As the first white rap group of any importance, the Beastie Boys received the scorn of critics and strident Hip Hop musicians, both of whom accused them of cultural pirating, especially since they began as a hardcore punk group in 1981. But the Beasties weren’t pirating — instead, they treated rap as part of a post-punk musical underground, where the D.I.Y. aesthetics of Hip Hop and punk weren’t that far apart. Of course, the exaggerated b-boy and frat-boy parodies of their unexpected hit debut album, Licensed to Ill, didn’t help their cause.

For much of the mid-’80s, the Beastie Boys were considered macho clowns, and while they dismissed that theory with the ambitious, Dust Brothers-produced second album, Paul’s Boutique, it was ignored by both the public and the press at the time. In retrospect, Paul’s Boutique was one of the first albums to predict the genre-bending, self-referential pop kaleidoscope of ’90s pop.

The Beasties refined their eclectic approach with 1992’s Check Your Head, where they played their own instruments. Check Your Head brought the Beasties back to the top of the charts, and within a few years, they were considered one of the most influential and ambitious groups of the ’90s, cultivating a musical community not only through their music, but with their record label, Grand Royal, and their magazine of the same name. (Bio by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, continued @ Allmusic)

Tracklist:

1. She’s On It
2. Fight For Your Right
3. The New Style
4. Hold It Now, Hit It
5. Rhymin & Stealin
6. No Sleep Till Brooklyn
7. Paul Revere
8. Shake Your Rump
9. Hey Ladies
10. Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun
11. Shadrach
12. B-Boy Bouilabaisse
13. Pass The Mic
14. Professor Booty
15. So What’Cha Want
16. Sure Shot
17. Get It Together
18. Root Down
19. Sabotage
20. Intergalactic
21. Super Disco Breakin’
22. Body Movin’
23. Putting Shame In Your Game
24. Three MCs And One DJ
25. Ch-Check It Out
26. Triple Double
27. An Open Letter To NYC
28. Make Some Noise
29. Too Many Rappers