Track Listing

1. Jimmy James
2. Funky Boss
3. Pass the Mic
4. Gratitude
5. Lighten Up
6. Finger Lickin' Good
7. So What'cha Want
8. Biz Vs. The Nuge
9. Time for Livin'
10. Something's Got to Give
11. Blue Nun
12. Stand Together
13. Pow
14. Maestro
15. Groove Holmes
16. Live at P.J.'s
17. Mark on the Bus
18. Professor Booty
19. In 3's
20. Namasté

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6439 in Music
• Released on: 1992-04-21
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Album Description
Digitally remastered for the first time by the band. Features original album plus a bonus disc of b-sides and rarities which has also been remastered. Original artwork has been restored in this 8 panel eco-friendly 2 CD set with fold-out poster/lyric sheet. Originally released in April 1992, "Check Your Head" was a milestone for Beastie Boys on multiple levels and on the strength of now-classic singles and videos 'So What'cha Want', 'Pass The Mic', 'Gratitude' and 'Jimmy James', "Check Your Head" stormed the U.S. Top 10, ultimately returning Beastie Boys to hard-touring, platinum-selling status, and setting the band up for the pop cultural dominance it would achieve in the decade to come.

Amazon.com essential recording
With their third album, the Beasties transformed themselves from smart-ass punks with a hip-hop jones into a playful live funk band with some solid rhymes, assisted by the extraordinary keyboardist Mark Ramos Nishita. A couple of tracks look back to their old school rap roots, and they still deploy goofy samples like nobody's business, but they're mostly making their own grooves (including some instrumentals worthy of being sampled in their own right). Their universalist world-view results in some excellent, off-the-wall fusions--the metalloid bump that forms the funk pulse of "So What'cha Want," Sly Stone's "Time for Livin'" transformed into a hard-rock bomber--but they don't have to prove how clever they are any more, and they're stronger and more humane for it. --Douglas Wolk

Amazon.com

Beastie Boys Photos

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Customer Reviews

One of my favourite CDs
"Check Your Head" is, simply, the Beastie Boys' best album. They have done nothing better (only Paul's Boutique comes close) and I find it doubtful they ever will. Although this is awesome to listen to at any time, I personally prefer putting it in my walkman and listening while I'm walking or on the bus. It just puts you in an irrepressable groove. As the Boys say "Life ain't nothin' but a good groove, a good mix tape to put you in the right mood" and that was their intention with this album, which they undoubtedly succeed at. "Pass the Mic", "So Watcha Want", and "Professor Booty" are all hip-hop perfection. They take the genre to its absolute height. All of the other hip-hop songs are excellent too. The instrumentals are better than on any other of their albums, mostly because they're the most funky. I will always love to turn the gain up on my bass amp and play the riff from "Gratitude". This album is also Money Mark's first, and he makes his presence known, ruling most of the instrumentals. I can not say enough good things about this album.

Hey, Professor, what's another word for pirate treasure?
Well, after you have phenomenal chart success with your first album ("Licensed to Ill") that you will never see again, and you make a cut-and-paste masterpiece with your second album ("Paul's Boutique") that nobody has equaled since, what do you do for the third? Apparently, if you're the Beastie Boys, whatever you want. Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA actually picked up their instruments for this album and created a lot of funk and punk instrumentals, and then added some rap along the way. Of the rap songs, the high points are "So What'cha Want", "The Maestro", and "Professor Booty", and some of the non-rap songs that are really great are "Gratitude", "Funky Boss", and "Time For Livin'". Even parts of the album that would normally be filler are interesting: this is the sound of the Beastie Boys expanding their horizons even further. Second only to "Paul's Boutique" (and possibly "Hello Nasty") in the Beastie catalog.

Get this one for sure.
Since everyone in the entire world is stupid except me, and Paul's Boutique was NOT the commercial blockbuster smash that the Beastie Boys' record company had hoped, the boys went back into the studio and thought, "Well, we gotta try SOMETHING new. Otherwise we'll get dropped again and it'll be over for good." So they started playing their own instrunents, something that hadn't been done in rap EVER (at least I can't think of anything off the top of my head that sounds like this). Yes you get several awesome wonderful fuzzed-out riff rockers like "Finger Lickin' Good" and the two MTV megahits "So Whatcha Want," and "Pass The Mic." HOWEVER, you also get some lazy "dub" and "funk" instrumentals like "Lighten Up." Now I know that these instrumentals offer a nice break between the rockers, but the fact remains that there are simply too many of 'em. I also don't really like the Sly Stone cover. But it's only like two minutes long, so as soon as you get sick of it, it's gone.

Coolest sample on the album: RIGHT THERE at the end of "Finger Lickin' Good" the Beastie Boys rap about something and end it with "stuff," and then Bob Dylan's voice comes out of nowhere and sings "I'm goin' back to New York City I do believe I've had enough" (from "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"). A great moment.