It's mid-2010, and somebody recently pointed out that, even though I discussed its songs in my reviews of the American releases '65 and VI below, I never reviewed the British album For Sale. So I decided to give it a whirl, mainly to see if my love for The Beatles has waned at all in the 14 years since I originally wrote this page.
It hasn't. Hearing all these songs together on the correct spot, this feels like much more of an artistic step forward for the band than I'd ever realized. For one ... read more

I don't own the American version of this record, because half of it is instrumental Beatles songs and the other half can be found on Something New. This British version RULES, though! I discuss all the songs in better detail in my reviews of the American albums, but just so you know, it's got "Any Time At All" and "I'll Be Back" and "I Should Have Known Better" and "If I Fell" and all kindsa great stuff. In this CD age where the American releases are ... read more

Early as shim! We here in America grew up knowing these songs as splintered apart onto Meet (discussed in a moment) and Second Album, and as far as I'm concerned, they can STAY there! What the hell kind of song order is this anyway? Start off with four entirely non-gleeful songs, then seque into like eight gleeful songs in a row? Whatever!!!! I disagree. And what's with cramming five covers into the last eight tracks? What a load of horseshit! Stick with the American releases, I say! Great ... read more

Wouldn't it be nice if they were younger? Then there wouldn't be so many bad songs? And wouldn't it be nice if Brian Wilson hadn't lost his mind from sucking bongs? You know it seems the more I talk about it - it only makes it worse to listen to it.
Wouldn't it be nice if 1980 had found them in a more creative state? Where half the songs weren't bad `60s nostalgia, and even the good songs weren't all that great? I'll admit the title track is catchy, but "Endless Harmony" is more than ... read more

And it's another long-awaited disappointment from the Beastie Boys. I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I think these guys are pretty much creatively spent. They had seven years to work on this album -- Christ, it's only the second hip-hop album they've released in the last 13 years! -- and this is the best they could come up with!? It doesn't even have a unified sound like all their other albums, instead spilling forth a confused mess of To The 5 Boroughs-style old school rap, Hello ... read more

I'm not sure whether the Beastie Boys intended for this CD to be taken as an honest artistic effort or a time-filling stopgapper (its misleading title suggests the latter), but either way The Mix-Up represents a wasted opportunity. They took what could have been very strong musical accompaniment to a rap album, and released it as a bunch of instrumentals. I'm not prejudiced against the concept of the Beastie Boys releasing an instrumental album, but this particular collection of instrumentals ... read more

You can't expect a wife and her husband to agree on everything. For example, I think "3 The Hard Way" sounds like a listless old Run-DMC filler track, but it's one of her favorites on here. For another example, I get a major goddamned kick out of the uptempo, catchy, happy, bubblegum-rap "The Brouhaha" and weird electronic swishy "Crawlspace" and she finds them - and I quote - "Kinda boring." But that's the nature of human beings. We all have different ... read more

A very, very good record. The Beasties have finally figured themselves out and brought back the FUN that was too often missing from those ornery old mature soul records they'd been putting out. This one is both old school AND new school hip hop, as well as being easily without a doubt and half a mast of potato the most diverse record they've ever done. Half the time, thanks to lots of guest vocalists, you can't even tell it's the Beasties, holy crap! There's some bachelor pad groove for those ... read more

Uh oh. Anybody smell that? That's artistic stagnation setting in. Hot on the heels of the college party masterpiece Check Your Head, the Beastie Boys released.... ummm, an album that sounds a whole lot like Check Your Head.
Okay, there are definite differences between the two albums (enough to influence Mr. Eric Litchfield, rap music afficionado, to remark that "Ill Communication isn't anywhere near as good as Check Your Head"), but when you get right down to the nitty gritty dirt ... read more

This is actually the album that got me interested in the band in the first place (I was in college and displaying an open mind on many an occasion!), so I shouldn't knock it, but it nevertheless represents the beginning of the big Serious Beastie Era, when they replaced the drunken horniness of yesteryear with a self-performed, pot-influenced soul groove and very little in the way of interesting lyricism. The music, thankfully, is mostly really great. The Boys prove that they don't need no dang ... read more

The classic pairing of Beasties and Dusts (who again, I know absolutely nothing about, other than that they also produced Beck's Odelay), this is a much fuller affair, with bonus bass beats, soul-inflected guitar riffs, and about eighteen-hundred million great samples accompanying King Ad-Rock's whiny yelps, MCA's gruff billygoat throat scrapings, and Mike D's Everyman voicings through twenty-something tales of crime, babes, and err... throwing eggs at people.
Totally awesome this record, with ... read more

Okay, I suppose it's basically a novelty record, but it's still darn funny and it'll get your toe a-tappin' if you give it the time of week! This was back when the boys (now dubbed King Ad-Rock, MCA, and Mike D) first discovered the joys of urban break dance music. But see, they still dug rock and roll, too! What to do? How to reconcile? Oh, how?
Well, Def Jam founder Rick Rubin knew how - make 'em white rock rappers! Thus, the backdrop for these stupid racy sexist tales of drink, drugs, and ... read more

I know what you're thinking. You're sitting there in your fancy electric chair and gold-plated tuxedo thinking, "Mark's said a lot of crazy things about the Beach Boys here today, but when is he finally going to admit that they're best known as country-western artists?" You're right, and I apologize. In a misguided Klosterman-esque attempt to rewrite history as one in which The Beach Boys were not country-western artists, I've done nothing but embarrass myself and every virus gnawing ... read more

NO WILSONS ALLOWED! This is Mike Love, Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher pretending to be the Beach Boys and ripping out the most dreadful entry in their catalog. Melcher's fake mid-80s synthesized everything is back in superforce - A YEAR AFTER NEVERMIND CAME OUT - and the songwriting is beyond absurd. Lots of rancid nasal vocals with heavy delay/undersuck/bassy effects on them, plus "hilarious" low bass voices saying "off-the- cuff" things like "It's a LOVE thing" ... read more

More slow adult contemporary pop with stiff tinny 80s production - no bass! Terry Melcher? What happened to his wonderful ear for Paul Revere And The Raiders? Now he's just some tootsweet trying to make the Beach Boys sound like Peter Cetera. The big booming reverbed programmed drums are back, along with the long-out-of-date synthesizers (isn't it interesting how old `60s and '70s keyboards like farfisas and moogs and stuff still sound really cool, but the `80s ones sound like little kids' ... read more

It wasn't enough that the CIA had Dennis Wilson drugged and murdered in six feet of water so he couldn't reveal what he knew about their involvement in teaching Charles Manson the pharmaceutical brainwashing techniques that caused the Tate-LaBianca murders; Mike Love had to add insult to injury by replacing him with the loudest, stupidest sounding programmed drums this side of Deaf Leopard.
Oh FUCK - I spelled it right!

This album is down-the-drain adult contemporary limp-wristed (slang for ... read more

More like Los Angeles, if you ask me!!!!
That didn't make any sense.

When they say "Light Album," what they mean is that eight of the ten songs are ballads. Gentle ballads with very quiet (if any) guitars, string sections, slow plodding tempos and absolutely GODAWFUL melodies. Examples for when you purchase the album and excitedly place the "platter" on the buttcrackle. Which reminds me of a little story - this one time I was in this CD store on 18th between 5th and 6th ... read more

More like M.I.A. Album, if you ask me! Heh heh heh (congratulates self for genius twist-of-phrase). Say! Who here's gay?
So tell me this - out of all the great songs on Adult Child, how on Earth's Green God (green with envy - GET IT???? THE PEOPLE OF EARTH CREATED A JEALOUS GOD???? I AM THE GREATEST TWIST-OF-PHRASER IN AMERICAN BIOLOGY!!!!) did only "Hey Little Tomboy" get chosen for the ACCEPTED album - and WITHOUT the hilarious sexist stuff at the end, where they turn her into a ... read more

Ceach Boys - Bryan Williams returns and writes songs that sound like a little kid wrote them for other little kids. Schizophrenia on an album. "Johnny Carson" - "He's the man that we admire/Johnny Carson's no live wire!" He wrote all the songs, and his mind has deteriorated to that of an 8-year-old. He uses an odd low fuzzy synth throughout the whole album, over a piano and an oft-present circus organ. A very circus feel to it. "Honkin' down the goshdarn highway!" ... read more

And by "Big Ones," I can only assume they're using the Aerosmith definition, "Embarassing Late-Period Shit Recorded By A Bunch Of Washed Up Old Drug Addicts Who Don't Even Like Each Other." In a sickening attempt to cash in on the success of their all-oldies Endless Summer compilation of the previous year, they've dragged Brian out of bed and yelled at him to write some classic goodtime beach songs. Unfortunately, though the album's soul is rooted in nostalgia, its body is ... read more