Hello Nasty [EXPLICIT LYRICS]

Beastie Boys

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 14, 1998)
• Original Release Date: July 14, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B000007TE8
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (425 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,501 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  #3 in	Music > Rap & Hip-Hop > Old School
  #20 in	Music > Rap & Hip-Hop > Experimental Rap
  #25 in	Music > Rap & Hip-Hop > East Coast

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com's Best of 1998
It's been a dozen years since the Beastie Boys broke, and on Hello Nasty, they show that--though they've grown up, matured, and just gotten older--they're still in touch with the inner brat that always made them so much fun. Turns out that the brat's turned into an ace record collector with choice taste in collaborators, too. --Randy Silver

Amazon.com essential recording
On their previous album, Ill Communication, the Beastie Boys expanded their parameters yet again, melding cutting-edge hip-hop with slinky jazz, butt-wiggling funk, weepy classical, and combustive punk rock. Four years down the line, the group's music isn't nearly as organic. They've all but abandoned the guitars and returned to the kind of old-school beats and rhythms that defined their groundbreaking 1989 disc, Paul's Boutique. But Hello Nasty isn't a regression, and it's anything but a cop-out: in addition to resurrecting the best elements from their past, the Beastie Boys have embraced the dopest high tech gizmos of the computer age. Hello Nasty gurgles like galactic sulfur pools, whizzes like a Sega game, and slurps and thumps like the best backward Hendrix loops. Add in a cavalcade of Latin percussion, calliope keyboards, and exotic samples (Stravinsky, Stephen Sondheim, Jazz Crusaders, Rachmaninoff), and you're left with one of the most creative and jubilant hip-hop records to date, even if you exclude witty lyrics like, "I'm the king of Boggle / There is none higher / I get 11 points off the word quagmire" ("Putting Shame in Your Game"). To paraphrase über-critic Robert Christgau, Paul's Boutique may have been the band's Pet Sounds, but Hello Nasty is the Beasties' Sgt. Pepper's. --Jon Wiederhorn

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars They will never top this. Ever., July 15, 1998

By	Paul Primrose (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews

Pubescents the world over inwardly heard peals of heavenly music in 1986, for delivered into their laps was a raunchy rap album seemingly produced by the heavens themselves. "License to Ill," a toxic blend of rap, rock, and sampling, was thrown together by three guys who were barely post-pubescents themselves. It was loud, rambunctious, and ingeniously accessible.

12 years, three studio albums, and an innumerable number of concerts later, the Beastie Boys have released what is quite likely thier finest album. Although they evolved beyond beer-swilling misogyny long ago, they haven't forgotten their sonic roots: "Hello Nasty" contains echos of the bass-n-beats style they brought to the masses. The odious punk blitzes and trippy musical meanderings of "Ill Communication" are conspicuously absent here, save a track or two. Also absent is the lyrical preaching; at one point MCA says you'll never see him in a commercial, but for the most part ! ! "Hello Nasty" is the Beastie Boys doing what they've always done best: talking about how great they are, waxing about world peace, and inserting nifty samples (courtesy of turntable phenom Mix Master Mike) into the mix. Think "Paul's Boutique" with a little "Check Your Head" thrown in for good measure.

"Hello Nasty" is 22 tracks' worth of great rap peppered by the occasional aural experiment. The Beasties have simply and effectively nullified the hype surrounding this album in one fell swoop; it is simultaneously behind and beyond all critical expectations.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a head-spinning entry, February 14, 2006

By	Mark Schaefer "themarkman99" (Brockport, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Hello Nasty, the Beastie Boys' fifth album, is a head-spinning listen loaded with analog synthesizers, old drum machines, call-and-response vocals, freestyle rhyming, futuristic sound effects, and virtuoso turntable scratching. The Beasties have long been notorious for their dense, multi-layered explosions, but Hello Nasty is their first record to build on the multi-ethnic junk culture breakthrough of Check Your Head, instead of merely replicating it.

Moving from electro-funk breakdowns to Latin-soul jams to spacey pop, Hello Nasty covers as much ground as Check Your Head or Ill Communication, but the flow is natural, like Paul's Boutique, even if the finish is retro-stylized. Hiring DJ Mixmaster Mike (one of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz) turned out to be a masterstroke; he and the Beasties created a sound that strongly recalls the spare electronic funk of the early '80s, but spiked with the samples and post-modern absurdist wit that have become their trademarks. On the surface, the sonic collages of Hello Nasty don't appear as dense as Paul's Boutique, nor is there a single as grabbing as "Sabotage," but given time, little details emerge, and each song forms its own identity.

A few stray from the course, and the ending is a little anticlimactic, but that doesn't erase the riches of Hello Nasty - the old-school kick of "Super Disco Breakin'" and "The Move"; Adam Yauch's crooning on "I Don't Know"; Lee "Scratch" Perry's cameo; and the recurring video game samples, to name just a few. The sonic adventures alone make the album noteworthy, but what makes it remarkable is how it looks to the future by looking to the past. There's no question that Hello Nasty is saturated in old-school sounds and styles, but by reviving the future-shock rock of the early '80s, the Beasties have shrewdly set themselves up for the new millennium.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grand wok of flavors, September 25, 2003

By	Kurt Lennon (Calgary) - See all my reviews

22 tracks, 67 minutes of pure eclectic genius. On-the-spot rapping, wacky but wonderful collaborations, excellent music: this album is one of the best of the 90s for me. Every listen is a great trip into another galaxy of fun sounds and thoughtful lyrics. It's a long way from the misogyny of "Licensed to Ill" but this album is well worth the time. Rap, bossa nova, old skool hip-hop, jazz, rock: they all come together for this huge party. Dance along!