Why Beastie Boys came to regret their debut album ‘License to Ill’
In 1999 Beastie Boys were looking for a fresh start. The new millennium was fast approaching, throwing their past actions into perspective. That year, Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz was feeling especially guilty about some of his band’s early lyrics and decided to write a letter of apology that was later published in New York Times Magazine.
The lyrics in question feature on Beastie Boys’ 1986 debut album, Licensed to Ill, which arrived nearly a decade after Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond, Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch and Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz came together in New York in 1978, having swapped hardcore punk for a high-octane blend of thrash and hip-hop. It proved a winning formula, landing the trio with a minor hit in 1983 for ‘Cooky Puss’.
Two years later, they were touring with Madonna and working on their debut LP, a full-blown hip-hop record dropping with manic intensity. The success of ‘Cooky Puss’ convinced Beastie Boys to incorporate rap into their style, giving birth to a swaggering yet strangely self-deprecating spin on New York’s greatest musical export. The band’s sense of humour was often mistaken for arrogance. Indeed, even Rick Rubin, who would later form Def Jam Recordings with fellow NYU student Simon Russell, thought Mike was a bit of an “asshole” upon meeting him for the very first time.
Beastie Boys would themselves come to regret the pseudo-macho bravado of Licensed to Iill, with Horovitz apologising for the homophobic lyrics in the album, which was originally supposed to be titled Don’t Be A Faggot. “I would like to… formally apologize to the entire gay and lesbian community for the s—ty and ignorant things we said on our first record,” Horovitz wrote. “There are no excuses. But time has healed our stupidity…. We have learned and sincerely changed since the ’80s…. We hope that you’ll accept this long overdue apology.”
There are certainly some pretty questionable verses in tracks like ‘Girls’, which isn’t so much homophobic as deeply misogynist: “Girls, to do the dishes,” they rap in the final chorus. “Girls, to clean up my room / Girls, to do the laundry / Girls, and in the bathroom / Girls, that’s all I really want is girls / Two at a time, I want girls.”
To be fair to Beastie Boys, at least they came to recognise the error of their ways, apologising for lyrics written when they were much younger and barely out of adolescence. The trio went on to remove the offensive lyrics from their reissue of License to Ill, modifying verses or their subsequent live shows. The Beatles were never so transparent, and their catalogue is full of shady lyrical material. I suppose that’s how Beastie Boys grow into Beastie Men.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Punk Newsletter
All the latest Punk content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.