Consumer Guide Album

The Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two [Capitol, 2011]
More light-hearted than their Gotham-cheering album of 2004, and if you think light-hearted means shallow--especially for a rapper with a tumor threatening his salivary glands at age 42, which was where MCA found himself last July--you've come to the wrong art form. With a push from Nas and a whoosh from Santigold and new life from their chorusing kids, the beats spritz and submarine in signature Beasties style as the rhymes claim contexts high-living and low-life. But when they need to state their business, here come two old reliables: "Like Willis Reed or Elton John/We done been in the game and our game's still on." A-