Music: RIP MCA (Thoughts on Adam Yauch and the Beastie Boys)

It’s weird – I’d never describe myself as a dedicated Beastie Boys fan – there are certain tracks I love, and others that I’m not fond of – and yet the death of Adam Yauch, founder member of the hip-hop pioneers, has ended up one of those moments where I read about a celebrity death on Twitter and actually feel sad, like the world’s a slightly less interesting place now. The Beastie Boys were one of those bands I was aware of for ages, but never really locked onto – I can remember right back to their first major days as the leery punky white-rapping loudmouths of the Licence to Ill era, and they certainly didn’t look like the kind of band who’d be sticking around for long. But they did, and with their second album, the brilliant and fantastically sample-heavy Paul’s Boutique, they started heading in different and adventurous directions. Weirdly enough, the first Beastie Boys track that I really liked was thanks to an edition of Chris Morris’s anarchic Radio 1 show that I’d taped off the radio and listened to death – as well as Morris’s bizarre, head-expanding comedy, there was also an eclectic mix of music, including a track that turned out to be the second (much faster and louder) half of ‘The Sounds of Science’ from Paul’s Boutique. And, I found myself listening over and over again to it – I’d always kind of liked rap, but that was the first time I started really understanding the linguistic creativity and sheer coolness that could be pulled off by really good rap artists. I’ve enjoyed bits and bobs of the Beastie Boys’s output over the years (including the magnificent Criterion Collection DVD collection of their videos), but I think what I admired most was the enthusiasm, passion and creativity that exploded out of virtually everything they did. The music of theirs that I loved took me in some new directions (For example – I’d never have seen the wonderful Sixties cult movie Danger: Diabolik if they hadn’t used footage from it in the wonderful Bodymovin’ video), and I’m genuinely sad that the founder member, Adam Yauch – a brilliant rap artist, and the straight man to the more wild and cartoony fellow band members Mike D and Ad Rock – has just succumbed to cancer at only 48.