Product Description:
The Beastie Boys: Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, Adam "MCA" Yauch, Mike "Mike D" Diamond (rap vocals).
Additional personnel includes: Kerry King (guitar).
Wholly original, the first and the best rap group to make the genre universally palatable. These Brooklyn boys succeed with a combination of tremendously exciting backgrounds, from straight riff metal (on 'Rhymin' & Stealin'' and 'She's Crafty') to sample ('The New Style'). Having learnt their art by observing rather than participating while at NYU, they sound street-cred, even though some members are positively middle-class. The Volkswagen badge-stealing craze was unknowingly started by the band, who wore the pendant merely in order to mock the hippies who had worn the ban-the-bomb medallion. The rap album for people who think they don't like rap.
Entertainment Reviews:
Q - 9/94, p.123
4 Stars - "...LICENSE TO ILL remains the world's only punk rock rap album, arguably superior to NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS...knowing that apathy and slovenliness were just around the corner..."
Q - p.132
4 stars out of 5 - "[A]n album's worth of yelping hip hop and snarling guitar riffs....[The album] remains one of their very finest moments."
Vibe - 12/99, p.158
Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century
Melody Maker - 7/22/95, p.35
Bloody Essential - "...There's lots of self-reverential bragging, more tenuous rhymes than are usually permitted by law and, most importantly of all, an unshakably glorious celebration of being alive....A surprisingly enduring classic."
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