The 500 - #219 - Licensed To Ill - Beastie Boys

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

---

Album: #219
Album Title: Licensed To Ill 
Artist: Beastie Boys
Genre: Rap Rock, Hip Hop
Recorded: Chung King Studios, New York City, NY

Released:  November, 1986 
My age at release: 21
How familiar was I with it before this week: Quite

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, moving up 27 places to position 192
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn

I love novelty songs -- those catchy humorous ditties that often parody popular culture. Humorous titles first appeared on my radar in 1976 when K-Tel records released two compilation novelty albums consisting of 48 songs -- Goofy Greats and Looney Tunes. When I was 11, my friends and I were easy marks when the commercials began airing on kid-friendly afternoon television. Within a few weeks, my pal David McNeilly owned copies of both.

The albums contained songs that had hit the charts in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Some even held the #1 spot, including Yakety Yak, My Ding-a-Ling, Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and, of course, the perennial October favourite, The Monster Mash, by Bobby “Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Keepers. The successful novelty song trend continued through the ‘70s and ‘80s as I began to develop my musical tastes. However, by the time Rick Dees landed at  #1 with Disco Duck in 1977 and Joe Dulce's Shaddap You Face became one of the biggest hits in Canada in 1981, I was starting to outgrow this often rudimentary form of comedy. Not only had my comedic tastes advanced, so had my understanding of music.

Album cover for Joe Dolce's Shaddap You Face.

The first time I heard Beastie Boys, the American hip hop/rock group from New York City, I thought they were a novelty act. The song, (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!), hit local radio stations in the spring of 1987 and climbed the charts quickly. It was actually the fourth single release from their debut album Licensed To Ill. The previous three singles, issued before the album was released, had failed to crack the Top 100 in Canada and had performed only slightly better in the United States.

Album cover for the single release of (You Gotta) Fight For
Your Right (To Party!).

I dismissed the song off-handedly when I first heard it. It was an obvious parody of the hard-rock party culture prevalent in the '80s. It was certainly poking fun at the glam-metal rebel party anthems of the time, including Twisted Sister's I Wanna Rock, Poison's Nothin' But A Good Time , Motley Crue's remake of Smokin' In The Boys Room or Turn Up The Radio from Autograph.

Album cover for Twisted Sister's I Wanna Rock.

I suppose, as a long-haired hard-rock devotee, I also took some offence. Beasties’ Fight For Your Right seemed like a swipe at fans of the hard-rock genre. It was fairly common at the time for the media to distill the metalhead to an unfair stereotype – a low-intelligence, grubby, head-banging moron perpetually intoxicated and with little ambition or few prospects. While this generalized view had some merit, most of the metal fans I knew were intelligent, well read and artistic, with the same penchant for libation and celebration as other cliques -- the preppies, the jocks or the punks.

A stereotypical 80s metal/hard rock fan.

If you’d asked me in the spring of 1987 to define Beastie Boys and their seemingly omnipresent hit, Fight For Your Right, I would likely have shrugged them off as a one-hit wonder. I figured that, by that summer, they would be relegated to the "where are they now?” file occupied by the aforementioned novelty artists, Joe Dolce, Rick Dees and Bobby “Boris” Pickett.

Album cover for Monster Mash, by Bobby 'Boris' Pickett 
and The Crypt-Keepers.

I was wrong. Beastie Boys followed up their initial success with three tremendously catchy numbers, Brass Monkey, No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn and Girls. By the summer, I had reluctantly accepted that the band was here to stay and, slowly, I was won over by the trio's tongue-in-cheek blend of hip hop, rock and comedy.  

Mike "Mike D" Diamond (), Adam "Ad Rock" Horovitz and
Adam "MCA" Yauch.

I may have been late to the "party", but I wasn't alone. Licensed To Ill became the first rap album to top the Billboard chart and the second, after RUN DMC's Raising Hell (#123 on The 500), to go platinum. The record also enjoyed overwhelming critical acclaim. Slant Magazine called Licensed To Ill the "Best Album of the 1980s" saying:

"Rife with layer upon layer of sampling, start-stop transitions, and aggressive beats, it helped transform the genre from a direct dialogue between MC and DJ into a piercing, multi-threaded narrative" and "helped set an exciting template for the future".

I'll happily admit I was wrong. Beastie Boys were not a flash-in-the-pan novelty group destined for the discount record section. But neither was I entirely inaccurate. By 1989, with the release of Paul's Boutique (#156 on The 500), the trio from Manhattan had reinvented their sound and image. They continued to grow and innovate, releasing seven platinum-selling albums. Eventually, Fight For Your Right was dropped from their live set-list.

Beastie Boys perform in 1987.

The group revealed that Fight was intended to be a send-up of Frat Boy Culture (not heavy metal devotees). They were frustrated that it had become an anthem for the same individuals they were parodying. Mike D. later said:

“The only thing that upsets me is that we might have reinforced certain values of some people in our audience when our own values were actually totally different. There were tons of guys singing along who were oblivious to the fact it was a total goof on them. Irony is often missed.”

One-off performances of Fight dotted their live performances in the early ‘90s. But, by the 1994 Lollapalooza festival tour Beastie Boys retired the song for good.

Lollapalooza Tour Poster (1994).

I really liked where Beastie Boys took their career after Licensed To Ill. I'll try to explore that in a little over a year when we get to Paul's Boutique.