Beastie Boys - "To the 5 Boroughs"

Beastie Boys - To the 5 Boroughs
2005, Capitol

1. Ch-Check It Out
2. Right Right Now Now
3. 3 The Hard Way
4. It Takes Time To Build
5. Rhyme the Rhyme Well
6. Triple Trouble
7. Hey F**k You
8. Oh Word?
9. That's It That's All
10. All Lifestyles
11. Shazam!
12. An Open Letter To NYC
13. Crawlspace
14. The Brouhaha
15. We Got The

Well... I guess I'm not done. I can't not do this. I can't. So... let's just forget that last post where I said I was done, okay?

Anyway, our first stop on the Beastie Boys tour is To the 5 Boroughs which a lot of fans think is one of their worst albums. Naturally, I love it. I used to own this back in the day and got rid of it, but I can't remember why. It's just straight forward old-school rap without any distorted vocals or instrumental experimentation. There's also a lot of profanity and leftists politics but that doesn't bother me anymore (maybe that's why I got rid of it way back). I'm just too old to get upset by people expressing their opinions - though I do disagree with some of the things they say on here. It's definitely not the genre-bending, boundary defying stuff they were trying in the 90's that's for sure. I think they just wanted to do an old-school album and pay tribute to their hometown - especially after 9/11. They do this quite admirably in the title track. No, this album might not be "their best" but it's catchy and clever nonetheless and I think it deserves a bit more credit than it gets.

Useless Fact: Notice the cover art has the twin towers pictured even though this came out in 2005. The liner notes also include the lyrics, which is rare for a rap album.