Check Your Head

About

Coming into the reinvention of 1992’s <i>Check Your Head</i>, the Beastie Boys were in weird shape. <i>Paul’s Boutique</i> had flopped, the money from <i>Licensed to Ill</i> had mostly dried up, and the band was in the process of downsizing from top-dollar studios and a rented mansion in Beverly Hills to apartments and a makeshift rehearsal spot above a pharmacy across town in Atwater Village. In the absence of expectation came new kinds of freedom. They were playing instruments again, building loops from scratch—a project that not only tightened the album’s band-of-brothers spirit, but bridged their punk roots with jazz, funk, and soul (“Groove Holme,” “In 3’s”). They weren’t The Meter, and weren’t trying to pretend otherwise. But in the garage-band primitivism of the grooves lay a sense of willingness to step into situations where they could change, be challenged, and grow. They were beginners again, and loving it. As Ad-Rock put it in the Apple TV+ documentary <i>Beastie Boys Story</i>, “Five years earlier, we’re at Madison Square Garden. Now we’re playing club. You’d think we’d be bummed out about it. But actually, falling off can be fun.” .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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