Review Summary: Gonna egg raid tonight!
Before becoming the Beastie Boys, international hip-hop extraordinaires, the Beastie Boys were the Beastie Boys, Brooklyn punks. Yes, the Beasties were punks and played hardcore in New York. Hell, they formed almost at the same time as other NYHC mainstays like Agnostic Front and the Cro-Mags! They even chose their name because they wanted to share their initials with the banned-in-DC Bad Brains! It is quite surprising that many hover over their part in the history of hardcore punk, as even back in their Polly Wog Stew days the Beastie Boys already stood out from the crowd of New York Thrash bands.
The Beastie Boys sure didn't know how to play like the Bad Brains did, and of course they weren't the tough guys the other NYHC bands would be, so rather than sing about violence or life in the streets like most other New York bands were doing, the Beasties sang about the art of egg raiding and whatever nonsense Holy Snappers is about. Seriously, what do you get out of these lyrics?
Holy snappers
Holy this, holy that
Holy, funky, big, fat rat
Holy piss, holy crappers
Jill Cuniff, holy snappers
I like Batman, I like Crass
Robin's got a new bus pass
Holy piss, holy crappers
Jill Cuniff, holy snappers
Basically the Beasties didn't give even a single *** about ***, and rather than preaching a way of life or being serious about business like your typical hardcore band, they had fun with the music they played. And this is actually fun music, not the kind of "fun" that people use to describe music that sucks ass. This is music that you want to play when doing dumb *** with your folks. Fast and bouncy hardcore punk is name of the game, with the band playing at the mach speed and Yauch doing his best HR impression for about 10 minutes and then it ends. It's an actually pretty interesting sound for the period, even if it results in an unessential curiosity of a record. It's a pretty fun listen and it's definitely interesting to hear that two of these guys were the same Beastie Boys that ended up recording Licensed To Ill and Check Your Head, but really doesn't stand up against, say, the Bad Brains. Even then, the band ended up topping this record themselves with Aglio E Olio in 1995. Still, Polly Wog Stew is worth at least one go, if only to hear the band as kids trying their hand at hardcore.
After this the Beastie Boys changed their line-up a bit into the classic trio, started messing with hip-hop and ended liking it so much that they switched to the style and rode it to high heaven, touring with Madonna, recording some of the best albums of all time and all that story you already know, but this will remain as a document of what the band was: Brooklyn punks who didn't give a ***.
