It\u2019s a given that Paul\u2019s Boutique<\/i> is a masterpiece and probably the Beastie Boys\u2019 defining moment. But honestly, it took Check Your Head<\/i> to turn a lot of listeners on to Paul\u2019s Boutique<\/i>. In many ways, the two albums complemented each other, in much the same way that Radiohead\u2019s OK Computer<\/i> lured listeners back to picking up their then-neglected album The Bends<\/i>. <\/p>\n
If you could trace the Beastie Boys\u2019 maturation by way of drug intake, it would go something like this: Licensed to Ill<\/i> was the Beastie Boys on Spanish Fly and a lot of Schlitz, Paul\u2019s Boutique<\/i> was their Beatles-like acid discovery trip and Check Your Head<\/i> was the Beastie Boys on a lot of kind bud. But Check Your Head<\/i> was far more than just a great stoner album. And while Capitol\u2019s double-disc remastered version of Check Your Head<\/i> doesn\u2019t offer any particular revolutionary insight into their excellent album, it does give you a great excuse to revisit the album and marvel at the band\u2019s ability to drastically reinvent themselves three times over while retaining their core prankster charm. <\/p>\n
Arguably, the only flaw of Paul\u2019s Boutique<\/i> was its timing: it was released about nine years too early. The same can\u2019t be said for Check Your Head<\/i>. The year 1992, of course, was marked by the return of no-frills rock thanks to the likes of Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. And Check Your Head<\/i> was the first full-length Beastie Boys album where the band picked up their instruments and rocked out. In most other cases, this could have been a crass marketing ploy for relevance, except that the album was recorded before much of this \u201cgrunge\u201d fad took off, and the album sounded like a genuine evolution of the band\u2019s sound. <\/p>\n
Check Your Head<\/i> marked a maturing of the band not just in sound, but also in the lyric department. Sure, there was still the humorous sampling of Cheap Trick\u2019s At Budokan<\/i>, Good Times<\/i> and an out-of-the-blue sample of Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cJust Like Tom Thumb\u2019s Blues.\u201d But the humor is far from the anti-PC antics that populated much of Licensed to Ill<\/i> and sections of Paul\u2019s Boutique<\/i>. While none but the most serious of feminists would be offended by \u201cHey Ladies,\u201d you\u2019d be hard pressed to find an offensive song off of Check Your Head<\/i>. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Check Your Head<\/i> marked the end of the Beastie Boys\u2019 drastic evolutionary period. Their next album, Ill Communication<\/i>, was probably a great stand-alone album except for the fact that you couldn\u2019t help but feel like for the first time, the band was treading water, solely because the band wasn\u2019t reinventing itself yet again. Their next album, the hugely successful Hello Nasty<\/i>, was an even bigger letdown because it went on about 30 minutes longer than it should have and seemed to be an almost calculated mixture of everything that worked for the Beastie Boys\u2019 last four albums. <\/p>\n
So, if your copy of Check Your Head<\/i> isn\u2019t skipping, does the remastered version merit another purchase? Sadly, no. While the packaging is certainly glossy and beautiful, the bonus disc contains versions and remixes ranging from standard to pretty good of songs from Check Your Head<\/i>. The only songs that truly stand out are the b-sides \u201cBoomin\u2019 Granny\u201d and \u201cThe Skills to Pay the Bills.\u201d Capitol might have been wiser to follow their fairly minimalist treatment of the remastered Paul\u2019s Boutique<\/i> and kept their commemoration to one CD and included the two unreleased b-sides plus \u201cNetty\u2019s Girl\u201d and \u201cDrunken Praying Mantis Style\u201d for good measure. But the remastered version of Check Your Head<\/i> does give Gen-Xers and hopefully a few Gen-Yers a chance to nostalgically look back at a time where a band\u2019s resurgent popularity came from word of mouth from fans and overly enthusiastic record store clerks, and not from blogs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":29849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5809],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41463","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-beastie-boys","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41463"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}