Christopher R. Weingarten: Every Day I Take a Wee: The Beastie Boys and the Untimely Death of Suburban Folklore (Single Notes)

Christopher R. Weingarten

Every Day I Take a Wee: The Beastie Boys and the Untimely Death of Subur

Published by Single Notes

Oct 12, 2012 Issue #42 - The Protest Issue By Laura Studarus

As a teenager trapped in a small Florida town, Christopher R. Weingarten fell hard for Beastie Boys’ seminal 1986 album, Licensed To Ill. Blurring the line between a coming-of-age essay (where the fat kid moves to New York and finds redemption as a music critic) and an exploration of Beastie Boys’ influence on moving hip-hop into the public sphere, Every Day I Take a Wee aptly captures the impact of a beloved album on a music lover’s life.

In what perhaps may be the last time a critic explains that his lack of background knowledge is a good thing, Weingarten contends that his puritanical upbringing—where swearing and sex were the subject of playground folklore—left him at an advantage to fully absorb the (then foreign) subject matter and linguistic delivery. Leaning hard on the personal side (the title is derived from a particularly humorous lyric mishearing), the essay tells us nothing the average musicphile doesn’t already know—that it’s fans, not critics, who determine a record’s ultimate worth. However, the way Weingarten builds his case makes for an engaging, worthwhile read.

(www.1000timesyes.com)

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