Beastie Boys-Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

Beastie Boys

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

Ⓟ2011 Capitol Records

Rating: 6.5/10

I might get a lot of flak for this, considering their fans and considering this is my first official album review, but the Beastie Boys’ Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (HSC Part Two) ended up a lot like prom night (well, mine anyways); a lot of hype and anticipation, and nothing really happens in the end. After 7 years since To The 5 Boroughs was released, a lot of people (myself included) were waiting with eager anticipation for the original b-boys to make their comeback. And, sadly, it falls a little short. The boys seem to have lost it, whatever ‘it’ was in the first place.

I’ll admit, the first single, ‘Make Some Noise’, holds strong. With a catchy hook and a genius marketing plan, Beastie Boys fans couldn’t get enough. Honestly, the Make Some Noise video has almost every popular/talented actor they could get a hold of, and the first time I watched it, I bounced up and down in my seat like a 8 year old girl watching a Justin Beiber video. The song production is in classic Beastie Boys style with a mix of drums and turn tables, the beat makes your head bob, and the boys’ lyrics almost draw out your own inner b-boy, with simple rhyme time and scheme that makes you rap along. That is, if you can understand what they’re saying. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with Adrock’s recent surgery, so I’d just like to clarify, I’m not trying to be insensitive, but the boys seem to have taken to distorting their voices throughout the entire album. Sometimes there’s an effect that adds emphasis to a particular lyric, which is not anything new to their production style, but mostly it just sounds like the boys have tapped pillows to their faces and are attempting to rap through them in the recording studio. This effect adds nothing to the album overall and I actually find it particularly annoying.

None of the other tracks really stand out on the rest of the album, unfortunately. The Beastie Boys have lost their collective flow when it comes to lyric writing. A lot of the time it feels choppy and that they’ve chosen certain words simply because they rhyme. In my opinion, ‘Say It’ is probably their strongest showing, with the exception of ‘Make Some Noise’, and ‘Crazy Ass Shit’ follows at a close second. They hold true to what the Beastie Boys do best, while still sounding fresh. There’s a throwback to the punk rock days in ‘Lee Majors Come Again’, and ‘Don’t Play No Game I Can’t Win’ featuring Santigold sounds more like a Santigold song featuring the Beastie Boys.

I’m a little upset, I really wanted to like HSC Part Two. I would consider myself one of the more devoted Beastie Boys fans out of anyone I know, perhaps besides my oldest brother who turned me onto them when I was 7 or 8 in the first place. Overall, I’d give it an ‘A’ for effort, but the whole thing just never really came together. Perhaps it might be a case of over-production, which now that I think about it, seems entirely plausible since the whole album essentially had been recorded 2009. Anyways. Solid effort put for by the boys, but lacks the magic that used to take place, and in my opinion hasn’t been around since Hello Nasty.