The Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty

"Hello Nasty", the Beastie Boys' fifth album, is a head-spinning listen loaded with analogue synthesizers, old drum machines, call-and-response vocals, freestyle rhyming, futuristic sound effects, and virtuoso turntable scratching. The Beasties had long been notorious for their dense, multi-layered explosions, but "Hello Nasty" was their first record to build on the multi-ethnic junk-culture breakthrough of "Check Your Head", instead of merely replicating it. Hiring DJ Mix Master Mike (one of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz) turned out to be a masterstroke; he and the Beasties created a sound that strongly recalls the spare electronic funk of the early 80s, but spiked with the samples and postmodern absurdist wit that have become their trademarks.