A New Day Dawning

Thirty years ago a band was poised to release their third album and it was a critical time. Their debut blew up and made them world famous. The follow-up, while later in life became a critical favorite and classic, bombed. This was, as Billy Bragg once put it, the difficult third album. The Beastie Boys weren’t about to play it safe though.

Released on this day in 1992, Check Your Head blended together all the best of what the Beasties had offered in their short time as a band. A mix of punk with funk, metal with rap. It was sloppy and perfect all at the same time.

They had matured in the six years since Licensed to Ill came out. Gone was the band that was booed off the stage opening for Madonna, replaced by a band that found causes to care about, they found other things to fight for besides partying. They found a new, full sound.

Less sample-heavy than their previous records, the album features instrumental contributions from all three members: Adam Horovitz on guitar, Adam Yauch on bass guitar, and Mike Diamond on drums. There’s also strong production from Mario Caltado Jr. who had been an engineer on Paul’s Boutique. It also marked the first appearance on one of their albums of keyboardist Money Mark, who became a regular collaborator of the band.

The moment that you hear Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander proudly proclaim “This next one, is the first song, on our new album!,” a declaration sampled from the introduction of that band’s classic Live at Budokan, the Boys kick it into full gear (with some nasty turntable scratching from DJ Hurricane) on the opener “Jimmy James”.

We get to “Pass the Mic” soon after and it’s on like Donkey Kong (I couldn’t resist). The first single off of Check Your Head, it invokes one of the holiest hip-hop phrases (“yes, yes y’all”), and name-drops Jimmie Walker, Clyde Frazier and Stevie Wonder. It also contains one of the all-time great Beastie lines in which Mike D rhymes “commercial” with “commercial.”

Up next is “Gratitude” which kicks you in the face with it’s Bad Brains-esqe feel. But to follow that song up with a conga-led organ jam (“Lighten Up”) was a bold choice, but the Beasties pull it off seamlessly.

The Boys do go back a bit into their silly mode, lightening up things with the crazy jam “Professor Booty”. It’s got some fantastic samples from jazz great Jimmy Smith, the movie “Wild Style” and Kool & The Gang.

The standout on Check Your Head is the fantastic jam, “So What’Cha Want”. It ranks up there with signature Beasties songs, alongside the likes of “Brass Monkey,” “Sabotage,” “Sure Shot” and “Intergalactic.”

Money Mark’s organ is so good with the drums driving the song. And the band finds a flawless mix of the lyrics with my favorite being courtesy of Mike D: “Y’all suckers write me checks and then they bounce / So I reach into my pocket for the fresh amount / See I’m the long, leaner Victor the Cleaner / I’m the illest motherfucker from here to Gardena.”

Even Beavis and Butthead loved it.

Check Your Head fell in-between two incredible releases (Paul’s Boutique and Ill Communication), but maybe it’s time to reconsider how good it really was. It’s been 30 years and it still sounds so fresh and funky.