Here's the thing about the Beastie Boys Book that nobody talks about: it's 571 pages, and somewhere around page 340, Mike D mentions running. Not extensively. Maybe three sentences. But of course I made it into a whole neurotic taxonomy about what Beastie tracks work for running versus what tracks work for standing in your apartment at 2 AM wondering why she stopped returning your calls.
This playlist says it's got "like two songs" from the book, which is the most Beastie Boys energy possible—undersell everything, overdeliver on the chaos. It's actually got seventeen tracks, and fifteen of them are Beastie Boys, which means this is less a "running playlist" and more a graduate seminar in why Check Your Head (1992) and Ill Communication (1994) represent the apex of what happens when three Jewish kids from Brooklyn stop trying to be Run-DMC and just become themselves.
"Jimmy James" opens this thing, and it's the remastered 2009 version, which Dick would tell you is from the Grand Royal reissues before Capitol absorbed everything. That guitar loop—Caldato and the Beasties sampling themselves into oblivion—sets the tempo for the first few tracks. "Stand Together," "Skills To Pay The Bills," "Rhyme The Rhyme Well." This is Check Your Head territory: punk drums, funk bass, rap verses that don't care if you're keeping up. It's 1992 energy. Pre-Lollapalooza going corporate. Pre-everything getting polished.
Then "Electrify" hits, and you're still in that raw Check Your Head zone, but something's building. "So What'Cha Want" is the moment—the Beasties at their most deliberately abrasive. Mario Caldato producing, horns screaming, Ad-Rock's voice pitched up like he's arguing with himself. This is mile two energy. You're not warmed up. You're annoyed. The run feels stupid. The playlist matches that.
Tracks seven through nine ("I Want Some," "Say It," "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament") are deep cuts, and I mean deep. "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament" is an instrumental. Barely two minutes. Most people skip instrumentals on running playlists because they think lyrics motivate you. Wrong. Sometimes you need the music to shut up and let you think. Or not think. It never works either way.
Then "Sabotage" arrives at track ten, and okay, obviously. This is the Wall Breaker. This is the track that justifies the whole Beastie Boys experiment. It's Ill Communication (1994), recorded at G-Son Studios in Atwater Village, and the entire thing is built on a looped bass line that sounds like it's chasing you. Which is the point. You're at mile four or five, wherever your wall lives, and Mike D is screaming "I CAN'T STAND IT, I KNOW YOU PLANNED IT," and suddenly you're not running away from your thoughts anymore—you're running straight into them.
"Sure Shot" follows immediately, and this is the genius of whoever sequenced this: "Sabotage" kicks your teeth in, and then "Sure Shot" shows up with that jazz flute sample and Adrock's "You know we're all about makin' cash money" and you remember the Beasties were always smarter than they pretended to be. They knew exactly what they were doing.
The back half settles into deeper Check Your Head and Hello Nasty territory. "The Maestro," "Tough Guy," "Futterman's Rule" (another instrumental—two minutes of anxiety disguised as a bassline). "An Open Letter To NYC" is from To the 5 Boroughs (2004), which most people dismiss because it came out after 9/11 and felt too earnest for a band that built its career on not being earnest. But on a run? When you're tired and your brain is doing that thing where it cycles through every regret you've cataloged since high school? That sincerity hits different.
"I Don't Know" features Miho Hatori from Cibo Matto, which is the most Grand Royal thing possible—Beastie Boys putting their friends on tracks because they could. Then the playlist ends with Luscious Jackson's "Naked Eye," which isn't Beastie Boys but might as well be. Same label, same scene, same era when Brooklyn meant DIY shows at the Knitting Factory, not artisanal donuts in Williamsburg.
Top 5 Beastie Boys tracks that prove they were always better musicians than rappers: 1) "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament"—two minutes, no words, all tension. 2) "Futterman's Rule"—a bassline that soundtracks every bad decision you've ever made at 3 AM. 3) "Sabotage"—because sometimes punk drumming is the only language your legs understand. 4) "So What'Cha Want"—abrasive on purpose, which is how you know it's honest. 5) "Jimmy James"—opens the album, opens this playlist, reminds you the Beasties always knew how to make an entrance.
What came first: the book or the playlist? The run or the excuse to think about why Check Your Head still sounds urgent thirty years later? It doesn't matter. You put on seventeen Beastie Boys tracks and run until your thoughts get quiet or until Luscious Jackson shows up to remind you nobody runs alone—we're all just chasing something we lost somewhere around 1994.
