ARTIST

Beastie Boys

The smartest dumb band in the land, the Beastie Boys' mix of heady grooves, smart samples, pissant punkery, and lowest-common denominator-partying lets their songs function equally as moshpit anthems and intense dancefloor gut-punches. That many of their best licks are stolen (OK, sampled) from an impressive genre-hopping list just adds to the visceral impact of such immortal shoutalongs as "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)," "Sabotage," "Finger Lickin' Good," or "Ch-Check It Out." As a guitar-noise edge teases the Boys' insistent funkiness, the band comes off simultaneously as super-dunces and world-class dance machines.

Such was not always the case. The high point of the Beasties' early-'80s years as lame New York hardcore screamboys was...
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