Whether they like it or not, after a two year break, The Beastie Boys have a new track available on their website.
Fans are excited; this is the first music that's been heard from the Brooklyn band since dealing with some adversity.
Two years ago the Beastie Boys headlined one of the biggest and best music festivals -- Bonnaroo -- but after that, were forced to put everything on hold when member Adam "MCA" Yauch was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his salivary glands. The good news is that Yauch has survived and lucky for Beastie Boys fans, it did not damage his vocal chords.
Even luckier for fans is that the band's latest album, Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2 is scheduled to be released on May 3rd. A track from the album (with a name that could only be a Beastie Boys song) "Make Some Noise" had recently been leaked on the internet. It can be streamed on the band's official blog here.
Leaked music on the internet has become prevalent over the course of the last few years, and like the Beastie Boys, many have tried to embrace it rather than fight it. The process has even spawned an entire series from NPR entitled "First Listen." Bands have been putting songs, or even entire albums, on NPR.org that can be streamed for free, up until the date the actual album is released.
However, just because musicians are practicing this, doesn't necessarily mean they are fond of it. Reading the tone of Mike D's statement on his blogpost tells the story. He said, "This wasn’t really part of the plan, but since this track is out there we wanted to let you hear it here first, or maybe second. Enjoy."
Judging by his tone, the Beastie Boys weren't planning to give everyone a sneak peek, but once the the song hit the internet, there wasn't really much they could do. The only thing they could do at that point was at least offer it themselves and gather some of the search hits for beastieboys.com. Mike D's short statement may indicate how many musicians feel about this practice of releasing music without their permission, and possibly give us some insight into their feelings on free streaming music on the whole.
For now, music fans get to benefit from these technological advancements (issues?) and musicians can do their best to make the most of the new opportunities to promote themselves and their art.