People could be forgiven for thinking the Beastie Boys were a joke when they burst onto the mainstream in 1986 with their debut album, Licensed to Ill, and its bone-headed frat-boy anthems Fight for Your Right (To Party) and No Sleep Till Brooklyn.

It became the best-selling rap album of the 1980s and the first to top the Billboard chart, but the trio were ridiculed as juvenile Jewish boys trying to make it in a black man's game, particularly when they toured the album with a giant inflatable penis as a stage prop.

The follow-up album, Paul's Boutique, was a sample-heavy slab of funk that showed the Beasties at a new level of maturity but it fell way short of the success of their debut and the boys were written off as one-hit wonders.

And then something unexpected happened: the Beastie Boys learned to play their instruments. They then returned with a magnum opus that paid homage to all of the genres that gave birth to hip hop and provided the first example of how well these boys understood the mechanics of reinvention.

Check Your Head was released on vinyl as a double album and over the course of its 20 tracks saw the band veer through not only hip hop but also extended excursions into jazz, funk and even lounge music.

Previous references to such influences had been limited to the odd sample dropped over a looped hip hop break. But with their new-found musical proficiency the Beasties were let loose in a musical playground, layering rubbery bass lines over light-fingered funk beats to create a sound reminiscent of 70s porn film soundtracks clashing with classic Def Jam hip hop.

Fast-forward to 2008 and the Beasties are one of the longest-living hip hop acts and were last year nominated for induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

For those who thought the Beasties were a joke back in the 1980s, who's laughing now?