Beastie Boys music is intertwined with my childhood memories. Ill Communication was one of the first albums I ever bought and Hello Nasty is one of a couple of albums that I purchased multiple copies of. Of course, that is more likely due to mishandling and the sheer, fragile shittiness of the CD as a format than anything else, but still. Here we have another interesting album by artists that I am very familiar with, but nevertheless escaped my attention until now. The Mix-Up is a great set of instrumentals by a band that is not known for their playing as much as their lyrical styling. Even with their status at the time, it was big risk to stray so far from the type of rap album that their fans expected from them. Obviously, they had the chops, since the album won them a Grammy.
