Beastie Boys Book

Product Information

I'm sure you're scratching your head about right now thinking, "WTAF is even happening with you, Cupcake?

It shouldn't come as a surprise to any fans that Beastie Boys have delivered an innovative, open, funny memoir, full of geeky detail to delight in. They use over a hundred guest narrators in addition to the group including everybody from Ben Stiller, Wanda Sykes, Snoop Dogg, Chuck D.It is also a love letter to Adam Yauch, the group's driving force, who sadly died of cancer in 2012, which is when the group ended. And so this book proves to be a beautifully creative, powerful articulation of the legacy they leave.

Case in point: Steve Buscemi, Snoop Dogg, Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, Spike Jonze, Amy Poehler, John C. In addition to Diamond and Horovitz, there’s a full cast of narrators that will blow your damned mind. The Beastie Book was written by Adrock and Mike D and covers the gamut of their career, with a very welcome, intense focus on their early days in NYC when they were in various hardcore punk-rock bands. Forget Stormzy and Jay Z; Beastie Boys (along with Run DMC, PE and Rakim) are the real legends, originators and innovators of hip hop! as well as my next trip to NYC when I bore my family by seeking out the hidden landmarks from the book.It is, most of all, a love letter from two fellow travelers to the companion no longer by their side. Or the story of when Yauch purchased the phone number of a defunct company mentioned on their album Paul’s Boutique — he hooked it up to an answer machine to see what happened. With classics such as Ted Hughes's The Iron Man and award-winners including Emma Carroll's Letters from the Lighthouse, Faber Children's Books brings you the best in picture books, young reads and classics. The literary equivalent of the band's classic third album, Check Your Head: sprawling, eclectic, irreverent, clever, hyper and cool, driven by the engaging home-brewed DIY ethic which for over 30 years defined the trio's approach to creativity.

The thing I enjoyed more than anything, however, was just the little pieces of trivia that were scattered throughout the book. Shoutout to the audiobook, which is read (no joke) by Steve Buscemi, Jon Stewart, Kim Gordon, Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler, Elvis Costello, and many more. Next I downloaded the eReader version from my library to check out the pictures referenced throughout. I sort of got into them around Hello Nasty because it was the shit and I knew one of them was dating Ione Skye or something and no way was Ione Fucking Skye dating a douche; another one was, like, a Buddhist or something so I cut them some slack for their earlier douchebaggery. This is an absolute gem and insight into their lives and how they became the biggest hip hop group in the world.These leaps sometimes feel a bit disjointed, but they are totally in character, given the eclectic nature of the music they produced. Faber Members get access to live and online author events and receive regular e-newsletters with book previews, promotional offers, articles and quizzes. But, like the photo suggests, this is also a creative and funny look at a very particular era, that late-80s, early-90s period of effervescence in music that got Slayer and Run-DMC into photos together, when everything was reckless and rebellious, pre-Internet, pre-well, everything a younger reader might know. It seems an honest portrayal of how they met, grew, and evolved over the years into the bestselling rap group of all-time, and one of only five rap groups in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it taught me lessons and I learned a bit of history of a band that I have always loved.