“The New Style” by Beastie Boys

"The New Style", sometimes billed as "It's the New Style", came off Licensed to Ill, the Beastie Boys' debut album, as its third single in November 1986. Rick Rubin produced it for Def Jam with the band co-producing, and he's in the writing credits too: the music goes to Ad-Rock and Rubin, the words to Ad-Rock, Mike D, Adam Yauch and Rubin. Steve Ett engineered.

Its afterlife has been long. The Pharcyde sampled it heavily on "Drop" in 1995, with Mike D and Ad-Rock popping up in the video, and that track's producer, J Dilla, went back to it for several cuts on his 2006 album Donuts. The Beasties sampled it themselves on 1998's "Intergalactic", and The Guardian's Stevie Chick, ranking it their 11th-best song, said it "still sounds like the future".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.