DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
This excellent band memoir features more than 40 mostly celebrity narrators—a diverse crew ranging from Snoop Dogg to Rachel Maddow. Most of the narrators add value to the audiobook experience, but the pass-the-mic structure sometimes distracts from the great content. Some of the most stirring sections occur when the Beastie Boys co-authors narrate, especially when they talk about their bandmate Adam Yauch, who passed away in 2012. Like their albums, this audiobook is both stupid (there's a fictional oral history of Cooky Puss) and smart (the backstory of Grand Royal records is explained), as well as eclectic (there are recipes, mixtapes, equipment lists) and historical (the evolution of downtown hip-hop and New York City before 9/11 are described). R.W.S. 2019 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
A fascinating, generous book with portraits and detail that float by in bursts of color . . . As with [the band’s] records, the book’s structure is a lyrical three-man weave. . . . Diamond’s voice is lapidary, droll. Horovitz comes on like a borscht belt comedian, but beneath that he is urgent, incredulous, kind of vulnerable. . . . Friendship is the book’s subject as much as music, fame and New York.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Wild, moving . . . resembles a Beastie Boys LP in its wild variety of styles.”—Rolling Stone
“As nutty, irreverent, and fun as you think it would be.”—Vogue
“As freewheeling and funny as their albums . . . a beautifully messy (and large) talisman containing within it many of the great joys and surprises that come with listening to the Beastie Boys”—The AV Club
“Horovitz and Diamond share sincere moments of reflection about their music, their friendship and the guy who taught them to fix radiators, to care about human rights, to own up to mistakes and to grow up.”—NPR, Morning Edition
“Teeming with tour anecdotes, personal letters, playlists, comics and photographs—[Beastie Boys Book] unspools the crew’s thirty-year run in the music industry and is appropriately massive.”—Los Angeles Times
“Diamond and Horovitz alternate as narrators, and their prose is as infectious as their music. Other contributors chime in with their own idiosyncratic takes. Roy Choi offers a mini cookbook of Beastie-themed dishes. Amy Poehler delves into the videography of the group. Luc Sante takes the reader on a musical tour of New York City streets in the early 1980s. The result is a book Beastie Boys fans will clamor for and a must-read for music enthusiasts.”—Booklist (starred review)
“This entertaining look at Beastie Boys history is as innovative and raucous as the band’s music.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Beastie Boys fans will devour this book, as will anyone interested in the early days of hip-hop, the art/music/street life of New York City in the 1980s, and the alternative-nation zeitgeist of the ’90s.”—Kirkus Reviews
DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile
This excellent band memoir features more than 40 mostly celebrity narrators—a diverse crew ranging from Snoop Dogg to Rachel Maddow. Most of the narrators add value to the audiobook experience, but the pass-the-mic structure sometimes distracts from the great content. Some of the most stirring sections occur when the Beastie Boys co-authors narrate, especially when they talk about their bandmate Adam Yauch, who passed away in 2012. Like their albums, this audiobook is both stupid (there's a fictional oral history of Cooky Puss) and smart (the backstory of Grand Royal records is explained), as well as eclectic (there are recipes, mixtapes, equipment lists) and historical (the evolution of downtown hip-hop and New York City before 9/11 are described). R.W.S. 2019 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine