On 1994's Ill Communication, "Sabotage" was an acid-laced pipe bomb, positioned after the pulsing salsa/samba/ethno-jam "Root Down" and the backpacker-luring "Get It Together". On Solid Gold Hits' extricated format, nestled between a clunky Fatboy Slim remix and hip-hop crossover "Fight for Your Right (to Party)", it sounds a lot like what it is: a rap-rock song. Forget the Spike Jonze video (it's on the bonus DVD); this is rap-rock, alive with shambolic drums and Ad-Rock's inimitable goblin-howl. And it's splendid-- timeless, even. But let's not kid ourselves: It helped spawn some miserable music.
Here's the problem with hits compilations: They really force you to look at hits closely, unguarded by the whipping propeller of the new. A facile concept, maybe. Thing is, institution acts-- of which the Beasties hang with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Beck and Metallica and Pearl Jam-- either get a free pass or make "great" albums buoyed by the times they exist in. Compilations require magnifying glasses. The Beastie Boys are best seen with binoculars and the sound way up.
Solid Gold Hits knowingly hopscotches from era to era. But there's no purpose, other than to infuriate and flaunt diversity, maybe. The coldest, meanest beat Ad-Rock, MCA, and Mike D ever rapped over can be found on "Pass the Mic", an aggro-jaunt that changes tempos so effortlessly it sounds like three different songs. It also happens to be one of the most fiercely rapped songs in their catalogue ("Everybody rapping like it's a commercial..."). To follow it up here with the saccharine "An Open Letter to NYC" from last year's To the Five Boroughs only amplifies the trio's diminished skills and creeping irrelevance.
Three songs are included here from the Beasties' quasi-infamous debut LP Licensed to Ill. Last year, in light of the album's reissuing, Pitchfork's Dominique Leone wrote, "Okay, so it isn't the music or all the rhymes that translate beyond the scene of the crime. What, then? Probably just that the Beasties didn't give a fuck-- AND AMERICA DESPERATELY NEEDED TO BE SHOWN HOW NOT TO GIVE A FUCK." With respect, place my hat in the "giving a fuck" ring because "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" did, does, and always will sound horrendously lame. Hey, they were kids. Me, too. Unfortunately, the album's most durable gems ("Hold It Now, Hit It", "Rhymin and Stealin") are absent here. Worse, Paul's Boutique-- theirs and the Dust Brothers' masterpiece-- is underrepresented at only two songs.
Without ax-grinding, if this were my Beastie Boys CD-R I'd take "Shadrach" and "Neogtiation Limerick File" over "Triple Trouble" and "Ch-Check It Out" (though the Miss Piggy gag is great in retrospect). Of course, hits are hits are hits. Which means their pre-succcess single "She's On It" is nowhere to be found. Still, I can't quarrel with the magnitude of the best of these songs: "Sure Shot" is a superb lesson in pick-and-roll rap; "Shake Your Rump" is ripe with nonsensical quotables; "Intergalactic" is robotically charming. New listens even reveal a sublimely downmixed organ that really sustains the breakbeat.
All said, 1999's 2xCD The Sounds of Science is a far superior collection of songs, both essential and superfluous. It's not much more expensive-- plus it doesn't have a title as MOR as Solid Gold Hits. For the novice, this is a quaint introduction, but one that fails to recognize the congealing brilliance of the Beastie canon. Their albums-- even the overstuffed ones-- have a hypnotic groove to them. There's no point in fucking that sort of thing up.
