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(Capitol/EMI)
An Open Letter to NYC is one of the singles from the Beastie Boys latest album To The 5 Boroughs, their first recording in 6 years, and also the first record they have produced on their own, perhaps showing the skills of musicianship they have built up over the time since they began at Adam Yauch (MCA)’s 17th birthday party.
It is impossible not to mention the occurrence of the two airplanes colliding with the towers of the World Trade Centre in 2001 that has sparked a new life in the city that never sleeps. Being home to the Beastie Boys, and their being an actively community minded band it is no surprise for them to release an album of this nature. In this vein comes An Open Letter to NYC, as they say in the lyrics, ‘I see you’re still strong after all that’s gone on’.
The backing track of the tune is quite dark in nature, with a sense of emergency brought in by a dampened guitar riff, added to by the washed out sound effects behind the kick drum beat. The sounds seem a little more electronic than their last album but the feeling they bring through in no way damages the emotion of the tune.
The B-side has an instrumental version of the main tune as well as an a cappella. The musicianship of the Beastie Boys certainly can’t be sneezed at, with many calling the album, To The 5 Boroughs some of their best work in their most recent releases. With the scratched samples at the end including vocal samples of Nas, RZA and 50 Cent, time will tell what use DJs make of the instrumental backing track.
A second song, MTL reppin’ for the 514*, a slow moving rap track, with a bow sound punctuating the lines is included in this single package. The lyrics speak of gun control and of the US attacking other nations with a line ‘We gotta work together, it’s been too long’. The sort of issues that The Beastie Boys have helped bring to the public mind with the New Yorkers Against Violence Concert after 9/11 raising money towards the aid groups New York Women’s Foundation Disaster Relief and the New York Association for New Americans (NYANA).
