I think Beastie Boys are a bit underrated in hiphop, at least where I am from Northern Europe. There was always talk about them not being "real". But in my opinion they are a group that always did their own thing, and therefor are REAL.

I have many friends that love hip hop. It was always consensus about the only album worth listening to was Pauls Boutique. But I think that it was mainly snobbery :-)

I got the album PB quite early- it took me years to like it. It is a hard album to listen to, or it was at the time of its's release. No other album at the time sounded like that. In retrospect, the album really showed their musical potensial. But I still find the album hard to listen to. I can dig one or two songs, and then it just gets to much.

The next couple of albums got really big and had big crossover hits. Hard to accept for someone that was middle class and white, and at the same time tried to be hardcore hip hop'ers. That is where the snobbery comes in. Crossover appeal was called selling out.

I still have trouble listening to a whole album with Beastie Boys. But thinking of all the hits and strong songs they have made in so many periods of hip hop and music in general... What an amazing group!