Respect for the Beasties

The Beastie Boys were obviously a joke band., everybody knew that back in 1987.  Fight for Your Right had the adolescent glee of youth, and really felt like one of the many novelty songs of the period, certainly nothing more important than other eighties tunes like Didn't You Kill My Brother, or Shaddap You Face. A minor trifle that gives you a laugh, but certainly nothing more than that.

But the Beasties turned out to be so much more than that, of course. They quickly became aware of the fact that being an ironic douchebag is all well and good, but you're still a douchebag, and they went off in strange new directions. This was enormously successful, with some inspired lyrical wordplay, remarkable sampling and some massively fat beats.

And, most of all for me, they did something that so few people seem capable of these days, and they  admitted they had been wrong, and actually apologized for their youthful stupidity. They have said sorry so many times for the way they treated Kate S, and so they fucking should. 

It's hard enough for a loser like me to admit I'm wrong about something, it takes some fucking balls to do it when you've sold 20 million records.

Yauch has been gone 13 years now. How fucked up is that? There's been no more Beastie goodness since then, although there have been some lovely retrospectives. But the three year old in the house thinks Body Movin' is totally bitching, so while they did some dumb shit, they also made some art that lasts, man.