''Hello Nasty'' is the fifth studio album by the American hip hop group

Beastie Boys The Beastie Boys were an American Hip-hop, hip hop and Rap rock, rap rock group formed in New York City in 1979. They were composed of Ad-Rock, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz (vocals, guitar), Adam Yauch, Adam "MCA" Yauch (vocals, bass), and Mike D, ...

, released on July 14, 1998, by Grand Royal and

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007), and simply known as Capitol, is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-base ...

. The album sold 681,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 1 on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart, and won

Best Alternative Music Album The Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums in the alternative genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Ho ...

and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group (for " Intergalactic") at the

41st Annual Grammy Awards The 41st Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 24, 1999, at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, recognizing musical achievements from the year 1998. Lauryn Hill led the ceremony with a record-breaking 10 nominations, becoming the first woman ...

. In ''Beastie Boys Book'' (2018),

Ad-Rock Adam Keefe Horovitz (born October 31, 1966), popularly known as Ad-Rock, is an American rapper, guitarist, and actor. He was a member of the Hip hop music, hip-hop group Beastie Boys. While Beastie Boys were active, Horovitz performed with a si ...

said he felt ''Hello Nasty'' was the group's "best record".

Background

The album was released on July 14, 1998, just over four years after the previous Beastie Boys album, '' Ill Communication''. It marked the addition of DMC champion Mix Master Mike to the group's line-up, and was the last time the band worked with percussionist Eric Bobo or a co-producer. There are several guest vocalists on the album, including

Miho Hatori is a Japanese singer, songwriter, and musician. She is best known as a solo artist, co-founder of New York City band Cibo Matto, and as the first person to provide the voice of Noodle in the virtual band Gorillaz, as well as for her work with ...

Cibo Matto Cibo Matto (, Italian language, Italian for "crazy food") was an American alternative rock band formed by Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori in New York City in 1994. Their first album, ''Viva! La Woman'' (1996), had lyrics primarily concerned with food. ...

on "I Don't Know", and Jamaican dub musician

Lee "Scratch" Perry Lee "Scratch" Perry (born Rainford Hugh Perry; 20 March 1936 – 29 August 2021) was a Jamaican record producer, songwriter and singer noted for his innovative studio techniques and production style. Perry was a pioneer in the 1970s development ...

on "Dr. Lee, PhD". On the many musical styles on the album, Mike D said in 1998: "We spent so much time in the studio that we weren't in touch with the things that happened around us, not what's going on in the music scene and not what other people think about our music. We didn't even hear other opinions; we were rather reclusive. You know, there is nothing planned on the album, we didn't plan anything. All you hear are different sounds, sounds we experimented with, nothing else. Maybe that's our problem: we were so far removed from everything, it was like being underground, really underground, like in a hole in the ground." The title of the album was allegedly inspired by the receptionist of the band's NY-based publicity firm Nasty Little Man, who would answer the phone with the greeting "Hello, Nasty." There were CD, double-vinyl LP,

MiniDisc MiniDisc (MD) is an erasable magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74, or 80 minutes of digitized audio. Sony announced the MiniDisc in September 1992 and released it in November of that year for sale i ...

, and cassette tape releases of the album. One of the cassette formats was packaged for a limited run by BioBox in a small cardboard box, rather than a clear plastic case, in an attempt to distinguish the retail product and augment sales.

Music

Evan Rytlewski of ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'' assessed: "At its core, the album is a revisionist love letter to ’80s

hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...

, built from repurposed trappings of that era— 808s,

disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

breaks,

beatboxing Beatboxing (also, and sometimes, called beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines (usually a Roland TR-808, TR-808), using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice.analogue synthesizers,

Kool Moe Dee Mohandas Dewese (born August 8, 1962), better known by his stage name Kool Moe Dee, is an American rapper, songwriter and actor. Considered one of the forerunners of the new jack swing sound in hip hop, he gained fame in the 1980s as a member of ...

and

Kurtis Blow Kurtis Walker (born August 9, 1959), known professionally by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapping , rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Walker is the first commercially successful rapper and the first to sign with a major rec ...

samples, and scratches. But its true character lies in its tangents and outliers—the leisurely electronic pastiches, tipsy dub tracks, and earnest

ballads A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

that break up all the instant-gratification rap songs."

Critical reception

''Hello Nasty'' received mostly positive reviews upon its release. Caroline Sullivan, writing for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', named it the "Pop CD of the Week" and said it "fills a gap created by the current profusion of serious rock bands like

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...

; elbowing its way up front, nd lettingrip with adolescent vigour." She went on to summarize the record as "the perfect party soundtrack by the perfect party band." '' Select''s John Harris praised the Beastie Boys' lyrics for being as "fantastically off-beam as ever", while at the same time noting that they had "broadened their musical vistas yet further". Although

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and former senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of multiple artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance ...

felt the album's ending was "a little anticlimactic", he also saw ''Hello Nasty'' as a progressive step forward from the group's 1992 LP '' Check Your Head'' and praised the contributions of the group's new recruit, Mix Master Mike: "Hiring DJ Mixmaster Mike turned out to be a masterstroke; he and the Beasties created a sound that strongly recalls the spare electronic funk of the early '80s, but spiked with the samples and post-modern absurdist wit that have become their trademarks." In his review for ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...

'', David Browne highlighted the album's multi-genre sound as its most engaging aspect:

''Hello Nasty'' is a sonic smorgasbord in which the Beasties gorge themselves with reckless abandon. They dabble in lounge-pop kitsch (the loser put-down "Song for the Man"), make like a summit of
Santana Santana may refer to: Transportation * Volkswagen Santana, an automobile * Santana Cycles, manufacturer of tandem bicycles * Santana Motors, a former Spanish automobile manufacturer * Sailboat designs by W. D. Schock Corp ** Santana 20 ** Santan ...
and
Traffic Traffic is the movement of vehicles and pedestrians along land routes. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic laws and informal rules that may have developed over time to facilitate the orderly an ...
(the Latin-flavored "Song for Junior"), and subtly incorporate a drum-and-bass shuffle into the mix ("Flowin' Prose"). The melange makes for a looser, more free-spirited record than their earlier albums; the music invites you in, rather than threatening to shut you out.

Accolades

* denotes an unranked list

Track listing

Personnel

Adapted from the

credits.[ Hello Nasty - Credits *

– producers *Mario Caldato Jr. – producer * Mix Master Mike – DJ (8, 9, 12, 13, 19) *Money Mark, "Money" Mark Nishita – keyboards (4, 14, 20, 21) * Eric Bobo – percussion (3, 8, 14, 21) *Brooke Williams – vocals (4, 18) *Nelson Keane Carse –

trombone The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air c ...

(4) *Paul Vercesi – alto sax (4) *

Biz Markie Marcel Theo Hall (April 8, 1964 – July 16, 2021), known professionally as Biz Markie, was an American rapper, singer, songwriter, DJ, and record producer who gained prominence during hip hop's golden age. He was particularly recognized for ...

– vocals (7, 12, 13) *

Jill Cunniff Jill Cunniff (born August 17, 1966) is an American musician and artist, best known as the lead singer of the band Luscious Jackson. Cunniff was born and raised in New York City and attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School where she studied visua ...

– vocals (14) *Joe Locke –

vibraphone The vibraphone (also called the vibraharp) is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using Percussion mallet, mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone ...

(14) * Steve Slagle –

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

(14) *

– vocals (15) * Duduka Da Fonseca – percussion (15) *Richard Siegler – percussion (15) * Jane Scarpantoni –

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

(15) *Brian Wright –

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

(15) *

– vocals (21) * Pat Shannahan – sample clearance *Steve Revitte – engineering *Suzanne Dyer – engineering *Andy VanDette – mastering *

Howie Weinberg Howie Weinberg is an American audio mastering engineer. Over the course of his career, he has received over 2,257 mastering credits, three TEC Awards, 21 Grammy Awards, two Juno Awards, and one Mercury Prize. Career Weinberg mastered Herbie Ha ...

– mastering * Michael Lavine –

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

* Cey Adams – art direction *Bill McMullen – design

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1998 albums Beastie Boys albums Capitol Records albums Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album Albums produced by Mario Caldato Jr. Grand Royal albums