In the late '90s, the Beastie Boys took yuletide gift-giving to a new level by putting together a limited-edition album of new music for hundreds of their best pals. Only a few hundred copies of ‘Country Mike’s Greatest Hits’ were made and sent out with a Christmas card from 'Country Mike and The Boys'. Because it was never officially released and has only been obliquely referred to by the Beasties in public, it's difficult to determine exactly when the album was issued, but according to the Beastiemania fan site, a test pressing was first made in 1999, and it was sent out at Christmas 2000. What we do know is that it wasn't really a Beasties record at all, at least in terms of genre; instead, they adopted a tongue-in-cheek Nashville sound for the 13-song set, which they dubbed 'Country Mike's Greatest Hits'. The members of the group had (seemingly sarcastically) floated the idea of making a Christmas album a handful of times in the late '90s, but no one had any reason to believe they were serious — and when a pair of tracks from the Country Mike's sessions popped up on the 1999 'Sounds of Science' Beasties compilation, there wasn't any reason to think they were anything other than goofball unreleased cuts tossed in to add something extra to the mix. In fact, the '...Science' booklet chalked them up to an injury to Mike D earlier in the decade, as expanded in the liner notes. "At some point after 'Ill Communication' came out, Mike got hit in the head by a large foreign object and lost all of his memory. As it started coming back he believed that he was a country singer named Country Mike. The psychologists told us that if we didn’t play along with Mike’s fantasy, he could be in grave danger. Finally he came back to his senses." Eventually, copies of 'Country Mike's Greatest Hits' started circulating on the underground market, where original vinyl pressings of the record still fetch commanding sums. As it's not the usual style of music for the Beasties it might not appeal to all of their fans, but it's a light-hearted distraction put together by them as a side-project with laudable intentions, and so deserves a hearing.
Track listing
01 Sloppy Drunks
02 Railroad Blues
03 We Can Do This
04 Country Delight
05 Don’t Let The Air Out My Tires
06 How Do You Mend An Achin’ Heart
07 One Song A Night
08 Country Christmas
09 Kenny Jones (Country Knows Best)
10 Country Mike’s Theme
11 On Your Way Up Again (The Fowl Song)
12 We Can Do This (Live)
13 The Half-Wit
Suggested by 'The Greatest Album's You'll Never Hear' by Bruno MacDonald
You may have seen some back and forth in the comments section about the sound quality of this album. Unfortunately the only copy that I could find online was a mono rip which was posted on Youtube, and which was not the best quality sound-wise. Every other post seems to have been taken from that original rip, and so I'm afraid that this is the best you are going to get until someone posts a stereo copy online. Although I was advised to delete this post I've decided to leave it up, and it's entirely up to you whether you download this copy or view it on Youtube - the sound quality will be identical in either case so it's your choice.
