When the Def Jam-certified release of Licensed to Ill hit store-shelves in late 1986, three MCs and one DJ got down with no delay.
The Beastie Boys, an exception to just about every rule in hip hop, arrived on the blossoming rap scene as veterans of the punk playground, aggressively terrorizing MTV and radio airwaves with frat house bravado and a fittingly juvenile sense of humor. The musicians added guitars to punctuated rhythms, changing hip hop’s sound and establishing a hipster-cool image while gaining status as critical darlings.
While their records gather dust and their hair sets in with grey, the members of the Beastie Boys are now the subject of The Skills to Pay the Bills: The Story of the Beastie Boys, an oral revitalization of the legendary rap group as told by those involved in the making of its career.
Alan Light, former editor-in-chief of Vibe and Spin magazines, culls quotes from contemporary interviews printed in the pages of periodicals throughout the years, weaving them together to create one voice as related through the mouths of many.
“I think that the Beastie Boys did change the direction of music and the direction of the audience and the culture around music several times. It’s rare enough that anybody does that once, but I think that with Licensed to Ill, obviously they opened things up to a much bigger, suburban, whiter audience for hip-hop,” Light says in an interview with The Muse, noting that with the release of each of the Beasties’ six CDs, the surrounding culture has significantly shifted.
The book reads quickly and easily with neatly separated sound bites. Sean Lennon says, “Check Your Head changed my life. The music was brilliant and they had evolved as people and as a band, like when the Beatles did Sgt. Pepper.”
But the band’s entire history is not contained within the book’s scant 200 pages; readers will only get to know the Beastie Boys as the hangers-on did.
With only a brief overview in the opening chapter penned by Light, the book lacks a larger editorial statement about the band, existing simply as a timeline that traces the major events of the Beastie Boys’ professional lives.
Light politely defends himself against this bit of criticism, arguing that the Beasties’ history seemed to demand this different take on their career.
“Well, that’s going to be the question always, ‘Was that the right strategy to take?’ I just felt like with a story like this, when you can still put your hands on all the primary players in this way, that [if I included my own thoughts] it would become a different sort of thing,” he says.
As the Beastie Boys become eligible for acceptance into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year, The Skills to Pay the Bills is important as a historical guide, as a textbook of sorts. It offers a backstage pass to the Beasties’ secret lives, dwelling on the growth of the members as individuals and as a group, as seen through the eyes of those who looked upon them.
One can only hope that Light will shed some of his vast knowledge on the group in a follow-up volume.
