Keith Pille's Weekly Shuffle
11.8.05

Every week, I will fire up the Shuffle Songs option on my iPod; the first song to come up, no matter what it is, will get an instant, unvarnished review. We're at the mercy of random chance and the limits of my digital music collection. Let's see where this takes us.

We Got The
The Beastie Boys, To the 5 Boroughs

There was a time when the Beastie Boys could pretty much do no wrong with me (wow, I feel like I was just talking about this just last week). I loved their wit and their powers of free-association. Listening to Paul's Boutique and the highlights of the next few albums was like getting injections of pure fun straight into a vein.

To the 5 Boroughs does very little for me. The question, for me, is who changed-- me or the Beastie Boys. To research this mini-review, I've spent a few minutes going back and listening to Golden Age Beastie Boys, and I can report that I still get a big grin on my face from "Egg Man." So I'm forced to conclude that it's the Beasties who changed, and really you don't have to listen very hard to hear it.

They grew up. That's admirable for them as individuals; it would be pretty embarrassing for them to stick with the goofy prankster personas as they hover around 40. On an abstract plane, it's nice to see that they're a bunch of vegan activists who devote an entire album to griping about George Bush. But this is a case where their personal growth didn't really translate into good artistic growth. The problem is that political awareness, however laudable, plays exactly against their strengths. "We Got The" rails against Bush, nuclear weapons, the Christian Coalition, and the right wing. I agree with all of those positions, but there's exactly zero fun in the song. And, sadly enough, fun is what I look for in a Beasties experience.

Shallow? Maybe. But it's not like they're really conveying a lot of deep political information. Nuclear weapons are bad, and we should look into disarmament? Sure. But a couple of rhyming lines don't really provide much opportunity to make a case.

I dunno. I'll take skilled funsterism over well-meaning but poorly-executed activism any day of the week.

Weekly Shuffle Scoreboard (Best to Worst):

1. "Rock N Roll Radio V2," Derailleur
2.  "Back from Somewhere (live)," Husker Du
3. "Powderfinger," Neil Young
4. "Gassed & Stoked," Lou Reed
5. "Nicotine & Gravy," Beck
6. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (live)," Wilco
7. "The Calming Sea," Beechwood Sparks
8. "John, I'm Only Dancing," David Bowie
9. "Take It or Leave it," The Strokes
10. "Monkey Dot," Money Mark
11. "I Wanted to Tell You," Matthew Sweet
12. "Soldier's Joy," Mark O'Connor
13. "Masoko Tanga," The Police
14. "We Got The," The Beastie Boys
15. "The Big Foist," The Minutemen
16. "Climbing up the Walls," Radiohead
17. "That's When I Reach for My Revolver," Mission of Burma