About

Ill Communication is the fourth studio album by the Beastie Boys. It was originally released in 1994 by Grand Royal Records. Co-produced by Beastie Boys and Mario C and featuring the singles "Sabotage", "Get It Together", "Sure Shot", and "Root Down". — (via Label)

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Ill Communication follows the blueprint of Check Your Head, accentuating it at some points, deepening it in others, but never expanding it beyond the boundaries of that record. As such, it's the first Beastie Boys album not to delve into new territory, but it's not fair to say that it finds the band coasting, since much of the album finds the group turning in muscular, vigorous music that fills out the black-and-white sketches that comprised Check Your Head. 

Much of the credit has to go to the group's renewed confidence in - or at least renewed emphasis on - their rhyming; there are still instrumentals (arguably, there are too many instrumentals), but the Beasties do push their words to the forefront, even on dense rockers like the album's signature tune, "Sabotage." 

But even those rhymes illustrate that the group is in the process of a great settling, relying more on old-school-styled rhyme schemes and word battles than the narratives and surreal fantasies that marked the high points on their first two albums. With this record, the Beasties confirm that there is indeed a signature Beastie Boys aesthetic (it's too far-ranging and restless to be pegged as a signature sound), with the group sticking to a blend of old school rap, pop culture, lo-fi funk, soulful jazz instrumentals, Latin rhythms, and punk, often seamlessly integrated into a rolling, pan-cultural, multi-cultural groove. 

The best moments of Ill Communication rank with the best music the Beasties have ever made, as well as the best pop music of the '90s.

The first half overflows with brilliant, imaginative variations on their aesthetic: the assured groove of "Sure Shot," the warped rap of "B-Boys Makin' With the Freak Freak," the relentless dirty funk of "Root Down," the monumental "Sabotage," and the sly "Get It Together," highlighted by a cameo from Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest. 

After that, the album seems to lose its sense of direction and momentum, even if individual moments are very good. Any record that can claim jams as funky and inventive as "Flute Loop" and "Do It," or instrumentals as breezy as "Ricky's Theme," is certainly better than its competition, but there are just enough moments that rank as obvious filler to slow its flow, and to keep it from standing proudly next to Check Your Head as a wholly successful record. 

Even if it is a little uneven, it still boasts more than its fair share of splendid, transcendent music, and it really only pales in comparison to the Beasties' trio of classic records. By any other measure, this is a near-masterpiece, and it is surely a highlight of '90s alternative pop/rock. — (via AllMusic)

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The Beastie Boys’ expanded reissue campaign rolls on. Here, the underrated follow-up to Check Your Head is built out with quality B-sides and remixes.

By 1994, the Beastie Boys were a lot closer to 30 than they were to 20, and it’s not much of a stretch to interpret their fourth album as a growing-up phase of sorts. Where Check Your Head was a jam session turned venting process turned crossover success, Ill Communication is the album that let them infuse their turn towards sincerity with a renewed sense of playfulness, solidifying their transition from the gleefully exaggerated bad-boy anarchists of their first two albums to a trio of (slightly) more mature, trend-setting enthusiasts. It’s as if they took stock in their history, realized they were past the point of having to prove anything, said what the hell, and decided to throw their whole repertoire into the album.

Considering the record was assembled over a comparatively brief six-month span, it’s an ideal, condensed snapshot of the Boys’ genuine interests and cultural obsessions, whether they were spiritual (Buddhism), musical (late-’60s/early-’70s soul-jazz) or recreational (no less than three members of the 1993-94 Knicks get shout-outs). It’s the Beasties at their most lifestyle-savvy, though they came across less like opportunistic youth marketers and more like the idiosyncratic hipsters they’d always been. (Remember, this was in 1994, before “hipster” was a pejorative.)

Their lyrical personalities are a bit more distinct, too, even as they keep up their traditional mic-passing back-and-forth rapport: MCA’s the pistol-smashing, anti-misogynist, spiritual one, who gets a couple of solo joints to mull over the decaying state of the world (“The Update”) and espouse upon his Buddhism (“Bodhisattva Vow”). Mike D’s the instigator of analog throwbacks (“I’m still listening to wax, I’m not using the CD”), working-class style (“I’m shopping at Sears ’cause I don’t buy at the Gap”) and B-boy golf chic (“Pass me an iron and I’ll bust a chip shot/Then you throw me off the green ’cause I’m strictly hip-hop”). And Ad-Rock’s the irreverent name-dropper who compares himself to everyone from underground cartoonist Vaughn Bode to Moog pioneer Dick Hyman in the process of big-upping his microphone technique. But even amidst all the Gen-X cool-hunting and social-conscience soul-searching the Beasties were undertaking at the time, Ill Communication rings true because it stands as one of their most dedicated engagements with hip-hop culture. They’re game as far as actual lyricism goes; even if they’re a half-step behind the dizzying, rapid-fire linguistic free-for-all of Paul’s Boutique, there’s enough quotables and inspired moments of limber beat-riding in tracks like “Sure Shot,” “Root Down,” and “Do It” to hold up. — (via Pitchfork)

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Remastered and reissued on 2LP, 180g vinyl
Housed in gatefold sleeve

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Label: Capitol Records
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Remastered, Reissue, 180 gram, Gatefold
Reissued: 2009 / Originally Released: 1994
Genre: Hip Hop, Rock
Style: Rap, Boom Bap, Punk, Jazzy Hip-Hop

File under: Hip Hop
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