Funk's Boutique

[funkdiggity]

So Im a ginormous Beastie Boys fan, but Im always really annoyed by the songs of theirs that end up in music games. So far we've gotten No Sleep Til Brooklyn, which comes off an album I hate. Then we've got Sabotage and So Whatcha Want. Sabotage is an awesome song, and I always have fun with it on drums at least. So Whatcha Want is a gigantic waste of space on my rb2 disc. Both of these songs sound cool, but I'm always a little bummed when game companies go with a really obvious choice for music games, even if that choice doesn't contain the makings of a good chart (So Whatcha Want) or isn't really that represenative of what the band in question does (Sabotage). GHWT5 is going to have Gratitude, which is such a bizarre choice to me. Check Your Head is full of ridiculously amazing songs, why go with this one? Just because it has a loud guitar solo? That's stupid.

Paul's Boutique is the obvious place to start with epic Beastie Boys music, but that album's so wrapped up in litigation that I can't ever see anything from it getting used in a rhythm game. So here's some other Beastie's goodness that I think would play well and sound awesome.

Jimmy James

This one is built off of a Hendrix guitar sample, so instant win for the guitarist!

Root Down

OK, seriously, that's probably the dopest bass line in the history of the universe. Playing that would be bliss. The beat is fun, and that song has some of the Beastie's better rhymes. There's a little bit of wakka-cha-wakka guitar, but it would probably be dull overall for the guitar player. I don't really care though, because the rest of the band would be having a great time.

Stand Together

Funky intro, awesome spacy guitar effects, a classic beat, MCA tearing it up on the mic, and uh....not very much for the bass player to do. Who cares? Its still better than Gratitude.

[tackhead311]

exactly i would even want there punk stuff back in the day when they played at cbgbs before licence to ill. there song choices and charts have puzzled me since i feel there are a very iconic band.

[funkdiggity]

Yeah I don't think everything they've done would work in a music game by any means, but there's so much that would. When I look at what we've actually been given it kind of makes me wander if the people choosing tracks for these games ever actually listen to them lol

[bigfish]

Paul's Boutique was a fantastic album. I would love to see anything from there make a game. I often question the song choices placed into the games, expecially the ones that showed up on-disc for RB2. I can only assume that for a lot of bands they went with lesser known tracks, and kept the more popular ones for DLC in order to sell more of it.

An idea.... Paul's Boutique would make excellent content for DJ Hero. Mixing some of that stuff in with more comtemporary dance, or even rock/metal beats would be epic!!!!

[funkdiggity]

Well if you believe the rumors a lot of the recent dlc weirdness (releasing a zombies pack w/o Time of the Season, releasing Linger instead of something like Zombie, etc) is because hmx is saving the good stuff for rb3. which I guess makes sense. its like when they kept peace sells and give it away off of album dlc so they could put it on the rb2 setlist.

Id love to see Paul's Boutique material on any music game anywhere (shadrach has to be one of my favorite songs of all time), but there's all sorts of legal issues surrounding that album, even 20 years after its release. Some of those songs pull from dozens of different samples, and even though different people involved with the album tell different versions of what happened, its pretty obvious the Beastie Boys didn't bother to clear very much of what they used. I think at one point the Beatles were even going to take them to court or something.