Ill Communication (Deluxe Edition) [Remastered]

By 1994, the Beastie Boys were a lot closer to 30 than they were to 20, and it’s not much of a stretch to interpret their fourth album as a growing-up phase of sorts. Where Check Your Head was a jam session turned venting process turned crossover success, Ill Communication is the album that let them infuse their turn towards sincerity with a renewed sense of playfulness, solidifying their transition from the gleefully exaggerated bad-boy anarchists of their first two albums to a trio of (slightly) more mature, trend-setting enthusiasts. It’s as if they took stock in their history, realized they were past the point of having to prove anything, said what the hell, and decided to throw their whole repertoire into the album. Considering the record was assembled over a comparatively brief six-month span, it’s an ideal, condensed snapshot of the Boys’ genuine interests and cultural obsessions, whether they were spiritual (Buddhism), musical (late-’60s/early-’70s soul-jazz) or recreational (no less than three members of the 1993-94 Knicks get shout-outs). It’s the Beasties at their most lifestyle-savvy, though they came across less like opportunistic youth marketers and more like the idiosyncratic hipsters they’d always been. (Remember, this was in 1994, before “hipster” was a pejorative.)

Their lyrical personalities are a bit more distinct, too, even as they keep up their traditional mic-passing back-and-forth rapport: MCA’s the pistol-smashing, anti-misogynist, spiritual one, who gets a couple of solo joints to mull over the decaying state of the world (“The Update”) and espouse upon his Buddhism (“Bodhisattva Vow”). Mike D’s the instigator of analog throwbacks (“I’m still listening to wax, I’m not using the CD”), working-class style (“I’m shopping at Sears ’cause I don’t buy at the Gap”) and B-boy golf chic (“Pass me an iron and I’ll bust a chip shot/Then you throw me off the green ’cause I’m strictly hip-hop”). And Ad-Rock’s the irreverent name-dropper who compares himself to everyone from underground cartoonist Vaughn Bode to Moog pioneer Dick Hyman in the process of big-upping his microphone technique. But even amidst all the Gen-X cool-hunting and social-conscience soul-searching the Beasties were undertaking at the time, Ill Communication rings true because it stands as one of their most dedicated engagements with hip-hop culture. They’re game as far as actual lyricism goes; even if they’re a half-step behind the dizzying, rapid-fire linguistic free-for-all of Paul’s Boutique, there’s enough quotables and inspired moments of limber beat-riding in tracks like “Sure Shot,” “Root Down,” and “Do It” to hold up.

It helps the cause that the Caldato-abetted beats have a close affinity with the classic post-Premier/Pete Rock early-’90s NYC production sound, to the extent that it sounds a bit like the work of a Native Tongues auxiliary—and not just because of Q-Tip’s great, off-the-cuff-sounding guest spot on “Get It Together.” It’s an influence the Beasties wear on their sleeves, focusing “Root Down” around the reverently-acknowledged 1972 Jimmy Smith jazz-funk classic of the same name, infusing cuts like “Alright Hear This” and “Flute Loop” with Village Vanguard atmosphere, and throwing around a crate digger's shopping list of names—Les McCann, Yusef Lateef, Archie Shepp, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie—in “Alright Hear This.” Throw those moments alongside anything off Buhloone Mindstate or Midnight Marauders and they stand up strong, plus you’ve got yourself a hell of a pool party mixtape.

A whole album full of that caliber of straight-up hip-hop would’ve been a pretty safe bet for borderline-classic status, but the fact that Ill Communication frequently switches between that and their more sprawling live-band stuff actually adds to its kitchen-sink charm a bit—largely because so much of it’s cut from a similar cloth as the soul-jazz records they sampled for their lyrical cuts. Sure, the big axe-swinging titan at the center of this album is the fuck-yeah highlight “Sabotage,” the meatiest slab of mosh pit rap-rock aggression the Beasties ever put to tape, and it stomps around a bit conspicuously between the funk-bop grooves of “Root Down” and “Get It Together.” It’s a classic case of the album’s biggest single being its least-representative track, though I ain’t complaining about its inclusion in the least; I think the one time I listened to that song and didn’t get all amped, I was in a bronchitis-fighting NyQuil stupor.

But the instrumentals that they’d started experimenting with on Check Your Head are a bit more at home here, and they benefit from some additional polish and a tighter structure. The growly, early-Funkadelic-meets-El Chicano doom-funk jam “Futterman’s Rule,” the violin-driven shtetl-dub of “Eugene’s Lament” and Money Mark’s sleek electric piano vibe-out showcases “Ricky’s Theme” and “Transitions” reveal a band that's busted their asses in the process of honing a relatively new aspect of their craft. They also wisely relegate their hardcore tendencies to the realm of absurd intermission-caliber comedy tracks; they might not be the most indispensable songs, but there’s something inherently hilarious about using Minor Threat aesthetics to rail against a “Bill Laimbeer motherfucker” pickup-game nemesis.

Like Check Your Head, this reissue of Ill Communication comes with a bonus disc of B-sides and remixes; unlike Check Your Head, the B-sides and remixes are mostly good-to-great, though a bit redundant if you already own 1995’s Root Down EP and/or are uninterested in listening to 87 seconds of the Beasties playing basketball. Still, it’s worth it to hear the Prunes’ Free Zone Mix of “Root Down” and the live performance of “The Maestro” where Ad-Rock goes fantastically apeshit on the “yeah, you motherfuckers, I’m all that” bit. In any case, the best thing about this reissue is that it’s a good excuse to reassess an album that isn’t quite as derivative and tossed-off as you might remember.

Since it shared some of their previous album’s stylistic tendencies, a few listeners were left trying to pinpoint where the groove ended and the rut began when the album first came out. It’s still regarded in some circles as a water-treading attempt to continue drawing off the aggro-punk/garage-funk blueprint of Check Your Head, and lord knows I’ll probably draw some what-the-fucks for opining that Ill Communication’s actually a fair bit better. But once the Beasties got a steady grip on their live-band sound, the fact that they found a way to reincorporate the gleefully adolescent goofiness of Licensed to Ill and the retro-funk style and pop-culture obsessions of Paul’s Boutique is what really let them put together their ideal here-to-stay mission statement.