If You’ve Never Heard “Paul’s Boutique”, Kill Yourself Now
Paul’s Boutique, which was just reissued on January 29th, has to be one of my favorite albums of all time. Like many fans at the time I was a young and foolish hip-hop head and I was expecting, no hoping for, another License To Ill. What I got from the sophomore efforts of the Beastie Boys was a densely sampled smorgasbord of joints that were miles away from the “frat rap” of only a few years earlier. At first I wasn’t feeling it. I was wrong. Luckily, I eventually learned the error of my ways.
The sound was largely the product of the LA duo the Dust Brothers, who are responsible for many a pop music staple from Beck’s Odelay album to Young MC’s “Bust A Move”. They even produced “Wild Thing” by one hit monster Tone Loc. As was the Dust Brothers’ style at the time, tha album samples over 105 different songs – from Zepplin to Curtis Mayfield to Paul McCartney to BDP. This album was one of the last sample-heavy products to be released before Gilbert O’ Sullivan successfully sued Biz Markie and the rules on sampling changed forever.
It took 10 years for Paul’s Boutique to eventually go double platinum as many folks finally realized they had a classic album on their hands. It has found its way to many best of lists, including VH1’s “Top 100 Albums” and Chris Rock even put it on his list of Top 25 rap albums.
Over the years, I found myself listening to it more and more. It is dense musically – the layers of sounds one on top of each other is a hip-hop fan’s dream. Each track is distinct, yet it maintains a cohesiveness due to its 70’s type theme and the “rolling stone” subject matter. The Beasties definitely took a big step forward on the album, elevating their hilarious-but-juvenile lyrical content while keeping their classic give-and-go style between MCA, Ad Rock and Mike D.
Up until now, this has been a fairly difficult album to find. And even if you did, your copy (like my copy) leaves a little to be desired in terms of sound quality. Now that Paul’s Boutique has been remastered and reissued, its a perfect opportunity to pick up an album that should be in every head’s collection.
Tags: Beastie Boys, Pauls Boutique
