Today the Internet reposts its favorite Beastie Boys videos as tribute to Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA, passed away too young at 47. The group notified fans on their official email list about his cancer a few years back, when it arose during the original Hot Sauce Committee recording sessions. I thought it had gone into remission months later. I was unaware of the unfortunate status change.

My vote for tribute is the first song that convinced me they had any intent of becoming Serious Artists instead of languishing as party-chasing musical pranksters. Licensed to Ill seemed at the time like novelty rock. I never “got” Paul’s Boutique, though I can understand why it has its fans. To me, Check Your Head seemed like a stronger leap forward, particularly the first single, “Pass the Mic”, though our local corporate alt-rock station prefers endless revisits to “Sabotage” and “So Whatcha Want”. It’s a rarity of sorts in that MCA leads off for once instead of batting cleanup.

One last pass of the mic, then. Note the dominoes at the end for unintended, retroactive gravitas.

To be honest, the first apropos tribute that sprang to mind was “Bodhisattva Vow”, the closest he ever came to a solo performance (as far as I’ve experienced, anyway). My beliefs aren’t Buddhist by any stretch, but I was intrigued by the passion that drove him to compose such a complex expression of what drove him. Sadly, the only linkable upload I could locate was a live version with muddled sound. My own copy of Ill Communication is a dub cassette that does it little justice.