Hello Nasty

Work began at G-Son in Los Angeles in 1995 and carried on in New York after Yauch moved to Manhattan in 1996. It was the first album with Mix Master Mike and the last on which the group worked with percussionist Eric Bobo or a co-producer. Mike D said in 1998 that they had spent so long in the studio that they lost touch with what was happening in music. The title reportedly came from a receptionist at the group's publicity firm Nasty Little Man, who answered the phone with the greeting Hello, Nasty. Formats included CD, double LP, MiniDisc and cassette, one limited cassette in a small cardboard box.

There are twenty-two tracks, with guests including Biz Markie, Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto on I Don't Know, Lee Perry on Dr. Lee, PhD, and Jill Cunniff. Pitchfork's Evan Rytlewski described the core as a revisionist love letter to 80s hip-hop, with the real character in the tangents: electronic pastiches, dub tracks and ballads.

Chart and reception

It went to number one in the United States, Britain, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden, selling 681,000 copies in its first week in the United States, and went 3x Platinum there. At the 1999 Grammys it won Best Alternative Music Album, and Intergalactic won Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. The Guardian's Caroline Sullivan made it Pop CD of the Week and called it the perfect party soundtrack by the perfect party band. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called hiring Mix Master Mike a masterstroke, and Entertainment Weekly's David Browne praised its mix of lounge kitsch, Latin flavor and drum and bass.

Not every critic agreed. Jess Harvell, reviewing the 2009 deluxe edition at Pitchfork, scored it 7.0 and said it lacked the energy of almost every other Beastie Boys album. Ad-Rock, in Beastie Boys Book, called it the group's best record. The band also offered MP3 downloads of its live shows from its website at the time of the 1998 tour, and Capitol briefly removed them.