The Beastie Boys brashly announced themselves to the world with the full-length Licensed to Ill(1986). A milestone rap-rock release, it contained a feisty statement of purpose (“The New Style”) and the boisterous Gen X anthem “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!),” a Top 10 hit. Later described by MCA as “a joke that went too far,” it turned into the party-rock anthem of the Eighties. The raucous video they made for the song – intended as nothing more than “a goof,” in MCA’s words - became a staple of MTV, establishing the Beastie Boys as poster boys for rude, obnoxious fun. Other songs on the album – including ”She’s Crafty,” “Paul Revere,” “Girls,” “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” and “Brass Monkey” – reinforced the notion of the Beastie Boys as a threesome obsessed with girls, rhymes and good times. Rubin’s hook-minded production, and galvanizing bursts of guitars and drums gave the album a forceful sound. It was a rap album that rock fans could get into. On tour, the Beastie Boys reveled in bacchanalian excess; their stage props included a dancing cage and a 20-foot hydraulic penis.
Licensed to Ill was a pop-culture phenomenon, becoming the first rap album to reach Number One. It topped Billboard’s album chart for seven weeks and has sold more than 9 million copies in the U.S. alone, making it among the best-selling rap albums ever. While it typecast the Beastie Boys as party animals, the group exploded any notions of one-dimensionality with its ambitious followup, Paul’s Boutique (1989). Having fallen out with Rubin and Def Jam in the wake ofLicensed to Ill’s stratospheric success, the Beastie Boys now found themselves on a new label (Capitol) with a different set of producer/collaborators (the Dust Brothers). Although it didn’t sell as well as its predecessor, Paul’s Boutique was a dizzyingly brilliant, sample-heavy collage that has been called “the Pet Sounds and Dark Side of the Moon of hip-hop." Read more about the Beastie Boys here.
