The Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2 CD Review

First, does anybody have Hot Sauce Committee, Part 1? I took my cassette through the metal detectors at the airport and it was totally erased …bummer. Can somebody dub me a copy?

The new Beastie Boys CD makes me want to head back to my college campus, buy a couple 40s, drag the couches out of my frat’s formal room and onto the front porch, and sit and waste away the afternoon. Or maybe blow off my classes, sit on the deck, and watch uncoordinated white-kids from the suburbs play a pick-up game of hoops in the frat house parking lot. Or I want to have a kegger, or better yet, grab a few guys and get some tickets to Lollapalooza in Chicago and road trip. Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2 makes me want to play Sega Genesis NHL ‘95 for hours on end with the CD playing in the background. It makes me want to do that crazy rap hand karate chop thingy and pull my baseball cap to the side and pretend I am one of The Beastie Boys. It makes me want to call my old friend Dave just to ask, “did you hear the new Beastie Boys?”, so he can answer, “Yes, of course.” And then we’ll pretend to make plans to road trip somewhere and see them if they come to Milwaukee, Chicago, or Detroit, but Dave will know there’s no way in hell that’s actually going to happen …but maybe, because I did see them the last time they were in town, I could get a hall pass.

Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2 fits so perfectly into The Beastie Boys discography, it could’ve been released at any point in the late 80s or the 1990s and music enthusiasts would be talking about it this very day. But, sadly, I wonder if it fits into the modern rap and hip-hop landscape? Hmmmm …I wonder.

A couple tracks jumped out at me. “Lee Majors Come Again” is definitely like their old punk stuff, but with lyrics in line with The Beastie Boys’s hippy liberal political agendas. At least I think it is when it says “take a look around you” and “who’s gonna lead us”, but maybe I’m overthinking it because it also includes the lyric “I seen your Grandpa in apple bottom jeans.” The other cool track is “Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament” which is nothing more than a funky, soulful beat. I’ve always thought if you took all The Beastie Boys tracks that were void of lyrics and create a playlist, you’d have a brilliantly cool CD. In fact, I’m going to do that tonight. Sorry kids …Dad’s makin’ a lyric-free Beastie Boys playlist so I can …um …tell people I made a cool playlist. Don’t ask me who I’ll tell …this means something. Like that mash potato mountain Richard Dreyfuss made in Close Encounters of the Third Kind …I get that, man. That’s what this playlist is …proof there are aliens.

All I’m saying is this …The Beastie Boys are as cool as ever. It’s not their fault they’re all in their 40s and pushing 50. Your college aged nephew might download this CD, but most of the kids on his college campus will not. Just my gut feeling. But Adam Yauch (aka MCA), Michael Diamond (aka Mike D), and Adam Horoitz (aka Ad Rock) can count on their hard core Gen X fans to download this, give it a listen, and for those of us stuck in high rise office buildings and trapped in cubicles, we’re still listening.

The opening track made some noise (pun) because Seth Rogan, Danny McBride and Frodo (aka Elijah Wood), along with nearly every Gen X 40-something pop-culture star on the map, made a video for it that tells the tale of the events that happened immediately following the party we saw in the classic video for “Fight for your Right (to Party)”. The song, “Make Some Noise” is vintage Beasties, but the video also proves my point …Gen Xrs (those of us born between 1964 and 1979) cling to the Beastie Boys and their style as a symbol of everything that was ever right with rap …but the video will be lost on this current video-deprived generation. Truly …every star in the video belongs to Gen X or is a legend among Gen Xrs (aka Steve Buscemi and Ted Danson), so our tiny generation can just be  happy we still count to someone. One more note about the video …Elijah Wood was well cast …but fatties Seth Rogan and Danny McBride? …I needed to watch it a couple times to realize Danny McBride was supposed to be the 80s equivalent of  MCA. Just sayin’ …there must’ve been some thinner Hollywood stars available, right?

Not to get off on a Gen X tangent, but having recently read Thom S. and Jess Rainer’s book, The Millenials: Connecting to America’s Largest Generation, I learned Gen X is the smallest generation of people that has ever existed in the U.S. Gen X is sandwiched right between the Baby Boomers and now the Millenials, those born between 1980 and 2000, and their collective generations dwarf our own. So when Yes or Rush or U2 release a CD, it can still become a chart topper. But when Gen X core artists release new CDs, sadly they’re going to struggle to find traction in this splintered musical landscape. 25 years from now, if we can look back and identify core Millenial artists, I’ll bet they won’t have as much difficulty selling a million copies of anything.

I guess what I’m saying is it sucks that The Beastie Boys used to make me cool …now they make me an aging hipster. Either way, Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2 will be in heavy rotation on my mp3 player while I take brisk walks for exercise or as I read over some spreadsheets at work. But maybe this summer I can have you all over and we can grill some burgers and dogs, drink a couple 40s, and kick the hacky sack around and chill.

spunkybean rating:  4 out of 5 beans.