I’ve listened through the Beastie Boys album “The Mix Up” once and it’s pretty good, but not really great. It’s all instrumentals and jazzy band music like some of the tracks on Check Your Head and more notably on Ill Communication. It sounds to me like they tried to capture a live feel in the recording and on some of the songs it works great but on others I think they should have done a few more takes. The best songs are good enough to justify listening to the album (especially if you have Rhapsody or another music subscription) and the rest of the songs are good enough to make repeat listens worthwhile. All in all, after one listen I give it a 6 out of 10.
iDallas!
One reply on “Beastie Boys: The Mix Up”
I don’t know what happened after “Ill Communication”, but since then the Beasties seem to have lost the funk. The 33 1/3 book on “Paul’s Boutique” described how their supporting cast plays a large part in a lot of the music… maybe their producer Mario Caldato was a big part of that “Check” and “Ill” sound? Or maybe they’re just older and mailing it in these days, who knows…