna is doing the same thing and she looks foolish for it. i realize they were young, but how can the same group that raps about shooting a dude in the head cause he has AIDS now be all "free tibet yo" and "no war for oil". party-boys and politics dont mix. you cant have it both ways, can you? 1992 at the unicorn still stands as a top 3 show for me though.
The thing is, they HAVEN'T revinvented themselves. Same videos, same clothes, same childish lyrics. Adam looks older than my dad. It's all just sad. Also, calling people with dissenting opinions "haters" not only makes you sound down right stupid, but it's also incredibly egotistical.
would you mind providing me with some of these childish lyrics you are talking about? would a make me not seem egotistical? i also said you were entitled to your opinion.
You're not wrong, but you're wrong. What I mean is.... yeah Adam looks old. That's 'cause he's old. He's 38, and that's a senior citizen in pop/rock/rap (aerosmith qualifies as jurassic). It's also gotta be a difficult thing to try to take the music that made you famous two decades ago and make it appealing to a modern crowd while keeping your original sound. Thirdly... Beastie boys lyrics are brobably not the best source for meaningful and inspirational messages. I'd probably be willing to bet that their juvenile antics haven't changed - you have. As a juvenile, you found them appealing. But now, you're older and you're not feeling like you used to. (that's just a theory - I don't know you and don't know if that's true). I do have to agree with you on one thing: across110thstreet shouldn't be calling people "hater" just 'cause they have a negative opinion. It seems like calling people "hater" is a trend now, and I can't wait for this trend to vanish. It shows just how thoughtless people like across110thstreet can be. -- droxford
if you own this, have you tried to make digital tracks from it? I heard it has some sort of digital copyright protection... If this true, can anyone confirm? Because if I can't make mp3's out of it, screw 'em!
