(alan light)

12-BEASTIE BOYS-CHECK YOUR HEAD

"the climate was kind of weird in hip hop when went in to do check your head," says adam 'mca' yauch. "alot of the hip hop that was coming out was really angry, and we felt a little alienated from that. there were plans for the album to be instrumental."

after their cut and paste musical mystery tour pauls boutique flopped commercially, it would have been easy to write off the beastie boys as overly ambitious frat rappers. but as they searched for a new direction in the crates of 70s funk records they had mined for pauls samples, the beastie decided to pick up their instruments again-not to return to their punk rock roots but try to get into the groove teh old fashioned way. eventually, with the encouraging of producer mario caldato jr-and some inspriation in the form of a studio visit from biz markie-they decided to pick up their mics again as well. "it just started to feel like, well, what the hell," yauch says.

the first release on the beasties grand royal label, check your head mixes old school rhymes with instrumental james, plus a blistering hardcore cover of sly stone's 'time for livin'. it not only helped make the beasties the decades stanards-bearers of cool, it created the skater centric rap rock aesthetic out of distorted mic sounds, grainy videos, and extra large work wear fashion. the stuttery 'so whatcha want' got the beasties back on the charts, and their organic fusion of beats and thrash established the blueprint for scratch n spliff rockers, like korn and limp bizkit. "i knew they played instruments, so i wasn't too shocked to hear the album,' kid rock says, "but it was cool that they did it right."