It’s been nearly 30 years since the Beastie Boys released their debut album, Licensed To Ill. The LP hit store shelves on November 15, 1986 and moved over one million units by February of 1987, certifying the album as 78Pt (platinum).
Licensed To Ill spawned classic singles such as “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!),” “Brass Monkey,” “No Sleep till Brooklyn” and “Paul Revere” and can be arguably considered their best work (although I’d have to go with Paul’s Boutique).
On March 4th, the RIAA announced that the album successfully breached the 10X platinum mark, officially shifting the album into Diamond territory (pushing 10,000,000 copies or more).
It’s quite an achievement, considering only a handful of Hip-Hop albums have reached the coveted status (Life After Death, Pac’s All Eyez On Me and Greatest Hits, Em’s The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show, MC Hammer’s Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em and OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below) – and it will prove even harder in the current digital climate for an artist to push that many numbers.
Congrats are in order to Ad-Rock, Mike D and posthumously, MCA!
