Sole Criterion: Beastie Boys Video Anthology
By Brett Ballard-Beach
August 2, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
(Two lines in track two of Paul’s Boutique that encompass in miniature a small measure of the joy that listening to that album gives me.)
Enterlude: 24 hours after finishing this column, I realized that a key insight I had for this piece had been completely forgotten, left in the wake of what follows below. I don’t think it really fits in anywhere else so I have tacked it on at the end. And now -
Five paragraphs of pertinent numbers and observations with which to start:
On Beastie Boys Video Anthology - DVD Spine #100 released in October 2000 - there are 18 videos sum totaling approximately 65 minutes spread across two discs (nine on each). The videos do not appear to be in any specific order (certainly not chronological) although the final video on Disc 2 is for the single Alive, which was their most recent single at the time, having appeared as one of three new or previously unreleased tracks on the 42 song two-disc CD compilation Beastie Boys Anthology: The Sounds of Science the year before.
The videos encompass the years 1981-1999, and include about three-fourths of the output shot during this stretch. The biggest gap comes from the mid-‘80s, with the videos just prior to and including those filmed for Licensed to Ill not included. There is one video consisting of home movie super 8 footage cut to a tune from their 1982 debut EP Polly Wog Stew (when they were a four-piece metal/punk band with future Luscious Jackson member Kate Schellenbach as their drummer), four clips each from 1989’s Paul’s Boutique, 1992’s Check Your Head and 1994’s Ill Communication, three from 1998’s Hello Nasty, one song (“Netty’s Girl”) that was a B-side from a single, and the aforementioned “Alive.”
Ten of the videos - including some of my most and least favorites - were filmed by Nathaniel Hornblower, one of the alter egos of band member Adam Yauch. Three of the videos were helmed by Spike Jonze, one of which is, of course, the ridiculously and instantaneously iconic cop-show parody clip for “Sabotage.” This one was my favorite by a wide margin going in, but that has changed (more on that a little later). The big draw of the DVD set is a ridiculous amount of bonus material that consists primarily of “alternate angles” and/or “remixes” (40 and 60, in toto, respectively) for 13 of the videos. I air quote each of those for specific reasons that I will also broach in a little while.
Beyond those there are two commentary tracks (band and director, neither of which proves to be particularly illuminating) for each of the videos and some odds and sods of random bonus stuff, the-previously-unseen-by-me-highlight of which was
“Ciao, L.A.,” a mockumentary of a morning talk show featuring Zoe Cassavetes and Sofia Coppola as vacuous interviewers probing the band members, who are in character as the actors who “portrayed” the cops in the “Sabotage” footage. It plays a helluva lot funnier than my convoluted description can convey.
Out of their eight studio albums proper, four went to number one on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart, and the other four placed in the top 15 (and one of those was an album of instrumentals). Six of the eight went platinum or better. Before deciding on the subject of this column, I had owned Licensed to Ill. Paul’s Boutique, Ill Communication, and Hello Nasty once upon a time but could only vouch that I had listened to the first two all the way through, more than once.
I would be lying if I didn’t cop to the fact that the too soon passing of Yauch earlier this year didn’t instigate in me a desire to play catch up, and form a more accurate opinion and assessment, for my own benefit. Before these past few weeks, I could not have accurately identified which Beastie was which, the fact that Yauch was Hornblower, or that his distribution company Oscilloscope Pictures was responsible for getting some fine films into theaters, including Kelly Reichardt’s deeply humanistic Wendy and Lucy (2008) and revisionist western Meek’s Cutoff (2010). This fact alone, which I gleaned from Manohla Dargis’ heartfelt tribute in The New York Times, indicated to me that there was something deeper going on here than just the passing of a hip-hop icon.
This is perhaps best represented visually by the use of an oscilloscope wave as the menu animation for both discs and in the opening and closing shot of the Beastie Boys trinity featured in the video for “3MCs and 1 DJ” which is now my favorite video by them. I can’t claim that they have become more beloved by me, or that (Paul’s Boutique aside) I can sustain an entire album by them in sequence, but I have a deeper appreciation for them as musicians in general and artists more specifically, and it goes a little something like this.
A common motif/style in the Beastie Boys videos is of a distorted camera lens (usually fish eye) capturing all three band members as they perform and/or lip-sync on a rooftop, in the woods, on stage, or through the boroughs of NYC, usually goofing around in ridiculous getups. I am well aware that individual members of a band can demand a certain percentage amount of face time in a video (as an example, I recall one of Matt Sharp’s grievances with Rivers Cuomo back in the Pinkerton days was Cuomo’s demand that he be featured on a 3 to 1 basis to any of the other band members). Having all three featured in the same shot at the same time is certainly one way to get around any fragile or easily bruised egos. But in the case of Yauch, Adam Horovitz, and Mike Diamond, it honestly wasn’t the first thing that occurred to me.
There was an inherent egalitarianism apparent even to a layman to the band like myself, suggesting a love for performing and a mutual faith in and respect for each other. (“Pass the Mic” verbalizes and musicalizes this quite vividly.) They had been together as a three-piece for three decades, with, to my knowledge, no fallings out or extended hiatuses brought on by anything other than a desire to pursue other individual creative avenues. Devotion to the art of collaboration among themselves and with others reaches its apex in the “3 MCs” clip where the band remains frozen in a triangular pose until their DJ - Mixmaster Mike - arrives to man the turntable and provide some scratchin’. They then revert back to a similar pose at the song’s end, as he packs up his gear and leaves.
Metaphorically, it’s hilariously and bluntly obvious, but the band’s good humor, rhyming skills, and level of comfort with each other stand out even more when everything is stripped down to the basic level of basement/garage performance. Footage from four cameras (one for each gentleman) is edited together from several performances. We are treated to at least a sampling of this raw footage in the “alternate angles” section. The version of the song featured in the video is the one recorded live during the performance. It doesn’t differ all that dramatically from the Hello Nasty recording, but there is an off-the-cuff roughness that belies the use of any studio polish. Perhaps what I find most appealing is that for a band who often escaped into multiple costumes, roles and performances in their videos, to appear here unfettered by any of that, as simply “themselves”, seems as eye-opening and eye-popping as any of their more renowned genre experiments.
In theory, the Video Anthology should be more of a must-have than the reality turns out to be. With the amount of material available for viewing and listening to and reconfiguring in hundreds of ways, this would appear to be an audiophile’s and B-Boys fanatic’s dream come true. Inherent in the foundation of the set’s schematics is an underlying flaw, at least for me. So that one can leap from remix to remix and alternate footage to alternate footage with the push of a button, all the alternate clips and the remixes (many of which were done specially for this collection) have to come in at a particular length, that is to say, pretty much the same length, give or take a few seconds, as the original video clip and the (oftentimes) album version of the song. The option to listen to a remix without any visual aid is not offered, meaning one may have to resort to listening with one’s eyes closed to avoid watching an alternate angle for the umpteenth time.
I can’t claim to be concerned one way or the other with this time restriction as per the clips, many of which are just a glorified form of outtakes. But, in a further synergy of allowing one to mix and match at will, many of them also feature the band lip-syncing along in sequence to the particular song. Where I am headed with this (perhaps you have already guessed) is that in order for all this to work, the remixes themselves have to follow the exact same verse chorus verse structure with no deviations allowed in intros, outros, instrumental breaks or anything else that might allow this new tune to spin off into a beast of its own nature. (For a measure of where I’m coming from, my all-time favorite remixed song is New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” in all its myriad versions, favorite remix album is Nine Inch Nails’ Things Falling Apart and current favorite remix is the Thin White Duke’s take on the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside.” Other favorites include Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm Remixed, Le Tigre’s Remix and Death from Above 1979’s Romance Bloody Romance.)
I can appreciate the germ of the idea to allow the fan/consumer to construct their own track after a fashion, but the binding of these inherent restrictions placed on the remix artists cuts against the very creativity the Beastie Boys made a touchstone of their career, and against the idea of the remix itself. Remixes that all come in around the same length as their source material aren’t inherently uninteresting, but with most all of these also being forced to keep the verses and chorus as well, the ability to completely fuck a song up or reimagine it (which I consider a plus) is lost.
That said, a few of the tracks do stand out against the majority, which I should stress are flawed and underwhelming, not failures. Moby’s remix of “Alive” burns with a sad nostalgia that reminded me of his take on Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979.” It’s a more bittersweet optimism than what the lyrics conjure up. The Prisoners of Technology’s take on “Intergalactic” is one that is able to most do away with lyrics and suggest the aftermath of the robot/octopus smashup and mashup of the video. Elsewhere, the Count Bass D remix of “Hey Ladies” goes for broke by ditching the best cowbell break ever in favor of pulsating beats.
Examining the videos themselves, it would be less accurate to say I prefer the non-Nathaniel Hornblower videos than to acknowledge that my opinions on his ten run the gamut from love to meh to weary. Yauch’s first video as Hornblower, “Shadrach” finds a way to make concert footage fresh and exciting by trace animating it. This may be the most unexpected of the Beastie Boys’ disguises, hiding in plain sight as nearly as in “3 MCs,” and the mix of vibrant primary colors, and dark shadows draws one in and makes a second viewing a necessity, to suss out some images that tumble by too rapidly, including an unexpected crowd surf. “Alive” is a joyous and goofy ode to NYC with the band at their most relaxed, still prankin like the just of their teens from a decade ago, but with the air of a band still together after 20 years and just doing it for themselves. The Snuggie-like outfits they are wearing only affirm the coziness.
“Intergalactic” and “Body Movin” don’t hold up to repeated consecutive viewings like “Shadrach” or “3 MCs.” However well each evokes a particular foreign cinema and time (1950s Japanese monster movies/1960s Italian spy capers), they fail by their own cleverness. There isn’t anything there beyond the sets, the camp, and the attitude. Added to this, Fatboy Slim’s remix, the one that accompanies the “Body Movin” video, by default becomes incessantly annoying the more one listens to it. Plowing on for a grueling five and a half minutes, it is well-represented by its clip. Playing like a deserved outtake from You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, it is all one-note flash, sonic wallpaper for the video’s antics.
The highlights from other directors extend to “Gratitude” (from David Perez Shadi), a mostly straightforward performance with the trio playing instruments, a welcome reminder of their musical chops as well as their far-flung and exhaustive knowledge of music history spanning all genres; and “Hey Ladies” from Adam Bernstein, a tongue-in-cheek lampooning of ‘70s lifestyles and the call of the disco floor. Dig the woman as the clock hands, Adam H. in bed with the fish at the end, and actual visual representation of the greatest cowbell break ever.
And if I may diverge ever so slightly, listening to Licensed to Ill and Paul’s Boutique in close quarters recently (as one has now eclipsed its 25th anniversary and the other is only two years away) and considering the totality of the Beastie’s career since then, I think they may have only been equaled by Radiohead over the last 25 years in the category of “delivering a commercially successful first album that in no way prepares you for the second album and in no way whatsoever suggests a long, ambitious, idiosyncratic career will follow.” It isn’t as if they grew up massively in the two and a half years between those albums. They simply had the commercial clout to call the shots and stay even more true to their far-flung musical tastes. Listening to their instrumental album The Mix-Up for the first time, I would have to say I prefer it to at least some of their other studio albums.
The thought struck me that the album titles and cover artwork themselves overtly suggest the worlds of difference. Licensed to Ill with its punny title and crushed compacted wrecked jet accurately captures the brattiness of the lyrics, the minimalism of the music, and the narrow scope of the worldview overall. Paul’s Boutique contains an NYC reference in its title (found again in the 11 second penultimate track) and in its glorious foldout album art, cinematically encompassing several downtown blocks of their bustling home metropolis on a sun-blessed day.
Paul’s Boutique plays like the album in which a band includes everything they may never get a chance to include again - whether that be a 23 second country interlude; a staggering 111 songs sampled (per the list on Wikipedia) which also encompasses four of the band’s own songs, or the massively ambitious nine part/12 minute closing track “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” which plays like a shout out to the five boroughs as well as a sampling of their far-flung inspirations. Paul’s Boutique was also far ahead of the curve in its embrace of the ‘70s after only a decade of distance. Mixing up heavy metal, rap, funk, R&B and country and tossing in juvenilia (“Hey Ladies” and “Shake Your Rump”) with more sinister odes to a criminal lifestyle (“Car Thief” and “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun”), it retains a loosey-goosey sense of fun and improvisation, even as one considers the effort and skill that went into its arranging, recording, and production. I was confounded by it when I was 13 (I had missed out on Licensed to Ill, so this was my first experience with them), and I was smart enough to recognize that there was a lot there that I would be able to appreciate one day, even if it would be some time down the line when that moment arrived.
To circle back to where I began: it was MCA’s death that spurred me to do this column, to become at least a little more familiar with a band so ubiquitous and popular and beloved and who had written the path of their career and played the music that they wanted to. Based solely on his voice, and the charisma he exhibits in the videos (as well as his progression in photos and footage from young hoodlum to billy goat gruff to distinguished grey-haired elder statesman of rap), I would, if pressed, pick MCA as my favorite. I have struggled over the last few weeks to find “that phrase” that accurately conveys the sound of his voice as well as my predilection for it. As coarse and rough as it sounds, its tones still emanate with a swell of good cheer: call it “whiskey sandpaper with a sunrise chaser” and pour a little on the ground for an MC silenced too soon.
Exitlude: A few thoughts on “Sabotage.” I was in the second half of my freshman year at college when the single came out. I feel certain that I must have seen it accompanying the video clip before I first heard it on the radio. I had seen the video numerous times over the years and caught it on the dial from time to time. I did not realize until I listened to it on The Sounds of Science some 18 years later, how much the goofy video has colored my perception of the song. “Sabotage” is quite simply, one of the angriest and most bitter songs ever, something that had never fully penetrated my consciousness. It’s not angry in a funny ha ha way or angry in a cathartic cleansing way. It doesn’t need a speed metal lick or an aggro political viewpoint to make its case either. There is no release after its three minutes are up. It ends abruptly and brutally. Buddy Rich pop culture reference aside, the song dwells outside of the Beasties’ latter day wheelhouse. There is no passing of the mic, no sense of fraternity in the vocals, as Adam Horvitz nasal’ whine takes center stage and gets pushed to feral wolf howls. It has the energy of their earliest songs (the three play guitar, bass, and drums) and the snarl of the couplet “While you sit back and wonder why/ I’ve got this fucking thorn in my side” reverberates forwards and backwards through the wall of sound.
Next time: DVD Spine # 440. Director Guy Maddin’s phantasmagoric Brand Upon the Brain!