When the Beastie Boys (members Adam “MCA” Yauch, Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz) released 1992’s “Check Your Head”, three full years had passed since their last release, and six since their debut album and the musical landmark had changed since the 80’s. The market was amidst an evolution (it’s too exaggerated to call it a “revolution”) as alternative rock and grunge were slowly taking over the charts and hip-hop was about to leave its so-called “Golden Era” and shift its focus from the East Coast to the West Coast and gangsta rap was starting to be a thing.
In that crossroad, the Beasties had moved to Los Angeles, leaving their native New York, and began recording what would become their best album. Their other ‘90’s albums, would become more successful (and great albums on their own), but the true Beastie Boys legend started here.
And the reason is simple: this album, musically, was as much a hip hop album as an alternative album. By mixing those two apparently different worlds, they actually brought together black music as a whole, and the result was an album that was funky and rocking hard at the same time.
Such thing was possible because the Beastie Boys begun as a hardcore punk band with Yauch at bass, Diamond at guitar and Horowitz at drums, so they could play actual live instruments on the album songs, something already hinted in the cover art where the three members were posing with instrument cases. Ranging from rock (“Gratitude”, a punk rock cover of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Time for Livin’”) to instrumental funk (“Groove Holmes”, “Pow”) among the hip hop gems like “So Wat’Cha Want” made the album the most diverse the genre had had at the time. Rolling Stone, at the time, while reviewing the album, claimed that the album ‘have a simple formula – no formula at all’.
The band became an alternative music staple, and the band was aware of it as they toured the album with rock bands L7 and Rollins Band along with Cypress Hill (another hip-hop band with a large following in the alternative rock world). They would further the relationship by co-headlining the Lollapalooza tour in 1994, but it just wasn’t that they mixed rock and rap, since other bands actually did that before, like Run-DMC and Public Enemy. The thing here was that it felt sincere. Beastie Boys didn’t shied from their rock roots, as shown in samples from Bob Dylan in “Finger Lickin’ Good” and the live version of “Surrender” by Cheap Trick and several Jimi Hendrix songs in “Jimmy James” (described as a Hendrix tribute).
For the band, it was a turning point. They would repeat the “no-formula-at-all” formula in 1994’s “Ill Communication” and, to a lesser degree, 1998’s “Hello Nasty”, and while they went old-school with 2004’s “To the 5 Boroughs”, their 2007 release “The Mix-Up” was completely instrumental, in sync with the funky jams found here.
More importantly, while rap/rock crossovers weren't that exceptional (just one year before, thrash metal giants Anthrax made a cover of Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise") and Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers had hits that included some rapping, bands fully embracing both styles were just beginning to emerge (for example, Rage Against the Machine were full six months away from releasing their debut album), "Check Your Head" was vital in opening a path for the crossover. Acts including Kid Rock, Gym Class Heroes and Linkin Park, and the Beastie Boys own later huge hits, owe their success to this album.
(Album cover credits: Capitol Records)