Between the Covers:: Big & Rich vs. The Beastie Boys

If you have ever heard of Don Imus, well, you probably think he's a racist . After all, the shock jock is more known for his slurs than his actual body of work. I don't really want to get into it, but when we got his charity album and I scanned the track list, I wasn't really surprised by the names I read. Sure, he has some tried & true, fantastic artists (Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam and Lucinda Williams ), but can you honestly say you didn't expect to see the cover lousy with names like Randy Travis, Big & Rich, and Vince Gill . The biggest surprise was that

Anyway, the record is actually for a great cause - The Imus Ranch hosts children with blood disorders and cancer - so I didn't wanted to smash it down too much. The artists gave Imus some good material for a great reason.

That being said, it made me dust off the Between the Covers section. You might remember a few months ago I talked about e.s.l. covering the Beastie Boys (just an FYI, it wasn't favorable). Well, in retrospect, I'd rather hear those Vancouver ladies play "girls" in one of those Nick and Norah Infinite playlists than deal with the nonsense I'm about to describe.

The Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right To Party
Now, as much as License to Ill spoke for a time and generation, I'm not sure if any album has aged worse when compared to the rest of a great band's career. The record is laced with classics - Paul Revere, Brass Monkey, Hold It Now Hit It, Rhyming & Stealin g - but people continually revert to talking about misogynistic, frat boy anthems like Girls and Fight For Your Right To Party and now a band known for promoting civil rights and opening young, white males to terrific music and broader ambition is forced to account for ideas they wrote decades ago.

If you hear that familiar guitar intro at a party, you smile, and probably turn to whoever you are with and mutter something like, "what idiot put this on." Chances are, that idiot will reveal himself by playing a huge air guitar along with the solo. Chances are that idiot also likes Korn, Harold & Kumar, visors and shit like this:

Big & Rich - Fight For Your Right To Party
Well, as shocking as this might sound, Big & Rich decided to toss their hat in the Beastie Boys cover ring. The same guys who sing about riding a cowboy and have midgets in their videos transform the teenage anthem into a country ditty with clever twists like , "ah mom you're just jealous it's the Big & Rich Boys" and "your mom threw away your best country mag BUSTED".

Needless to say, I'd rather get one of those Sharon Stone ice picks in the ear then ever hear this song again… so enjoy! But if you like country artists and Little Richard, well pick this album up because all the proceeds go to helping sick kids.