10. Beastie BoysLicence To Ill
Like the Sex Pistols everyone hated the Beastie Boys except for kids, which is how it should be for every good rock & roll band. Jewish kids from New York who’d grown up on 70s rock and heavy metal being really obnoxious and vulgar and making it look like fun. They had a really, really strong image that made their fans want to dress in exactly the same way. I can remember walking into school and there would be kids selling stuff they’d filed off of Mercs and VWs; I bought one in the playground! It was quite a big thing and you could walk down the street and see the cars with the badges missing. There were also the bomber jackets with the beer towels sewn into them. I’ve no idea where that came from, but it meant you were a Beastie Boys fan. It wasn’t really hip hop in the Sugar Hill Gang/Grandmaster Flash mould but it made it more palatable for white people and then Public Enemy came along and smashed it out of the park. It was like my generations’ punk, although my mum was too busy bringing up three kids to be worried about the Beastie Boys.
