Saturday, May 05, 2012

Paul's Boutique (take two)

As many of you know by now, the Beastie Boys' MCA just passed away. For many Gen Xers like me, the group and its music were an integral part of our teenage and adult lives.

Fight for Your Right was the anthem of angst-filled (but still fun-loving) high schoolers until the more angst-filled Nirvana came along.

Brass Monkey was a standard at every college party. Even today, we turn up the volume of our car radios whenever this 25 (!) year old song comes on.

Sabotage's video proved beyond a shadow of a doubt how irreverent, funny, and entertaining the boys were.

Intergalactic showed us just how much staying power these guys possessed. Whereas some great bands had their glory days pigeonholed to a certain decade or two, the Beastie Boys were ever-evolving and always relevant.

But I have to go back to Paul's Boutique. Their second album was often overlooked, under-appreciated, or just flat out ignored. This was one of the first CDs I ever owned. Every song was new, fresh, and different. Just search "Paul's Boutique" on YouTube and check it out!

RIP MCA

3 comments:

Alan said...

Boutique was so creative, so far out there stylistically and technically. Still one of my favorite records ever.

I don't normally get upset about celebrities passing, but MCA really hits hard.

Maxichamp said...

@Alan: I don't know the individual members of the group that well, but MCA's passing was harder to handle than Michael Jackson's or Whitney Houston's passing.

mtc said...

RIP.