I’m pretty sure this was the first video I ever watched on MTV, somewhere around 1986-1987:
I have to confess, you guys, I was 11 or 12 and had very Victorian sensibilities and had just no idea what to do with what had just happened on my television screen. Actually, my grandmother’s television screen, since I’m also pretty sure I was watching MTV with my somewhat older cousins at the time.
It’s kind of difficult to explain now, when the Beastie Boys are Grammy-winning elder statesmen (!), but then they were like a cold bucket of water in the face.
And every time I hear the opening chords of that song I feel an echo of that heady mixture of bafflement and excitement and quasi-intrigued, quasi-horrified what the hell?? as I did then. This music was a jolt. A wake-up call. I wasn’t totally on-board at the time (see above re: delicate Victorian sensibilities) but, you know, I eventually came around.
And here, if you haven’t seen it yet, is Fight For Your Right (Revisited), a short film directed by MCA, which came out last year. I suggest you read this fantastic New York Magazine article, which is an oral history of the first 25 years of the Beastie Boys, before you watch it.
And then, in closing, Intergalactic, from Hello, Nasty, because I love it, and there are giant dancing robots:
Rest in Peace, Mr. Yauch. We shall miss you very much.
