On 4th May 2012, Adam Yauch, known to you and me as “MCA”, passed away after succumbing to parotid cancer. It didn’t come out of the blue. He had revealed that he found a cancerous lump in 2009, but then there was hope that all would be okay. Everyone wanted it to be. I know I did. So it was sad and definitely a shock when I saw the headline on Ceefax, of all things, that he died. Before then, I hadn’t listened through a full Beastie Boys album. So one of the first things I did to commemorate the man who was MCA, was listen to Hello Nasty. I then uploaded the album, in sections, to YouTube. Just felt like the right thing to do. Why Hello Nasty? Well, I think I had ‘Intergalactic’ as a song by itself in my iTunes library, and I knew ‘Body Movin” and ‘Three MC’s and One DJ’ from seeing their videos on the TV. All three are on the LP. So I thought, “Might as well listen to the whole set.”

‘Super Disco Breakin” is the first song on Hello Nasty. To get things off to a grand opening, there’s what I think is a nod to the Beatles’‘Back in the U.S.S.R.’ nod, with the first sound the listener hears being one of an airplane taking off. The instrumental hook, a synth or sample – I’m not sure, gets going amidst some random record scratches. In the background, MCA utters the words, “Yeah… Get down,” before the kick drum starts thumping and Ad-Rock properly gets things rolling with the great first line, “Well, it’s 50 cups of coffee and you know it’s on”, accompanied by Mike D and MCA on certain words for added effect. When Hello Nasty was released in July 1998, it had been four years of waiting for a new studio Beastie Boys album. And I think the only way to think of ‘Super Disco Breakin” is as the introduction to this new offering to show that they were back. Almost half a decade as passed since their last LP, the three members were solidly in their 30s (well, Ad-Rock was 31), but they still had their infectious energy, their interplay, the respectively distinct vocals… the things we know and love the Beastie Boys for.

And those aspects are all showcased in the two short minutes of the song’s duration. The trio are completing each other’s lines within the first few moments, going back and forth between words, while a hectic, bustling beat carries on in the background. The way the lyrics bounce from one rapper to the next, panning around the stereo setup in the process, you never know which way to look or where things are going to end up. But what counts is the immense sense of fun you can tell the trio are having just by performing. In addition, there are little vocal samples and splices added in to fill in the emptier spaces which are very cool. One notable example is the split-second Run-D.M.C. vocal from that group’s tune ‘Sucker MC’s’. After the second and final iteration of the chorus, more samples enter the mix shouting out the city of Manhattan – one from a Kool Moe Dee and Busy Bee tape, and another unconfirmed. It’s just cool the way the word ‘Manhattan’ is blurred and mixed in with the record scratches. Someone asks “What’s up?” at the song’s very end, a straight cut to silence occurs. A great statement to start an album off with.