Beastie Boys
Ill Communication [reissue] - Capitol
FILTER Grade: 94%

Maybe once the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame comes calling, the world will realize that the Beastie Boys are the David Foster Wallace of hip-hop, and Ill Communication is their Infinite Jest. Like the late novelist, the Brothers Three have always blended high thought with low culture, purposefully jumping genres and styles, and go so long and so deep on this, one of their masterstrokes, that it still feels fresh 15 years later. They are at once brilliant and confounding, sincere and ironic, and, perhaps in spite of it all, somehow succeed in moving millions of records. When was the last time an album this long, this weird, and this good was this popular? You wouldn’t be completely crazy for suggesting The White Album.

Crafted with a stack of novelty microphones, obscure funk records, and beat-up guitars and trap kits, Ill Communication captures that teenage N.Y.C. heat better than any other Beasties record before or since. Loud on headphones, it still sounds like a few dudes in a tiny concrete downtown room, playing with the windows open, the clacks of the subway coming up through the floor. “Sabotage,” “Get it Together,” “Sure Shot,” the infernal hardcore of “Heart Attack Man”—surely this is what it means to be a Beastie Boy. Even the bonus tracks here drip real well, from the shut-down live version of “The Maestro” to Clueless soundtracker “Mullet Head.” Only the remixes of “Sure Shot” and “Get it Together” falter, though even they prove the point that the Beasties and Mario C. knew what they were doing when they put all this together.

Yeah, it’s overlong, and yeah, it’s confusing, but it’s held together with the spirit of playful virtuosity that’s been the Beasties’ thing since they were opening for Bad Brains, and that’s ultimately what makes it essential listening. Nobody’s gettin’ any bigger than this.