This is a corner of cyber-space dedicated to an incredibly useless project.  In 1998 I decided to embark on a project for my own amusement: to document the references and samples with which I was familiar from Beastie Boys' music and to research what I didn't know.  After an extensive and rather exhaustive amount of effort, these pages were born. What you'll find are the Beastie Boys lyrics laid out with annotated comments explaining popular culture and historical references as well as known samples.  I might point out that the research is hardly authoritative and certainly not comprehensive.  There is lots of room for improvement so I welcome any comments or corrections you may have.  Please send props/flames and science/knowledge to my e-mail.

The lyrics for these pages were taken straight from the texts used on every other Beastie Boys web page out there, basically because I'm too lazy to transcribe them myself. I have taken the liberty of making minor changes where they are blatantly incorrect with what is heard on the recording.  I have also made some modifications to the texts to correct spelling and verse flow.  I also took the liberty of removing some lines that never made it to the recorded version (like appears regularly through-out the printed lyrics for Paul's Boutique). The actual lyrics appear in black text.  Sampled lyrics appear between *stars* (asterisks for those of you in the know). Annotations are this color and italicized.

With the new album coming out in May of 2011, I've tried to take a renewed interest in this website. I've finally completed the annotations for To The 5 Boroughs and have begun experimenting with using inline multimedia from YouTube through the text for various things.  The latter of these is time consuming and will probably take forever for me to complete, especially with a new album's worth of annotations to compose, so don't hold your breath on them... but please keep checking back to see how the site is progressing. I also plan to do a layout over-haul and do away with the framed border to make it more accessible on hand helds.

Finally, you  won't find any advertising banners or corporate plugs.  I don't appreciate them on fan sites I visit and I have no intention of subjecting you to it either.  If you are attempting to drum up exposure for your urban streetwear website or fancy yourself the latest internet entreprenuer who thinks they've discovered some sort of goldmine (both have happened), don't bother e-mailing me - I won't respond.  You also will not find cumbersome graphics, backgrounds, and snappy icons inhibitng your access to the information presented here.  I'm a firm believer in substance versus style.

I did, however, make a decision to move this website to commercial web space beginning in 2004.  This eliminated the requisite banner ads that were the necessary evil of free web hosting gimmicks, however, at a personal cost to myself.  In light of this, I do accept donations.  If you find this website to be worth your while, all I ask is you drop a quarter in the coffee can to help defray some of the web hosting costs.  The DIY/punk in me wants to keep this totally free for the fans, so that you can have access to the information here without banner ads, annoying popups, etc. but at the same time, there is a negligible cost to providing this information. If you worry about how to pay this or that bill, this isn't directed at you.  But if you've got an extra dollar lying around and were entertained for an hour or two by my folly, it'd be greatly appreciated.