Beastie Boys - To the 5 Boroughs: Album Review

Beastie Boys, To the 5 Boroughs (Capitol, 2004)
Ill Communication was cool but let's face it, there hasn't been a Beastie Boys album that was that good in 12 years. I'm not sure how many people are even looking forward to this at this point, but prepare yourselves to be disappointed. Not that disappointed (the Beasties are too boring to be really bad), but a good way to look at it is this: It never gets any more amusing than the jump-off single, "Ch-Check It Out," which was already kinda meh to begin with. At times, it's a lot worse.

CH-CHECK IT OUT

The first single. You've heard it. It's not that bad, but it's not that good either. Take for example: "I've got friends and family that I respect/ When I get out of line, they put me in check!" Granted, there's been garbage like that on their last 3 albums now, but this year it seems especially bad.

RIGHT RIGHT NOW NOW

This sounds like a fucking Christmas carol or some shit. I thought these kids were Jewish. Here's some more quality lyricism for you: "I'm getting tired of this situation/ The US attacking other nations."

3 THE HARD WAY

This sounds like some old school rap song, but I can't think of it right now. Whatever it was, it wasn't that good anyway. I don't want to sound like I'm being negative just for the sake of being negative, but this does nothing for me at all.

TIME TO BUILD

Being one of the more explicitly political songs on the album, of course, this one is especially bad. I'll give you an example: "We got a President we didn't elect/ The Kyoto Treaty, he decided to neglect." No, I didn't just make that up; it's actually on here.

RHYME THE RHYME WELL

At first it sounds vaguely reminiscent of MC Shan and Marley Marl's "The Bridge" and then it starts to sound more like LL Cool J's "I'm Bad," but it mostly just sucks.

TRIPLE TROUBLE

The Beasties rhyming old school over that little intro thingy from "Rapper's Delight." It's less interesting than it sounds.

HEY FUCK YOU

The best part of the whole song is about 2/3 of the way through when the little sample from "The Symphony" comes in and it's like, "Hey, that's a good song. Maybe I'll just go listen to that."

OH WORD?

"What the falafel/ You gotta get up awful/ Early to fool Mr. Furley/ Something about Shirley." Oh no!

THAT'S IT THAT'S ALL

Surprise, this one's not any good either. That's about all I have to say about it.

ALL LIFESTYLES

This one's a little bit different, but not especially good. It has some little sound effect in the background that sounds like a whistle or something. Remember when they used to be really creative?

SHAZAM!

Check this verse: "I like a lettuce, tomato and muenster on rye/ All this cheese is gonna make me cry!" Besides how wack that rhyme is, that's a sandwich with no meat in it. WTF!

AN OPEN LETTER TO NYC

You know, if St. Louis were to some how get fucked up in a terrorist attack, I can pretty much guarantee you I wouldn't be writing any love songs to it. Hell, there's way more than 3,000 people in this town who should die in a fire anyway.

CRAWLSPACE

Have the Beastie Boys been listening to that Edan album? Sounds like it. Maybe they should go back to listening to License to Ill.

THE BROUHAHA

Fuck this song.

WE GOT THE

They got the worst album I've heard all week is what they got. I'm deleting this as soon as I get done reviewing it.

NOW GET BUSY (BONUS)

Oh good, because I hadn't already had enough of the first 15 tracks on this shit. And this one's so different!

First of all, I should probably mention that a) I've been rocking out to License to Ill for 16 years now and I heard Check Your Head more times in 1992 than you've heard probably anything because you don't have the same level of dedication that I do and b) I don't go listening to albums with the intention of not liking them, but, on the same token, if I don't like something, I won't go and pretend like I like it or try to make excuses for it. This album did nothing for me at all and I find it hard to believe they spent more than 2 weeks working on this shit, let alone 6 years, and if this is the best they could come up with, maybe they should just quit.