Released only a few short years after 'Check Your Head' one can tell that the Beasties wanted to continue with the new found creativity of their new 'live funk band' phase.
Overall 'Ill Communication' seems much tighter as an album. There are not tracks that seem to be all over-place or the odd track that is out in left-field (weird instrumentals that sound like tv theme songs being an example). Plus the couple of hardcore punk songs on here are really good too.
Spearheading the goodness of 'Ill Communication' is their mega-single 'Sabotage'. This thing was tremendously popular back in the day! It still rocks even now and shows that if the Beasties really wanted to, they could have easily stopped rapping and become a rock band instead.
However to their credit the B-boys sticked to rapping and avoided the pitfall of having too many fingers stuck in too many genres and confusing fans (Hard Harry412 is looking directly at Kid Rock with that last comment!)
There is some other good stuff on this album. The B-boys certainly seemed to be experimenting with distorted mics more on this jam. I like it since it makes them sound more 'grungey' and Alt-rockish!
There is just one downer to 'Ill Communication' and that is the lack of good singles! Yes 'Sabotage' is a beast, but after that their offerings are pretty weak. 'Sure Shoot', meh, just not that good as a single and the fact that it did in real life fizzle out seems to confirm my opinions.
'Ill Communication' will always be over-shadowed in my mind by 'Check Your Head' because 'Head' had two monster singles in 'Pass the Mic' and 'So Whatcha' Want', however that doesn't mean that one can't still enjoy listening to 'Ill Communication' and enjoying it for what it is!
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