June 26, 2007

MCA Pimps Bad Brains

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It’s only fitting that MCA of the Beastie Boys (Adam Yauch) pumped out the newest and ninth full-length Bad Brains’ punk album, Build a Nation, which hits record stores today. The Beastie Boys first dabbled in punk before riding the rap genre all the way to stardom and, for years, Yauch has claimed that the Bad Brains were a huge influence on his music.

Bad Brains is a band often credited with originating the hardcore sub-genre of punk rock. All four members were African American, and they mixed reggae with punk music. Some say they should have picked one or the other. I say they were, and still are, um…bad ass.

The album is pretty damn good but it’s not breaking any new ground. Much like their previous recordings, there are songs that are lightning fast, as well as slower, dub reggae ones. Lyrics float between themes of Rastafarianism and social commentary. It’s a time capsule for fans of a band that, by mixing reggae and political themes with aggressive and loud music, influenced a huge chunk of what we call alternative music today.

—Gary Moskowitz

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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