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.

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Song Stories

“Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li | 2011

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”

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Adam Yauch's Best Musical Moments