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The Beastie Boys Companion: Two Decades of Commentary
Presents a collection of essays, interviews, concert reviews, and album reviews on the British band, the Beastie Boys.
- GenresMusic
201 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1999
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November 25, 2015
This book compiles from various sources articles about Beastie Boys albums, concert reviews, interviews, and pop-cultural analysis. Dates of the material range from a 1984 zine interview (post "Cookie Puss" but pre "Licensed to Ill") to "Hello Nasty" era commentary from 1999. As a fan of the group for most of the period covered, I found this to be an enjoyable read even though a few of the articles were at best tangential to the topic of Beastie Boys.
For example, there is a lengthy history of an early 1980s independent record label from New York City called 99 Records. At 45 pages, this is about 1/4 of the book. Beastie Boys never had a release on 99 Records, but this article helps paint a picture of the underground music scene in NYC at the time the first incarnation of the band came together. I already knew about 99 Records releases by ESG and Liquid Liquid, but this article gave some background info on those bands and schooled me a bit on some of the artists I was familiar with in name only, like Glenn Branca. So this part is pure record nerd gold, even if many Beasties fans may opt to skim or skip over it.
Also, there are two articles in here about Sonic Youth that don't directly relate to Beastie Boys. I like Sonic Youth too, so I didn't mind the articles themselves, but they seemed a bit of an odd choice for filler.
For example, there is a lengthy history of an early 1980s independent record label from New York City called 99 Records. At 45 pages, this is about 1/4 of the book. Beastie Boys never had a release on 99 Records, but this article helps paint a picture of the underground music scene in NYC at the time the first incarnation of the band came together. I already knew about 99 Records releases by ESG and Liquid Liquid, but this article gave some background info on those bands and schooled me a bit on some of the artists I was familiar with in name only, like Glenn Branca. So this part is pure record nerd gold, even if many Beasties fans may opt to skim or skip over it.
Also, there are two articles in here about Sonic Youth that don't directly relate to Beastie Boys. I like Sonic Youth too, so I didn't mind the articles themselves, but they seemed a bit of an odd choice for filler.
Displaying 1 of 1 review