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Production Credits:

Intergalactic


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First Appearance: Hello Nasty LP, 14 July 1998
Written by: Beastie Boys/Mario Caldato
Performed by: Beastie Boys
Production Notes: Produced by Beastie Boys and Mario Caldato. Engineered by Mario Caldato. Recorded at G-Son Studios (Los Angeles, CA), The Dungeon (New York, NY), The Tree House (New York, NY), Ted Diamond's House of Hits (New York, NY), Soho Music Studios (New York, NY), Dessau Studios (New York, NY), RPM Studios (New York, NY). Second engineers: Steve Revitte and Sue Dyer at RPM Studios, mixed at RPM Studios (New York, NY). Mastered by Howie Weinberg and Andy van Dette at Masterdisk (New York, NY). Intergalactic (Prisoners of Techonology Remix/TMS 1 Remix) remixed by Prisoners of Technology. Additional production and remix for Intergalactic (Fuzzy Logic Remix) by Sam Sever and Jonathan Hoffman for Fuzzy Logic, Inc.

Behind the Beats and Lyrics...

Samples:

  • "Prelude C# Minor" composed by Rachmaninoff, performed by Lex Baxter
  • "Love is Blue" by The Jazz Crusaders - Powerhouse by the Jazz Crusaders
  • "The New Style" by the Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys

References:

  • "Ooh Child" song by the Five Starsteps
  • Hudson River - river that flows through New York state
  • Nile River - river in Egypt
  • Uranus - seventh planet
  • Jazz - Jazz Thompson, guitar tech who tours with the Beastie Boys and BS2000
  • Awol - Amery "Awol" Smith, a Beastie friend credited with playing drums on a few Beastie tracks (also a member of BS2000)
  • "Tough Guy" - Beastie Boy song from 1994's Ill Communication LP
  • Mario C - Mario Caldato, Beastie engineer/producer
  • Moe Dee - Kool Moe Dee, an 80's old-school rapper
  • The Wop - a rhythmic jerking from right to left accompanied by a hitch-hiking movement as if thumbing a lift
  • Flintstone Flop - a dance move invented by Fred Flintstone in a Flintstone's cartoon
  • Tammy D - Tamra Davis, Mike D's wife
  • Mr. Spock - Vulcan from TV's Star Trek

Sample & Reference Breakdown:

  • "On the tough guy style I'm not too keen" - Beastie Boys track "Tough Guy" from 1994's Ill Communication LP
  • "Got an A from Moe Dee for sticking to themes" - Old-school rapper Kool Moe Dee issued rap "report cards", grading other rappers on their style. When grading the Beasties, he gave them mostly C's, but an A for "sticking to themes"
  • "MMMMMM, drop!" sampled from "The New Style" by the Beastie Boys from their 1986 album Licensed to Ill
  • "If you try to knock me you'll get mocked, I'll stir fry you in my wok" - Adam Yauch flaunts his superior rhyming and cooking skills over his fellow MC's
  • "Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock" - A defense tactic used by Star Trek's Mr. Spock, which consisted of pinching the victim between the neck and the shoulder to render them helpless

Commentary:

Beastie Boys

"We were in the space station in orbit of another planet working on the record and a robot flew up through space to the space station singing the chorus [of this song] and beckoned us to climb into his papoose and fly to Earth. We landed in Japan and sang this song together, which was documented and is going to be the video" - Adam Yauch, 1998

"Mike brought [the buzzing vocorder] in. We'd been talking about the vocorder thing for a while, and when we put [Intergalactic] together, it just fell into place" - Adam Horovitz, August 1998

"This song started out in '93. We had this beat off a Bo Diddley record called Another Dimension, and we made this song all space doodoo rhymes. Like about Carl Sagan, Lieutenant Uhura, dilithium crystals, shit like that. And the break was intergalactic planetary planetary intergalactic. It didn't make the cut for Ill Communication 'cause it was just bad stupid and not even good stupid. Well, when we were making songs for Hello Nasty, we had this one hip-hop song we were making with this live spaced out music we played. No one really liked it but me, and I wasn't that crazy about it. Anyways, one night after fucking around with this song I was hanging out with my brother and some friends, and our friend Penelope said, "Whatever happened to that intergalactic thing you made? I always liked that." And like C+C Music Factory, it was a thing that made me go "Hmm." So the next day we made this ending part for the spaced out song with this big beat that I had, and I said the intergalactic thing through Mike's new Vocorder. The ending part was way better than the whole song so we just scrapped it and made the intergalactic thing. And 'cause of Penelope, a lot of help from Boggle, and dreams of being flown around in a robot's papoose, it came out kinda nice" - Adam Horovitz, 1999

"I think [Intergalactic was] the first song they played for me- they played it for me over the phone, and I was like, "What the fuck is that?!?" The Vocoder, the whole digital sound, the beats were pounding, and I was like, This is the new shit." - Mix Master Mike, excerpted from The Skills to Pay the Bills by Alan Light, 2005

Press & Print Media:

"...the randy self-aggrandizement of [Intergalactic] keeps the 22 cuts [of Hello Nasty] from getting stale" - Pulse, August 1998

"America's boho sweethearts ride Afrika Bambaataa electro-hop to another dimension" - Rolling Stone, 1998

"...[a] dash of electro" - excerpted from The Vibe Story of Hip-Hop by Alan Light, 1999

"...the best single since 'Where's It At,' tap the Beasties' nostalgic impulses with a couple of old-school beats and melodies that would send Kurtis Blow into hysterics and every dancefloor b-boy pop-rockin' onto the dance floor" - Creative Loafing, August 29, 1998

"A lot of [the Beasties'] ideas come from buying new toys. They got a new issue Vocoder from Germany, and I remember Ad-Rock fucking around with it. And then, like a week later, I heard "Intergalactic." They made this amazing song from fucking around with this new toy." - Sean Lennon, excerpted from The Skills to Pay the Bills by Alan Light, 2005

 

Released Versions:

Fly Like An Intergalactic Eagle (Beastie Boys Vs Steve Miller Band)
Intergalactic
Intergalactic (A Cappella)
Intergalactic (Beastie Boys Vs Alan Braxe)
Intergalactic (Beastie Boys Vs Keith Mansfield)
Intergalactic (Breaks Mix)
Intergalactic (Colleone / Webb Remix 1 Instrumental)
Intergalactic (Colleone / Webb Remix 1)
Intergalactic (Colleone / Webb Remix 2 Instrumental)
Intergalactic (Colleone / Webb Remix 2)
Intergalactic (DeeJay Punk-Roc Remix)
Intergalactic (DNB Mix)
Intergalactic (Donk Mix)
Intergalactic (Drum & Bass Remix)
Intergalactic (Fuzzy Logic Remix)
Intergalactic (Green Mix)
Intergalactic (Instrumental)
Intergalactic (Live)
Intergalactic (Master Of The Universe Instrumental Mix)
Intergalactic (Master Of The Universe Mix #1)
Intergalactic (Master Of The Universe Mix #2)
Intergalactic (Matthew Dekay Remix)
Intergalactic (Olde Mix)
Intergalactic (Prisoners Of Technology / TMS 1 Re-mix)
Intergalactic (Prisoners Of Technology Remix)
Intergalactic (Prisoners Of Technology Vocal Mix)
Intergalactic (Rayner Instrumental Mix)
Intergalactic (Rayner Mix)
Intergalactic (Scouse Mix)
Intergalactic (Soulwax Mix)
Intergalactic (Strawberry Bath And Jelly Souls Instrumental Version)
Intergalactic (Tom Neville Dub)
Intergalactic (Tom Neville Vocal)
Intergalactic / Body Movin' (Rock It Remix)
Intergalactic Busters (Beastie Boys Vs Ghostbusters Vs Wu-Tang Clan Vs KLF)
Intergalactic Dirty (Beastie Boys Vs Christina Aguilera)
Intergalactic Robots (Beastie Boys Vs Kraftwerk)
Intergalactic Rockers (Beastie Boys Vs Laurel And Hardy)

Live:

Performed in 189 known Concerts.

First known Performance:
10-Jun-1998 : Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Last known Performance:
12-Jun-2009 : Great Stage Park, Manchester, TN, United States

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