Tragic details about the Beastie Boys - Grunge (2023)

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In reality there is only one of two reactions when aBeastie BoysThere's a song on the radio: People either want to fight for their right to party, thank you, or they roll their eyes so hard they're probably going to get migraines. . The latter was the case for most parents who turned on the radio in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

And children? They fought for their rights and they did it very loudly. Afterbillboard, "Licensed to Ill" was the first rap album to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. It stayed there for an impressive seven weeks, spending a total of 73 weeks on the charts and selling 10 million copies.

Obviously, what the trio did resonated with a lot of people, and it didn't stop there. They would later have more hits and sell millions more records, but as the saying goes, they're only at the top. Not only were the Beastie Boys incredibly successful, they were incredibly young and made some big mistakes they regretted. The tragedy, the sadness, the family crisis and the early departure from one's own made it clear: success does not guarantee happiness. And it certainly doesn't mean avoiding life's painful experiences.

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2019,Plankswrote an article about how the Beastie Boys are polishing their previous image and apologizing for many of the things that happened early in their career. The article uses terms like "toxic misogyny," "harmful and pervasive," and "terribly sexist," and includes the firing of its own female member.

What is that? Don't you remember the Beastie Boys had a female drummer? She was there before the group transitioned to their hip-hop sound that made them famous, and according to Adam Horovitz in "Book of the Beastie Boys" (viaNew York Post), "We kicked Kate out of the band because she didn't fit into our new identity as a badass rapper. Maybe Kate left the band for good because we started acting like a bunch of f***ers.” *g freaks out but it sucks how it happened. And I'm really sorry about that."

"Kate" isKate Schellenbach(Second from right), the tremendously talented drummer who was passed on to Luscious Jackson. Schellenbach would say latertom canthat when things started to focus more on rap and hip-hop and they started making less of the post-punk music they started out with, it wasn't for them anyway. And while she admitted "a part of me was jealous of her success," she knew some of the more questionable, sexist, and misogynist lyrics meant they decided to make it clear there was no place for a girl in the middle gave . of that.

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There's no denying it: Even people who have no idea what the Beastie Boys did know (You have to)fight for your rights(Celebrate). However, the Beasties hate him.

Mike Diamond explained itmagazine gonethat "we may have reinforced certain values ​​of some people in our audience when our own values ​​were actually completely different. There were many children who sang ... without realizing that for them it was complete nonsense. It's often the irony overlook.

That irony was hard to see: it was their first release, after all, and there was little to measure them by but the exploits of the Beasties themselves. This, in turn, led to the group's public image, which, to be fair, they tend to focus on , pretty much left.

The song Diamond shared was written in about five minutes and scrawled on napkins at the Palladium. The idea was that they wanted to show that they had actually worked, and it turned out that it fit into their grand scheme of making a name for themselves while touring with Madonna. Diamond told thatIndependent: "Our big idea was that we should be as rude and horrible as possible on stage... We would be memorable."

So perhaps it's not surprising that upon the release of "Fight For Your Right," audiences say the audience bought their hook, line, and sinker "butthead-bait attitude."

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The surviving Beastie Boys have made it clear that they're taking a step back when it comes to some of their more questionable lyrics. During the documentary "Beastie Boys Story" Adam Horovitz recited some of the lyrics to "Girl, including "Girl, let's do the dishes/Girl, tidy my room/Girl, let's do the laundry."

Fun? Horovitz didn't think so, at least not anymore. Explained (viaobserver), which was "intended to be a silly, tongue-in-cheek joke, but understandably wasn't that funny". He continued, "We went from party brothers to these guys."

In a career review byThe guard, point out that it was with the addition ofRick Rubinas a DJ and producer that their over-the-top connection personalities became as important to his image as his music. Dancers in cages, beer sprayed on crowds, and who could forget that huge, hydraulic, you-know-what?

Mike Diamond has also spoken about how they were traded in for what started out as a joke. "First it's so funny and totally sarcastic. And then it becomes reality and you become a part of it. We never thought it would become our job. Being those guys who throw beers night after night..."

Was it the worst? According to them, yes: by the end of 1987 they weren't really talking anymore, they were broke, and the trick was to wear them down.

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The Beastie Boys Trio was originally a 4 piece band featuring Mike Diamond,Adam Yauch, drummer Kate Schellenbach and John Berry. berry saysRolling Stone, not only is he credited with giving the group its name, but their first shows took place at his Upper West Side apartment. He appeared on their "Polly Wog Stew" EP and left the group shortly thereafter. He didn't like the new rules that came with being a serious group, releasing albums and playing gigs, they saidLos Angeles Times.

Still, he was never forgotten: when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (pictured), they welcomed him. And when he died in 2016, Diamond released a statementRolling Stone: "John was like my first big brother in high school... He showed me what fearlessness and reckless abandon can look like. I'll forever owe him that punk-inspired debt."

Berry was only 52 at the time of her death and the official cause was frontal lobe dementia. That, he saysMayo Clinic, is an Alzheimer's-like disease that occurs at a younger age than other forms of dementia, is often misdiagnosed, and presents with extreme personality changes, speech and language difficulties, and difficulty controlling motor functions. There is no cure.

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As Rick Rubin (pictured) spoke toDie Washington Post2020 marks around 30 years since the headline-grabbing split between the Beastie Boys, Def Jam, Rubin and the owner of Def JamRussell Simmons. Back then, 1989, theLos Angeles Timesreported on the situation ... what was known about it. On one side were the Beasties, who claimed they only got $100,000 out of the $2.5 million promised, so they went to Capitol Records. On the other hand, Simmons said that it was the Beasties who broke their contract by not releasing the album they were supposed to be releasing. There were negotiations, allegations of a game for more money, and then, decades later, the Washington Post quoted a rather shocking statistic from the Beastie Boys' book: they claimed they would get 10% of the winnings as part of their Def Jam contract . , while Rubin and Simmons got the other 90%.

Rubin said he doesn't remember it that way at all, but at the same time he can't imagine Adam Horovitz making it up, he conceded it wasn't his thing, he's still pretty tactful with the details. Rubin claimed that it was CBS, the owner of Columbia Records, who had an exclusive deal with Def Jam that removed any missing royalties.

Whatever happens, Rubin ended the Washington Post interview with, "I love Adam. I miss him in my life.”

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Anyone who knows the Beastie Boys knows that they are widely condemned for the homophobic and misogynistic content of their early work.Plankshe says others can learn from his apologies and image makeover, and let's face it: they've had to do a lot of makeovers.

In 1999, Adam Horovitz wrote a letter of apology (viamtv), and it wasn't just the lyrics or the original name of their album "Licensed to Ill" (which can't be printed). According to interviews and transcripts in the archives ofThe voice of the people, they were pretty blunt about their homophobic views.

In 1987, she asked the New Music Exchange directly, "Do you hate homosexuals?" Horovitz's knee-jerk reaction was, "Really...I shouldn't have said that."

Yauch chimed in to try to explain. "We don't have to go into that," he began. "As for what Adam is talking about, I'll give you that, he definitely hates gay people, but the reason for that is because the [people] hanging around here are not just gay people, they're regular gay people. They're all psychopaths. ...they say, 'Hey kid, I'll give you five bucks if...'"

Not long after, Yauch assured reporters that everyone definitely knew they were kidding, but those who interviewed them weren't so sure. Not long after, Horovitz was defendingEminemThe homophobic lyrics of (viaNME): "...you have to blame society. You can't blame him entirely, but you also have to blame a society that, at least in the United States, is raising children to be sexist and homophobic "Being airheads, that's the American way."

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Adam Horovitz isn't the only musician in the family he's married toKathleen Hanna, lead singer of Bikini Kill, punk rock icon and front row feminist of the grunge scene. AsLos New York Timesnoted, she was the first to coin "smells of youthful spirit." When a documentary about her life was released in 2013, she not only spoke about her career, but also about her late-stage Lyme diagnosis and her dependence on her husband.

Describing some grueling struggles, she uses the NYT interview to thank him for everything from cleaning the house to changing her IV bags, caring for her during her seizures and making sure she takes every one of her 39 daily pills.

In conversation withGQ, Horovitz spoke about his side of the story, including the time he was shooting part of the documentary where Hanna was sick and crying. "She asked me to do a lot of those things," he clarified. "I mean, everything is so surreal."

When asked if he really believed she would get better and if better times were ahead, he replied, "I think so, yes. It should be better."

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Nobody wants their parents to be taken advantage of, but that's exactly what Mike Diamond and his mom, Hester, went through. According to Hester Diamond's profile inSotheby´sShe and her husband Harold started out as art admirers, and when she landed her first job at a New York antiques dealer in the 1950s, there was no turning back. She eventually became a well-known art collector, and sometimes not all attention is a good attention.

After his death in 2020Los New York Timesinterviewed Mike Diamond as he prepared to sell his collection, which included 14th-century artwork and sculpture.

One thing that didn't come up in the interview was when Hester Diamond was named as one of art dealer Larry Salander's victims.

Salander, cubeReuters, was arrested on charges including aggravated theft and fraud and pleaded guilty in 2010. He had reportedly targeted collectors, selling art he didn't actually own and selling inventory of artworks several times. All said and done, it has been appreciated by collectors, including Hester Diamond andRobert De Niro- was taken for more than 100 million dollars. Hester Diamond's part in it was $6 million: Salander was ordered to pay reparations and sentenced to six years in prison.

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Adam Horovitz's father is Israel Horovitz, an Off-Broadway playwright and one of the founders of the Gloucester Stage. 2017,Los New York Timespublished a shocking report: Nine women had come forward to accuse him of sexual assault, misconduct and rape, including Adam Horovitz' high school sweetheart Jocelyn Meinhardt.

It quickly turned out that the allegations were not shocking at all: the women had actually come forward before. In 1993, The Boston Phoenix published a story about 10 women, seven actresses and theater workers, and three family nannies who accused him of assaults that took place between the late 1980s and early 1990s,90 but the allegations were brushed aside. The Gloucester Stage board chairman was quoted as saying the women are just "tight".

Amid the new round of allegations, Adam Horovitz issued his own statement: "I believe the allegations against my father are true and I stand by the women who made them."

diversityreported that Israel Horovitz also issued a formal statement, saying that he had "a different memory of some of these events. I offer my heartfelt apologies to any woman who has ever felt compromised by my actions." The elder Horovitz died in 2020.

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When the Beastie Boys took the stage on June 12, 2009 in Tennessee, little did they know it would be their last performance. But it was, he saysRolling Stone: It was also less than three years after they would bereportingthat founding member Adam Yauch had died at the age of 47.

In the same year as his last appearance, Yauch was diagnosed with cancer after discovering a tumor on his salivary gland.

Less than a month after his deathRolling Stonespoke to Adam Horovitz about the best memories they shared, the biggest disagreements, and how they all coped with growing up together and the changes that came with it. For years, Yauch had not only spoken openly about his own spiritism and his connectionsTibetan Buddhism, but he was also an outspoken activist in the struggle for the liberation of Tibet. According to Horovitz, who saw him shortly before his death, he was comforted by his faith.

"I don't think Adam was scared," Horovitz said. "Discouraged, yes. But I don't remember when I saw him scared. We got mugged once in Brooklyn, so in that sense we were scared. But, man, I haven't been scared in a long time." Time. That gives me peace."

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After Adam Yauch's death, it was clear to the remaining Beastie Boys: There will be no more Beastie music and definitely no more live performances. Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz have built a united front on this and have been open about their struggles as they face the end of an era.

In conversation withGQHorovitz was asked about the psychological adjustment it took to go from being part of a band that started in high school to becoming nothing. He explained, "It's a big issue... [The band], that's who I am and what I've always done. And now I'm just trying to figure it out." And when asked if it seemed like a fun challenge, Horovitz said, "No. The scale of that – the scale leans a lot more towards very sad and depressed.”

He was also honest about how the outpouring of support and memory for Yauch made him face his own death and that it wasn't all roses as he believed he would not receive the same outpouring of worldwide grief and celebration: "Well , he was a better person than me. I have a feeling that I'll have something, but not that much. You know, he did things for people. And I really don't care."

While working on "Beastie Boys Story," Diamond and Horovitz discovered something else (viaRolling Stone): Even before Yauch's death, they had started to go their own way. The wild stories suddenly stopped being so wild, and then they said goodbye to Yauch.

It was Horovitz who perhaps summed it up best: "We didn't expect it to be that hard."