Disco de Beastie Boys: “To the 5 Boroughs [Clean]”

"To the 5 Boroughs" is a great CD, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing new or freshly impressing. The whole time, the Beastie Boys' perfect rhymes flow over MixMaster Mike's skilled turntable old skool beats. "Check it Out" stands out on the album, so does "An Open Letter to NYC," but the rest seems to blend together. That's not a bad thing, though. The Beastie Boys have a way of pulling off stuff like that smoothly. Secondly, the album seems more like teh soundtrack to that new movie "Farenheit 9/11" at times. The boys bash George W. Bush and his decisions in probably 3-5 songs, slurring out that it's time for a re-election. I bought the clean version of this CD and after a few listens... there basically was no serious foul language. They say "F**K" like 3 times, they say "ass" once, "S**T" only pops up twice and there's a couple of "damn"s and "Hell"s. Otherwise, this CD isn't very "explicitive."

I've listened to the Beastie Boys for quite a while now, and this CD just doesn't measure up to most of their other ones. The music is pretty dull except for Ch-Check It Out, which is the first song on the CD. The lyrics on the other hand, have the same classic Beastie Boys style. This CD isn't bad, just don't get the explicit lyrics version. I won't get mad at a couple of cuss words every now and then, but f*** popped up every 5 seconds.

In short, get the CD, if anything just for the first song!

Listening to "Ch-Check it Out" all over MTV2 and college radio, you can't help but rock the hell out, but after the first track, you'll quickly learn it isn't the party "Ch-Check it Out" seemingly promised. With much more subversive beats than the single, "To The 5 Boroughs" is definitely more lyrically driven. After a couple of listens though, you'll start to glean your favorite tracks and enjoy the hell out of them, and (assuming you're a liberal) will appreciate the entire album's lyrics as relevent political gospel, one that succeeds without naming too many names or getting down on itself.