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100 Songs That Have Moved Me | Song #005: "Sabotage" (1994)
Title: "Sabotage"
Artist: Beastie Boys
Composers: Beastie Boys
Producers: Beastie Boys, Mario Caldato, Jr.
Release Date: January 28, 1994
Peak Chart Position: #18 (Modern Rock Tracks)
Album: Ill Communication (1994)
Rolling Stone metadata:
Words from the artist:
How this song moves me:
I'm getting ahead of myself in the countdown department (having wanted to work in reverse order of Rolling Stone's original list), but I couldn't wait any longer. Although initially a song that I waffled about including, over the last few weeks, this song has come to represent so much to me - and it basically became overwhelming in the last few hours.
This is one of my favorite Beastie Boys songs; whenever I hear it, I immediately think of that video - I remember watching that video back in the day; it debuted and played in heavy rotation on MTV around the time I started getting into contemporary music. (As this list will probably bear out, I grew up listening to music that was primarily made and popularized twenty years before my own birth, and have been playing 'catch-up' ever since. But, that's another story for another time.) So, already, it has that instant punch of nostalgia - the fact that I can see the video playing in my head by just looking at the song title definitely says something =)
It's not a song I've used as inspiration for any of my work, or even a song I seek out to listen to on a semi-regular basis. The time in my life that it reminds me of wasn't particularly remarkable. No, I decided to include this song because of the fact that it's basically a real-time example of how/why songs become important to me.
I was shocked, and saddened (just like everyone else) when I read the news of Adam Yauch's passing. Though not a hardcore fan of the Beasties, even I realized how important they were to the landscape of late 80s/early 90s music, and how hard Yauch worked on behalf of the Tibetan Freedom movement, a cause he believed in - and one that was incredibly popular when I was in college. The fact that he died so young - barely older than some of the people I've idolized since childhood - hit me as well, another unwelcome reminder of mortality :-/
As I'm wont to do in these situations, I scoured my hidey-holes on the internets to see what was being said in tribute. MetaFilter always has interesting obituary threads, and this one was no different. In fact, it contained an amazing personal story of the poster's adoration of the band and his encounter with Yauch and the rest of the Beasties backstage at a concert.
I've been thinking about that story off and on over the last few weeks, as I've hemmed and hawwed about whether or not to include this song on my list. The poster, holdkris99, was a wonderful storyteller and overall contributor to MeFi; though I mostly lurk these days, several of his comments have stuck with me, for whatever reason. I've also been drawn back to the Yauch story several times since Adam's death.
So it was to my awful surprise when I opened MetaTalk (the meta part of MeFi) this afternoon and found the obituary thread for holdkris99, who had taken his own life over the weekend. It's a long, rambling remembrance from his widow, talking about what sort of man he was, how much MeFi meant to him, and what happened at the end. It was not a fun read by any stretch, but the entire time I read it (jaw dropped in disbelief, right there at my work desk), all I could think about was the determined adolescent from his Beastie Boys story. holdkris99's life was not easy; he pulled himself through a lot of bullshit in his short time on this earth, and he seemed to have the same sort of relationship with music that I do. I could relate to him on that tiny level, but most of all, what I felt was the loss of such a kind, thoughtful, and talented man. His wasn't the first (and undoubtedly won't be the last) suicide of a MeFi member, but it is the one that hit me with this force.
Just as much as it is a tragedy that Adam Yauch lost his battle with cancer, its just as much a heartbreaking loss that this man lost his battle with life. I've never met him, or known him beyond his postings at MeFi, but the fact that the obit thread is nearly 500 comments deep after only a day is testament to the impression he left on everyone on that site. And, because he is so tightly intertwined with the story he shared of meeting his idol way back in the day, this song has taken on new meaning.
I'm tellin' y'all, it's sabotage....
ETA: Well, holy shit. I guess some things really *are* too much to be believed...
Artist: Beastie Boys
Composers: Beastie Boys
Producers: Beastie Boys, Mario Caldato, Jr.
Release Date: January 28, 1994
Peak Chart Position: #18 (Modern Rock Tracks)
Album: Ill Communication (1994)
Rolling Stone metadata:
Rank: #480
Blurb: Adam "MCA" Yauch came up with the killer fuzz-bass riff at Manhattan's Tin Pan Alley studio, but it wasn't until a year later that the song was finished in L.A. With two weeks to go before Ill Communication was completed, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz got all hot and bothered about paparazzi on the mike and came out of the song's breakdown with a scream for the ages. (Source)
Words from the artist:
"'Sabotage' was one of the first songs recorded and the very last one to be finished on Ill Communication. While we were recording at Tin Pan Alley, we would play these like jazzy hippie jams for hours. Some of them came out kind of funky, and a bunch of them remained bad jazzy hippie jams. This guy named Chris ran the place. He was cool, but he never really hung out -- maybe 'cause he was a little bored with the noodling." - Adam Horovitz, 1999
"[Adam] Yauch came in one day with this idea for a song where the fuzz bass keeps playing and we would all do these hits and stops to bring like suspense and drama. As we were recording it, Chris runs in the room and starts freaking out. He's all, 'This is the shit! This shit rocks!' for really feeling it. We didn't know what to do with it, so we called it 'Chris Rock,' and for like a year it was just an instrumental. We knew it should have vocals, so after a couple ideas and things, two weeks before we handed in the record, I went to Mario's house and did the vocals on his 8-track. So Chris, I hope you're happy." - Adam Horovitz, 1999
"Adrock wrote [Sabotage] at the last moment. The album [Ill Communication] was in the bag, but he reached back into the can and pulled a rabbit out of his hat." - Bob Mack, 2000 (Source)
The video for "Sabotage" was nominated for Video of the Year, Best Group Video, Breakthrough Video, Best Direction in a Video, and Viewer's Choice at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. However, it lost all five categories it was nominated in, losing Video of the Year, Best Group Video and Viewer's Choice to Aerosmith's "Cryin'", and Breakthrough Video and Best Direction in a Video to R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts".
During R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe's acceptance speech for the Best Direction award, Beastie Boys member MCA bum-rushed the stage in his "Nathaniel Hornblower" disguise, interrupting Stipe to protest the shutout of "Sabotage" from every category it was nominated in.
At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the "Sabotage" video won best video in the new category of "Best Video (That Should Have Won a Moonman)" (Source)
How this song moves me:
I'm getting ahead of myself in the countdown department (having wanted to work in reverse order of Rolling Stone's original list), but I couldn't wait any longer. Although initially a song that I waffled about including, over the last few weeks, this song has come to represent so much to me - and it basically became overwhelming in the last few hours.
This is one of my favorite Beastie Boys songs; whenever I hear it, I immediately think of that video - I remember watching that video back in the day; it debuted and played in heavy rotation on MTV around the time I started getting into contemporary music. (As this list will probably bear out, I grew up listening to music that was primarily made and popularized twenty years before my own birth, and have been playing 'catch-up' ever since. But, that's another story for another time.) So, already, it has that instant punch of nostalgia - the fact that I can see the video playing in my head by just looking at the song title definitely says something =)
It's not a song I've used as inspiration for any of my work, or even a song I seek out to listen to on a semi-regular basis. The time in my life that it reminds me of wasn't particularly remarkable. No, I decided to include this song because of the fact that it's basically a real-time example of how/why songs become important to me.
I was shocked, and saddened (just like everyone else) when I read the news of Adam Yauch's passing. Though not a hardcore fan of the Beasties, even I realized how important they were to the landscape of late 80s/early 90s music, and how hard Yauch worked on behalf of the Tibetan Freedom movement, a cause he believed in - and one that was incredibly popular when I was in college. The fact that he died so young - barely older than some of the people I've idolized since childhood - hit me as well, another unwelcome reminder of mortality :-/
As I'm wont to do in these situations, I scoured my hidey-holes on the internets to see what was being said in tribute. MetaFilter always has interesting obituary threads, and this one was no different. In fact, it contained an amazing personal story of the poster's adoration of the band and his encounter with Yauch and the rest of the Beasties backstage at a concert.
I've been thinking about that story off and on over the last few weeks, as I've hemmed and hawwed about whether or not to include this song on my list. The poster, holdkris99, was a wonderful storyteller and overall contributor to MeFi; though I mostly lurk these days, several of his comments have stuck with me, for whatever reason. I've also been drawn back to the Yauch story several times since Adam's death.
So it was to my awful surprise when I opened MetaTalk (the meta part of MeFi) this afternoon and found the obituary thread for holdkris99, who had taken his own life over the weekend. It's a long, rambling remembrance from his widow, talking about what sort of man he was, how much MeFi meant to him, and what happened at the end. It was not a fun read by any stretch, but the entire time I read it (jaw dropped in disbelief, right there at my work desk), all I could think about was the determined adolescent from his Beastie Boys story. holdkris99's life was not easy; he pulled himself through a lot of bullshit in his short time on this earth, and he seemed to have the same sort of relationship with music that I do. I could relate to him on that tiny level, but most of all, what I felt was the loss of such a kind, thoughtful, and talented man. His wasn't the first (and undoubtedly won't be the last) suicide of a MeFi member, but it is the one that hit me with this force.
Just as much as it is a tragedy that Adam Yauch lost his battle with cancer, its just as much a heartbreaking loss that this man lost his battle with life. I've never met him, or known him beyond his postings at MeFi, but the fact that the obit thread is nearly 500 comments deep after only a day is testament to the impression he left on everyone on that site. And, because he is so tightly intertwined with the story he shared of meeting his idol way back in the day, this song has taken on new meaning.
I'm tellin' y'all, it's sabotage....
ETA: Well, holy shit. I guess some things really *are* too much to be believed...