Check Your Head

After the dense sample collage of Paul's Boutique, the Beastie Boys went back to the instruments they had played as teenage punks, with Mike D on drums, MCA on bass and Ad-Rock on guitar. Check Your Head was the sound of the trio becoming a band again.

The cover was shot by their longtime friend Glen E. Friedman, the photographer famous for his skateboarding and punk pictures. Seeing the group return to their own instruments, he photographed them with their instrument cases, and one of those black-and-white street shots became the cover, under the title in big hand-drawn letters.

Check Your Head was released on 21 April 1992 on Capitol and the band's own Grand Royal imprint. The casual, gritty photo marked the start of the Beastie Boys' second life, and the album's mix of rap, punk and funk shaped much of the alternative music of the decade.