.

Adam Yauch's Best Musical Moments

Listen to our playlist of the finest Beastie Boys tracks featuring MCA

Adam Yauch performs at the Live Earth concert in London.
Evan Agostini/Getty Images for Virgin Mobile USA
May 4, 2012 3:35 PM ET

For more than 25 years – from the adolescent brilliance of 1986’s Licensed to Ill to last year’s defiantly old-school Hot Sauce Committee Part Two – Adam "MCA" Yauch was the gruff barker in the middle of Beastie Boys' signature give-and-go attack. Yauch, who died this morning at age 47, brought toughness and humanity to every Beasties' album, not to mention killer wit. ("Which came first, the chicken or the egg?/I egged the chicken, and then I ate his leg," he rhymed on 1989's "Egg Man.") Here are 16 of Yauch's finest recorded moments on Spotify.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

prev
Music Main Next

blog comments powered by Disqus
Daily Newsletter

Get the latest RS news in your inbox.

Sign up to receive the Rolling Stone newsletter and special offers from RS and its
marketing partners.

X

We may use your e-mail address to send you the newsletter and offers that may interest you, on behalf of Rolling Stone and its partners. For more information please read our Privacy Policy.

Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

More Song Stories entries »