Steve 'Flash' JuonI’ve struggled mightily to find Beastie Boys albums that haven’t already been covered on the site or that I didn’t personally write about before. In that search I’ve gone deeper down the well into promotional albums that were sent out to tastemakers but not considered for general retail release. You know how that works though. Inevitably when you make thousands of copies of something to send out to deejays and radio stations, a few of them are inevitably going to wind up at secondhand stores. “Nasty Bits” is one such release.
This one is subtitled “A Little Nibble From The New Beastie Boys Album Hello Nasty” and befitting the sardine can artwork, it does what it says on the tin. For the life of me I know I’ve written about “Hello Nasty” before, but it seems we’ve never archived it here. Whatever — I’ll give you the short version — I like it. It was an album where the Beastie Boys continued their never-ending trend of reinventing themselves with songs that had a decidedly more industrial and electronic sound. You probably know the album best for the hit single “Intergalactic” but tracks like “Super Disco Breakin'” reflect it too.
The followup single to “Intergalactic” was “Body Movin'” and while it didn’t have the gigantic robots stomping through large metropolitan areas, it was equally memorable for satirizing the look and feel of shows like Batman, Green Hornet and The A-Team. It’s one of only three songs on “Nasty Bits” but rather than giving you the tin can version I’ll put up the amazing music video from the full album.
Annnnnnd…. that’s it. With just a handful of tracks, all of which appeared on “Hello Nasty” to boot, there’s absolutely nothing else to say about “Nasty Bits.” In fact more so than any of the other promotional extended plays they’ve released, this one is COMPLETELY useless if you have the full album. There’s not a single reason to own it. No instrumentals. No radio edits. No bonus tracks. No alternate versions. If you need to own a physical copy of every Beastie Boys release no matter how obscure then seek it out, but 99% of the people reading this don’t need it and shouldn’t buy it. That’s a strange thing to say about something I’m giving an otherwise good score to but it’s the truth.