Where did you all meet? Juilliard?

September 6, 2014 11:48 AM

Remember that time the Beastie Boys met Joan Rivers in 1987?
posted by nevercalm (29 comments total)

GWAR too!
posted by ifjuly at 12:24 PM on September 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Am I going to have to recycle my HOOSKER DOO link from the previous thread about Joan?
posted by pxe2000 at 12:34 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

[puts on glasses, peers at cover] "Licensed to Ill?! What a stupid name for an album!"

Classic! Thanks for the link.
posted by languagehat at 12:50 PM on September 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

Oh god they are so awful on that stage for Fight for your Right. 3 dudes make for a weak-ass mosh pit. And what's with the hoochie girls? Is it their right to party for which we are fighting? Basically this song confirms that you really shouldn't do a parody of something stupid if your audience won't understand it's a parody.

Time to Get Ill is significantly better. Although again I'm wondering about the hoochie girl; perhaps she's the one about to need medical attention?

Metafilter: LONDON!
posted by Nelson at 1:03 PM on September 6, 2014

Metafilter: PUSSY!
posted by any major dude at 1:06 PM on September 6, 2014

> Basically this song confirms that you really shouldn't do a parody of something stupid if your audience won't understand it's a parody.

This entire period of the Beastie Boys' history brings to mind the Vonnegut quote "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." I can buy that it was all an act...barely, but...it was an *awfully convincing* act. I'm just sayin'.

Incidentally, this post inspired me to go a bit of looking around to confirm that I did in fact see Gang Starr on the Jenny Jones Show (can't find any video, unfortunately) one afternoon in 1999 while hanging out with my grandmother.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:09 PM on September 6, 2014

I'm as big of a Beastie Boys fan as you're likely to find within a 2 mile radius of where I'm sitting right now, so it would be a relief to be able to believe that they were parodying...something...during this time period. But they weren't...and they owned up to it later. At least one of them referred to their iconography around women as having been "unforgiveable" in their early years. So there's no real justifying this as parody.
posted by Ipsifendus at 1:19 PM on September 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

OK I was trying to be generous (and going off Wikipedia's summary of a 2011 interview). Let's just all agree Fight for your Right is a shitty song.

Joan Rivers didn't really work for me in this video either. It felt very scripted and I hated how she marginalized herself in playing the slight confused disapproving maternal figure. She was smarter than that.
posted by Nelson at 1:28 PM on September 6, 2014

"Marginalizing herself"..... is probably the last phrase I'd ever use to describe Joan Rivers.
posted by blucevalo at 1:35 PM on September 6, 2014

Let's just all agree Fight for your Right is a shitty song.

it's obnoxious, crude, stupid and childish - in short, it's rock and roll
posted by pyramid termite at 1:35 PM on September 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

ok. FINE. I'll get off your freaking lawn.
posted by 4ster at 1:42 PM on September 6, 2014

The 33 1/3 book about the making of Paul's Boutique is a great read in general, but also a good overview of the aftermath of this period and how they went about trying to move past it (mostly).
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:42 PM on September 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

They were serious. Great parody only works if you take it very seriously.
posted by chavenet at 1:45 PM on September 6, 2014

Am I going to have to recycle my HOOSKER DOO link from the previous thread about Joan?

Would you accept Dinosaur Jr on the Jenny Jones show instead?
posted by Sys Rq at 1:59 PM on September 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

They were shitty jerk kids when they made the song and we were shitty jerk kids when we loved it. I think we can allow the fact that they grew up into better people and so did we.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:01 PM on September 6, 2014 [31 favorites]

I hated how she marginalized herself in playing the slight confused disapproving maternal figure

That move only really works if you know something about them beforehand - like, introducing them as 'my simple boys' or whatever and then asking their names afterwards. It reminded me of Evan Dando on Regis and Kathie Lee - had its moments but mostly pretty awkward. It quickly becomes evident who likes the music and who's just trying to transparently tap into the youth market and failing terribly. Letterman is the counterpoint, in that I think he really likes the bands he has on.

I was never really into the Beastie Boys but yeah this was a horrible performance. I had always been slightly bothered that it had been just an excuse for 80s middle class white kids to like rap/hip hop.
posted by jimmythefish at 2:10 PM on September 6, 2014

Let's just all agree Fight for your Right is a shitty song

No sir, I will NOT agree.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:12 PM on September 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

Public Enemy. As the YouTube caption says, check out the audience at 3:40.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 2:41 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm as big a fanboy as the next person when it comes to the Beasties, but that was painful to watch. Both the interview and the performance felt forced and awkward. (and ugh, the misogyny) What it really highlights for me is the distance traveled, as artists and as humans, over their careers.
posted by calamari kid at 3:03 PM on September 6, 2014

It's like the Scum Of The Earth interview, but real!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:31 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

but that was painful to watch.

Mind boggling. It's so fucking painful, that it just speaks volumes to whatever massive cultural thing they were tapping into. I mean, I have an original issue "Licensed to Ill" album hanging on my wall.

I mean, that performance was Fat Boys territory.
posted by phaedon at 5:44 PM on September 6, 2014

Meanwhile, that GWAR clip is genuinely funny, entertaining and dare I say it, more enlightened than the Beastie Boys one. The Beasties may have evolved but its comforting to know that GWAR was and always will be GWAR. I'm suddenly missing Oderus/Dave Brockie more than I did when he passed away.
posted by KingEdRa at 6:52 PM on September 6, 2014

I had always been slightly bothered that it had been just an excuse for 80s middle class white kids to like rap/hip hop.

LL Cool J and Run DMC were big with the middle class white kid set before the Beasties put out License to Ill. I'm saying this as a former white middle class Canadian, even.
posted by Hoopo at 8:08 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I thought that Fight for your Right to Party was the most awesome song ever when it came out.

I was seven and not particularly astute.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 10:04 PM on September 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Jeez missed an important word there. "Kid". I remain white and Canadian. Possibly middle class, too, if that still exists.
posted by Hoopo at 10:28 PM on September 6, 2014

This is one if those videos that affirms that the Beastie Boys weren't as good as we seem to remember.

Memory deludes us.
posted by entropone at 6:53 AM on September 7, 2014

fantabulous timewaster: "I was seven and not particularly astute."

Hehe... this. I too was 7, and my assessment of things may have lacked nuance, also.
posted by Philby at 7:11 AM on September 7, 2014

I'm pretty sure this is a mislabeled Kids in the Hall skit. Please check your link.
posted by echocollate at 8:11 AM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Letterman is the counterpoint, in that I think he really likes the bands he has on

yeah, never more evident than this appearance. Of all the talk show hosts in history I consider Dave's taste to be paramount. Conan has historically had better bands earlier in their rise but the less than passionate response to the amazing bands he's featured on his show throughout the years makes me think that those decisions are not mostly his.
posted by any major dude at 4:22 PM on September 7, 2014