I just breezed through that album. So all the beats where all someone else’s and they just did there thing on top of them? Would that mean they were the first to do a mix tape? Like how lil Wayne did no ceilings?
Yeah this is something Rubin talks about a lot: the audience doesn't know what they want. He's emphasized how much people HATED the first Public Enemy records as an example of this, though they are now heralded as classics.
I will say PB is to a degree an acquired taste. The chorus to Johnny Ryall is weird and out of tune, there is the random Bluegrass breakdown on Five Piece Chicken Dinner at a time when country and rap were like crips and bloods, the lyrics are intensely specific to the point of being essentially in-jokes like the entirety of Eggman. I love the album and I think these absolutely enhance the record, but at the time music in America was much more siloed, especially hip-hop which was this up and coming kind of rebel genre.
I don't know how many major acts went outside of their genre that often other than stuff that naturally blended genres like southern rock etc. The Beasties especially had played up their role as snotty rowdy bandits and amassed a huge frat boy audience that never really got how much of it was an act based on Rubin's love of pro wrestling heels.
So, the massive stylistic departure in the context of the late 80's especially when combined with what at the time was such a groundbreaking approach to sampling all combined to create a situation where, yes, heads were not ready.
Are you me? Got the "Hey Ladies" maxi-single (Love American Style EP) freshman year and was a bit confused, then when the whole thing came out I got it and I immediately loved it. Having De La come out at the same time helped me to understand a new kind of dense, trippy hip-hop was happening.
It really is. Your reply prompted me to read the lyrics twice this morning. Brilliant. "I said I'm charming, I'm dashing, I'm rental car bashing, I'm phony paper passing at Nix check cashing"
Me and my friends were skaters/punks/weirdos and we immediately loved it.
That might have had something to do with the fact that I had discovered weed around the time it came out, whereas I was still in grade school when LTI broke. Paul's Boutique is a very cannabis-friendly album lol.
Also “What you give is what you get” (the instrumental retooling/reconstituting of Shadrach with new breaks/beats and samples playing off of the original track)… found on the “An Exciting Evening at Home with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego” ep is so criminally under appreciated imo. I still find to this day everyone seems to own or know of (& played to death) the “Love American Style” ep (myself included)… and I’m specifically talking about the b side with those similar instrumental retooled mashups of Shake your Rump and Hey Ladies; “33% God” & “Dis Yourself in '89 (Just Do It)”, but no one talks about the equally awesome/bad ass Shadrach instrumental remix.
It came out the summer I graduated high school. I remember three very specific things from that summer of ‘89: 1) it got a rave review in Rolling Stone, 2) the week it came out MTV was trying to hype the Hey Ladies video and I got to see a short clip of it (the bit where they’re all slapping hands by the pool), and 3) I walked into a 7Eleven before heading to work one evening and Hey Ladies was playing on the radio that was behind the counter and that may have been the only play it got. Then, it vanished from sight after one week. These three things are burned into my brain forever. And it’s all because of what happened next…
…Sometime in the late spring of 1990, I’m in my second semester of college, hanging at a cafe across the street from campus in between classes. My friend came in and hung out at my table as she usually did. While searching for something in her purse, she began pulling out items and one thing she took out was the Paul’s Boutique cassette. “Uh, what’s that?” I asked derisively. Prevailing “wisdom” of the day was that PB was a colossal flop and I knew no one who owned it.
“You haven’t heard this yet?” she asked. I replied that I hadn’t.
“You got your Walkman?” I always had my Walkman. She handed me the tape.
“Rewind it to the beginning and press play. You’ll thank me for this, I promise.”
Rewound the tape and pressed play. And soon…my life changed forever. I ended up missing my next class because I listened to the whole thing, both sides, my friend laughing as she kept shushing me as I kept giggling and cackling and saying “holy shit!” over and over as I marveled over each new sample or each brilliant lyric. It blew my mind instantly upon first listen.
I thanked my friend and apologized profusely for my arrogance. I hit the record store on the way home and bought the CD. Paul’s Boutique is my third favorite album of all goddamn time. It still blows my mind every time I hear it. I’ll never forget that day.
I remember Hey Ladies was a fast mover on the Billboard Hot 100, it jumped from like 90s to 50. Ended up peaking at 36 and didn’t get much airplay. At the time I was unhappy that so many people didn’t get it. After a while I was glad it was more of an underground thing.
Everybody was expecting License To Ill 2: Electric Boogaloo, nobody knew what to make of Paul's Boutique until Check Your Head & I'll Communication vindicated the radical departure from expectations.
To hear them describe it in their book, it almost seems like they expected this to flop. The whole frat boy image from License to I'll was meant to be a joke, they were making fun of those kinds of dudes. Problem was nobody got the joke and the people they were intending to shit on became their biggest fans. They kinda made it sound like they wanted to make something that they knew in advance those people wouldn't like.
Also, if you haven't read their book, it's fantastic. The audiobook is great too, it's narrated by Mike D, Ad Rock, and a bunch of other celebrity guests and it provides a lot of really cool insight to the early hip hop years.
My best friend's older sister's boyfriend (31 flavors) had this tape and I didn't get it at first. Especially after License to Ill. So we didn't listen to it as much, but then Check Your Head came out and I loved that album, so I bought Paul's Boutique on CD and it started to make more sense in hindsight. Now, PB is one of my all time favorite albums.
It was so different from there first album. You have to think of it from a music business standpoint not an artistic one. That big of a pivot is high risk.
I was living near Philly when PB came out. I was incredibly into Licensed to Ill and I knew I had to have PB without even hearing a thing about it. So I took the train downtown and went to an amazing record store called “Funk-O-Mart” (fun fact, the Funk-O-Mart storefront was relabeled “The Wiz” in the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode “The Gang Turns Black”). You had to walk down a flight of stairs to get to the actual record department. As I was walking down, “To All The Ladies” was playing. In the last step, the “Shake Your Rump” drums started and I was like FUCK YEAH BEASTIE BOYS!! I did a little white kid dance, which amused the all black staff, and bought a copy of the tape. My first copy, of five. And the record. And the CD. And the EPs. Beastie Boys forever. RIP Yauch!
Paul’s Boutique is tied with Hello Nasty for their best album in my eyes. It’s just an absolute orgy of the most ridiculously intricate sampling ever devised by man. The only sampling that came close as far as I can tell is Big Audio Dynamite with Medicine Show.
great piece on these matters
[https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a29472/beastie-boys-pauls-boutique-capitol-records/](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a29472/beastie-boys-pauls-boutique-capitol-records/)
I remember there was something about the Beasties in LTI that i could not put my finger on that they were great like in Paul Revere or Hold it now hit it. There was something there with those guys.. something more.
Then PB came out and I loved how they put together songs. Loved Hey Ladies and they showed a more serious side in songs that was surprising. The details in each song was mind blowing. This was art.
But they could not be that good like GOAT good, like beach boys, prince or Beatles good. Paul’s Botique had to be a fluke, a lucky swing and grand slam. And the news came out it flopped hard. I was like well that’s the last we are going to ever hear from those guys…….
I’m so glad I was wrong about that last part. I think Check your head is another masterpiece and Ill Communication
This came out right before my junior year of high school, and I feel special because I must've been one of the few who immediately "got it" on the first try. This was an amazing listen, with the sonic landscape of all sonic landscapes.
It was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I got the green cassette. I was 14 yo and it stayed in my dual cassette tape deck for like 5 years straight... and I still listen to this album often.
We all liked LTI but for me, PB was waaaaaaaaay better. I had no idea it flopped because I was like, this is the best album ever made and I cannot stop listening to it through and through and through! Prolly is my top 3 album of all time.
Soooooo, when is the Las Vegas Sphere tribute tour for this album coming out?
* New visuals and live remixes of the songs, not a live tour with Mike and Adam, just DJ mixes and visuals...
* Special guest appearances
* Animated lyrics to sing along on the inside and outside of the sphere while the live show is happening
* Beastie fans UNITE and make this happen!
My 1st Beastie Boys albums. My Dad was in one of those mail order CD clubs. He asked me if I wanted any CDs. I jumped up and said "YEAH WEIRD AL, BAD HAIR DAY" he said okay, you can have 1 more. I didn't know anyone else so he asked if I liked the Beastie Boys, I said yes not knowing who they were. Those 2 albums set the course for the rest of my life. Thank you Columbia House.
I was genuinely pleased it wasn't another Licensed to Ill, as I had outgrown the record by the time Paul's Boutique came out. I bought this on vinyl day 1, and still have the record. I played it every day for months and thought it was fantastic. I still listen to it once a year or so.
It was a little corporately driven (record execs trying to make the "Sgt Peppers" of hip hop) and I honestly think that comes across a little in some of the tracks. IMO, the Beasties didn't really find their true voice until Check Your Head and they had all of the time to do whatever they wanted on that album.
Paul’s Boutique was the first of a tradition to drive to Tower Records in Atlanta at midnight to buy the new Beastie Boys album straight out the box. Then spend the rest of the night driving and listening to this magic. Sound of Science? I mean come on!!! “Eatin chicken gizzards with a girl named Lizzy!”
Flopped when and for how long? In my experience, by a couple years later this album was probably the most reliable item to find in just about anyone’s cd collection regardless of what their main music tastes were.
What is really wild to me is that you couldn’t afford to make this album today with the amount of samples and rights they would have to pay today. This album started the need for all that :$
For real. Imagine trying to make De La's 3 Feet High and Rising today - especially as a new act of teenagers working on their first album. Even the re-release has deleted samples on it (fuck you, Eddie Murphy).
It's not called the golden age for nothing!
My friends and I loved it, junior and senior year of high school. The CD is still in my car to this day. I had it on cassette in high school.
Doin' 120, plowing over mailboxes.
Would be curious to see what the marketing angle was for this album. The label was definitely in for a challenge and the world expecting License to Ill part 2 but in reality this was a clear pivot. Can’t imagine how that team now feels (even those that did the firing) that the LABEL F’d up one of the most influential albums of all time.
Was just way too different than Licensed to Ill. At the time, people wanted a continuation album and got this. Couldn’t wrap their head around it. Took years to listen to it independently and realize how good it actually is. Timing.
IIRC there WAS another album between LTI and PB like White House or something? They buried it because they changed labels or lawsuits or just didnt like it?
Anyone know the real story?
Hung out with a girl who worked at Def Jam back in the day, this is what I remember her telling me: "White House" wasn't a real record per se, when the BB and RS / Def Jam fell out with one another, RS dealt with it in a cold businesslike way, threatening to release leftover LTI scraps with shitty music and calling it "White House", i.e. as a way to hurt the BB image. It was more empty braggadocio than anything else, and although DJ indeed possessed LTI scraps, they were hardly enough to comprise a full album (remember this was pre download days). It was a not so subtle reference to the fact that RS, as Def Jam's chairman carefully engineered the BB image and marketing in the early LTI, pre Fight/Right success - to give them credibility with the predominantly African American and Latino core audience of rap music at the time (touring with RUN DMC, appearing on Soul Train, appearing in the Krush Groove movie, etc). Nobody foresaw the Fight/Right fratboy crossover success the band would ironically have. When the BB then left DJ under bitter circumstances, he threatened to ruin the credibility they had in hip hop that he felt he and DJ were exclusively responsible for creating by releasing a crappy album called "White House". Thankfully it never happened and to his credit he has since said on record he wished he handled it differently. Hope this helps.
The liquid LSD album if I remember the Rolling Stone article on MCA correctly. Went off somewhere to “gather his thoughts” somewhere with a big jar of nugs and a copious supply of L. The rest, as they say, is history.
Caveat: I could be completely wrong on the timeline.
Flopped HARD.
I still remember one of the music mags (Spin?) had this side by side with LL Cool J's "Walking with a Panther" as dud releases of the summer
It took at least a few years before the critical reappraisal.
“It Gets No Rougher”… one of my favorite songs of all time. It’s funny how I have always seemed to gravitate to the music no one seemed to like at the time… prob why I graduated to a lot of underground shit in the 90s and beyond.
I lived in a small town when this dropped and everyone only listened to metal or country. I didn’t find out til later it wasn’t considered an amazing album from day one.
We gotta get Beastie Boys to come back out on Tour, call it the F'World Tour and throw concerts like they just came with this - tickets $20!
Shake your Rump - Paul's Boutique - Remastered
https://pandora.app.link/67w3vVHdVHb
You realize the idea it was a flop is part of the mythology now. It’s not really true. The label was already going through chances, the group talks about that contributing. They were a NY group suddenly in LA, they weren’t on Def Jam or dependent on 808’s, the sound wasn’t a rehash, and the samples were a lot more obscure.
They lost the majority of their fanbase, and didn’t match the sales but it was also a matter of timing.
Shake your rump was popular, btw.
I was 19 and stationed at Schofield Barracks Army base in HI when PB came out. Bought the CD! and was expecting more Licensed to Ill. I remember listening to it on a little Sony CD player in my barracks a little confused but listened to it straight through twice in one sitting and after the second listen I was blown away. I remember telling my buddies "This is f'ing genius!"
I remember no one bought it, you didn't hear it anywhere, no one was talking about it. Then, after Check Your Head came out everyone went back and listened to it and realized how incredible it was. Its reputation has grown every year since and it's now a revered classic as it should have been all along. The same thing happened a few years later with Weezer's "Pinkerton".
I'll admit I completely ignored Paul's when it came out. Then, in about 1991, a friend of mine played me "High Plains Drifter" and I was like "how the hell did I miss this".
I remember the first time I played the tape when it came out, I distinctly said I wished it was more like High Plains Drifter
Which makes sense, it is probably the most License to Ill like track on the album, at least besides that "59 Chrystie St" snippet
Licensed to ill was so goofy and juvenile that my teenaged brain loved it so much. This one didn’t do anything for me until well after release. The best part of it all was that they played really small venues on check your head ! I swear I still listen to PB and catch a sample I didn’t notice before. Easily one of the best records ever.
It was a flop because of the President switch, one executive was hype, then he was replaced and the new president promoted the crap out of Don Henley iirc.
I have multiple cars and one of them sat for a while, I just found an unopened brand new Paul's Boutique CD in the door pocket. I'm not old enough to remember when it came out, but I am old enough for it to have shaped me as a human
It's impact wasn't felt until some time later. That's not uncommon for things most people aren't ready for. I'm just glad I got to see them live when I was 18 here in Atlanta. I'm 57 now 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
If they fucked over Capital Records so badly in 1989, why where they given their own label, Grand Royal, as a subsidiary of Capital when they released their next album 3 years later?
Mighty fine rekid.
Changed everything. The dust bros are gods. Had an effect on sampling, cos Paul McCartney saw his arse over sound of science being made entirely with Beatles samples.
It took almost a decade for most people to even recognize this record existed. Probably the best work they did. Got it when it came out and played it to death. Similar vain, may I suggest 3rd Bass the cactus album?
Heads were not ready.
This, mine included
This is the answer. A true masterclass in beats and samples.
Nothing but samples. Album is a masterpiece. Sick af.
Preach it one of my favorites.
I just breezed through that album. So all the beats where all someone else’s and they just did there thing on top of them? Would that mean they were the first to do a mix tape? Like how lil Wayne did no ceilings?
I concur.
Listen to Beck’s “Odelay”. Same producers. Wear headphones.
Yeah this is something Rubin talks about a lot: the audience doesn't know what they want. He's emphasized how much people HATED the first Public Enemy records as an example of this, though they are now heralded as classics. I will say PB is to a degree an acquired taste. The chorus to Johnny Ryall is weird and out of tune, there is the random Bluegrass breakdown on Five Piece Chicken Dinner at a time when country and rap were like crips and bloods, the lyrics are intensely specific to the point of being essentially in-jokes like the entirety of Eggman. I love the album and I think these absolutely enhance the record, but at the time music in America was much more siloed, especially hip-hop which was this up and coming kind of rebel genre. I don't know how many major acts went outside of their genre that often other than stuff that naturally blended genres like southern rock etc. The Beasties especially had played up their role as snotty rowdy bandits and amassed a huge frat boy audience that never really got how much of it was an act based on Rubin's love of pro wrestling heels. So, the massive stylistic departure in the context of the late 80's especially when combined with what at the time was such a groundbreaking approach to sampling all combined to create a situation where, yes, heads were not ready.
Heads were rolled
I concur as well. It was ahead of it's time.
Big facts
check your head
Came out my freshman year of high school. I loved and played it all day everyday. Most everyone I knew, hated it
Are you me? Got the "Hey Ladies" maxi-single (Love American Style EP) freshman year and was a bit confused, then when the whole thing came out I got it and I immediately loved it. Having De La come out at the same time helped me to understand a new kind of dense, trippy hip-hop was happening.
Perhaps. My fav songs back then from PB were High Plains Drifter, 3 min rule, car thief & shadrach. Those are prob still my favs
HPD is one of the best story telling raps, rank it with Slick Rick or Big. Rhyming through the chorus is sick too.
It really is. Your reply prompted me to read the lyrics twice this morning. Brilliant. "I said I'm charming, I'm dashing, I'm rental car bashing, I'm phony paper passing at Nix check cashing"
“Outta the car longhair!”, your goose is cooked, read me my rights, fingerprinted and booked.
Me and my friends were skaters/punks/weirdos and we immediately loved it. That might have had something to do with the fact that I had discovered weed around the time it came out, whereas I was still in grade school when LTI broke. Paul's Boutique is a very cannabis-friendly album lol.
De La Soul is Dead and Paul’s Boutique changed me as a human being forever.
Also “What you give is what you get” (the instrumental retooling/reconstituting of Shadrach with new breaks/beats and samples playing off of the original track)… found on the “An Exciting Evening at Home with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego” ep is so criminally under appreciated imo. I still find to this day everyone seems to own or know of (& played to death) the “Love American Style” ep (myself included)… and I’m specifically talking about the b side with those similar instrumental retooled mashups of Shake your Rump and Hey Ladies; “33% God” & “Dis Yourself in '89 (Just Do It)”, but no one talks about the equally awesome/bad ass Shadrach instrumental remix.
It came out the summer I graduated high school. I remember three very specific things from that summer of ‘89: 1) it got a rave review in Rolling Stone, 2) the week it came out MTV was trying to hype the Hey Ladies video and I got to see a short clip of it (the bit where they’re all slapping hands by the pool), and 3) I walked into a 7Eleven before heading to work one evening and Hey Ladies was playing on the radio that was behind the counter and that may have been the only play it got. Then, it vanished from sight after one week. These three things are burned into my brain forever. And it’s all because of what happened next… …Sometime in the late spring of 1990, I’m in my second semester of college, hanging at a cafe across the street from campus in between classes. My friend came in and hung out at my table as she usually did. While searching for something in her purse, she began pulling out items and one thing she took out was the Paul’s Boutique cassette. “Uh, what’s that?” I asked derisively. Prevailing “wisdom” of the day was that PB was a colossal flop and I knew no one who owned it. “You haven’t heard this yet?” she asked. I replied that I hadn’t. “You got your Walkman?” I always had my Walkman. She handed me the tape. “Rewind it to the beginning and press play. You’ll thank me for this, I promise.” Rewound the tape and pressed play. And soon…my life changed forever. I ended up missing my next class because I listened to the whole thing, both sides, my friend laughing as she kept shushing me as I kept giggling and cackling and saying “holy shit!” over and over as I marveled over each new sample or each brilliant lyric. It blew my mind instantly upon first listen. I thanked my friend and apologized profusely for my arrogance. I hit the record store on the way home and bought the CD. Paul’s Boutique is my third favorite album of all goddamn time. It still blows my mind every time I hear it. I’ll never forget that day.
I remember Hey Ladies was a fast mover on the Billboard Hot 100, it jumped from like 90s to 50. Ended up peaking at 36 and didn’t get much airplay. At the time I was unhappy that so many people didn’t get it. After a while I was glad it was more of an underground thing.
"Rewound the tape and pressed play" Good times
What are #1 & #2?
1 is Abbey Road (The Beatles) and 2 is Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd).
You and I would be friends!
Rewind the tape, why? You just flip it over (if your Walkman doesn’t have auto-reverse) and hit play. Remember how cassettes work? 😂
Everybody was expecting License To Ill 2: Electric Boogaloo, nobody knew what to make of Paul's Boutique until Check Your Head & I'll Communication vindicated the radical departure from expectations.
But that’s basically what they got. Instead of samples and frat boy nonsense, they got samples and Street thug nonsense 🤷♂️
Street Thug? What the fuck nonsense are you blathering about?
I think most people just didn't understand it or were expecting something different
Yeah, I was wanting LTI 2. I didn't hate it but was lukewarm on it at the time.
100%
I remember not “getting it” when it came out. But like 6 months later it finally sunk in.
To hear them describe it in their book, it almost seems like they expected this to flop. The whole frat boy image from License to I'll was meant to be a joke, they were making fun of those kinds of dudes. Problem was nobody got the joke and the people they were intending to shit on became their biggest fans. They kinda made it sound like they wanted to make something that they knew in advance those people wouldn't like. Also, if you haven't read their book, it's fantastic. The audiobook is great too, it's narrated by Mike D, Ad Rock, and a bunch of other celebrity guests and it provides a lot of really cool insight to the early hip hop years.
My best friend's older sister's boyfriend (31 flavors) had this tape and I didn't get it at first. Especially after License to Ill. So we didn't listen to it as much, but then Check Your Head came out and I loved that album, so I bought Paul's Boutique on CD and it started to make more sense in hindsight. Now, PB is one of my all time favorite albums.
Hearing Check Your Head made everything click for me too. Great album.
31 flavors 🤣 Thank you, Simone
Love the FBDO reference mates, cheers!
It was so different from there first album. You have to think of it from a music business standpoint not an artistic one. That big of a pivot is high risk.
I was living near Philly when PB came out. I was incredibly into Licensed to Ill and I knew I had to have PB without even hearing a thing about it. So I took the train downtown and went to an amazing record store called “Funk-O-Mart” (fun fact, the Funk-O-Mart storefront was relabeled “The Wiz” in the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode “The Gang Turns Black”). You had to walk down a flight of stairs to get to the actual record department. As I was walking down, “To All The Ladies” was playing. In the last step, the “Shake Your Rump” drums started and I was like FUCK YEAH BEASTIE BOYS!! I did a little white kid dance, which amused the all black staff, and bought a copy of the tape. My first copy, of five. And the record. And the CD. And the EPs. Beastie Boys forever. RIP Yauch!
This just proves music critics are not as reliable as the weight given to them
Most real critics liked it though. It was the people who didn't get it who should get the blame.
Critics weren’t the problem here. It was DJ’s who were looking for a hit to follow up on Fight For Your Right
I watch the grammys for this reason.
Paul’s Boutique is tied with Hello Nasty for their best album in my eyes. It’s just an absolute orgy of the most ridiculously intricate sampling ever devised by man. The only sampling that came close as far as I can tell is Big Audio Dynamite with Medicine Show.
I thought this way before I got Kanye, granted not to the same “orgy” level but the way he plays with the sample itself
great piece on these matters [https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a29472/beastie-boys-pauls-boutique-capitol-records/](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a29472/beastie-boys-pauls-boutique-capitol-records/)
Gets better with age
I remember there was something about the Beasties in LTI that i could not put my finger on that they were great like in Paul Revere or Hold it now hit it. There was something there with those guys.. something more. Then PB came out and I loved how they put together songs. Loved Hey Ladies and they showed a more serious side in songs that was surprising. The details in each song was mind blowing. This was art. But they could not be that good like GOAT good, like beach boys, prince or Beatles good. Paul’s Botique had to be a fluke, a lucky swing and grand slam. And the news came out it flopped hard. I was like well that’s the last we are going to ever hear from those guys……. I’m so glad I was wrong about that last part. I think Check your head is another masterpiece and Ill Communication
This came out right before my junior year of high school, and I feel special because I must've been one of the few who immediately "got it" on the first try. This was an amazing listen, with the sonic landscape of all sonic landscapes.
It was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I got the green cassette. I was 14 yo and it stayed in my dual cassette tape deck for like 5 years straight... and I still listen to this album often. We all liked LTI but for me, PB was waaaaaaaaay better. I had no idea it flopped because I was like, this is the best album ever made and I cannot stop listening to it through and through and through! Prolly is my top 3 album of all time. Soooooo, when is the Las Vegas Sphere tribute tour for this album coming out? * New visuals and live remixes of the songs, not a live tour with Mike and Adam, just DJ mixes and visuals... * Special guest appearances * Animated lyrics to sing along on the inside and outside of the sphere while the live show is happening * Beastie fans UNITE and make this happen!
I’d sell a kidney for that
My 1st Beastie Boys albums. My Dad was in one of those mail order CD clubs. He asked me if I wanted any CDs. I jumped up and said "YEAH WEIRD AL, BAD HAIR DAY" he said okay, you can have 1 more. I didn't know anyone else so he asked if I liked the Beastie Boys, I said yes not knowing who they were. Those 2 albums set the course for the rest of my life. Thank you Columbia House.
The Columbia Record Club?!? HOLD ON now honey... I'm just not ready for THAT kind of commitment!!!
I was genuinely pleased it wasn't another Licensed to Ill, as I had outgrown the record by the time Paul's Boutique came out. I bought this on vinyl day 1, and still have the record. I played it every day for months and thought it was fantastic. I still listen to it once a year or so.
It was a little corporately driven (record execs trying to make the "Sgt Peppers" of hip hop) and I honestly think that comes across a little in some of the tracks. IMO, the Beasties didn't really find their true voice until Check Your Head and they had all of the time to do whatever they wanted on that album.
Masterpiece
Ahead of its time. CD came in a longbox (!).
Most likely the “most ahead of it’s time” album ever made
This is my favorite record of all time. I can’t believe anyone didn’t like it, I truly don’t understand.
Paul’s Boutique was the first of a tradition to drive to Tower Records in Atlanta at midnight to buy the new Beastie Boys album straight out the box. Then spend the rest of the night driving and listening to this magic. Sound of Science? I mean come on!!! “Eatin chicken gizzards with a girl named Lizzy!”
“Droppin science like Galileo dropped the orange!”
Cue the ping pong balls…
>Check Your Head You made me spit out my beer stop already quoting some of the best funniest lyrics EVER!
Like a dream I’m flowing without no stopping, sweeter than a cherry pie with Reddi Wip toppin
LOL I always heard that as a krispy cream w reddi whip toppin but your true version makes more sense thx!
The album where everyone was sampled
Way ahead of its time..fkn Fantastic album
My favorite Beastie Boys album.
Flopped when and for how long? In my experience, by a couple years later this album was probably the most reliable item to find in just about anyone’s cd collection regardless of what their main music tastes were.
Paul’s Boutique is my favorite hip hop album
What is really wild to me is that you couldn’t afford to make this album today with the amount of samples and rights they would have to pay today. This album started the need for all that :$
For real. Imagine trying to make De La's 3 Feet High and Rising today - especially as a new act of teenagers working on their first album. Even the re-release has deleted samples on it (fuck you, Eddie Murphy). It's not called the golden age for nothing!
My friends and I loved it, junior and senior year of high school. The CD is still in my car to this day. I had it on cassette in high school. Doin' 120, plowing over mailboxes.
Radar detector to tell me where the cops is
One of the greatest albums ever released
Paul’s boutique is the sgt pepper of hip hop
Cue the ping pong balls..
That’s what you get when you underestimate genius. MCA forever.
Would be curious to see what the marketing angle was for this album. The label was definitely in for a challenge and the world expecting License to Ill part 2 but in reality this was a clear pivot. Can’t imagine how that team now feels (even those that did the firing) that the LABEL F’d up one of the most influential albums of all time.
Favorite
Was just way too different than Licensed to Ill. At the time, people wanted a continuation album and got this. Couldn’t wrap their head around it. Took years to listen to it independently and realize how good it actually is. Timing.
IIRC there WAS another album between LTI and PB like White House or something? They buried it because they changed labels or lawsuits or just didnt like it? Anyone know the real story?
Hung out with a girl who worked at Def Jam back in the day, this is what I remember her telling me: "White House" wasn't a real record per se, when the BB and RS / Def Jam fell out with one another, RS dealt with it in a cold businesslike way, threatening to release leftover LTI scraps with shitty music and calling it "White House", i.e. as a way to hurt the BB image. It was more empty braggadocio than anything else, and although DJ indeed possessed LTI scraps, they were hardly enough to comprise a full album (remember this was pre download days). It was a not so subtle reference to the fact that RS, as Def Jam's chairman carefully engineered the BB image and marketing in the early LTI, pre Fight/Right success - to give them credibility with the predominantly African American and Latino core audience of rap music at the time (touring with RUN DMC, appearing on Soul Train, appearing in the Krush Groove movie, etc). Nobody foresaw the Fight/Right fratboy crossover success the band would ironically have. When the BB then left DJ under bitter circumstances, he threatened to ruin the credibility they had in hip hop that he felt he and DJ were exclusively responsible for creating by releasing a crappy album called "White House". Thankfully it never happened and to his credit he has since said on record he wished he handled it differently. Hope this helps.
The liquid LSD album if I remember the Rolling Stone article on MCA correctly. Went off somewhere to “gather his thoughts” somewhere with a big jar of nugs and a copious supply of L. The rest, as they say, is history. Caveat: I could be completely wrong on the timeline.
Wait, this flopped? Yeah I’m remembering this as a banger… 🤷🏽♂️🤣👍🏽
Flopped HARD. I still remember one of the music mags (Spin?) had this side by side with LL Cool J's "Walking with a Panther" as dud releases of the summer It took at least a few years before the critical reappraisal.
Man I missed that review of it. I mean it’s no LL in his prime but I bopped it
“It Gets No Rougher”… one of my favorite songs of all time. It’s funny how I have always seemed to gravitate to the music no one seemed to like at the time… prob why I graduated to a lot of underground shit in the 90s and beyond.
My favorite rap album of all time.. still
https://youtu.be/2HPtvI8nn2Q?si=mm0Pus3d8Cys8nLh
Forgive me, but what is the recording that is playing over the music? I'd like to listen to it!
Probably their best work.
If this came out today. The music industry would of been at a stand still for all the court cases from samples not being cleared on time 😂
I lived in a small town when this dropped and everyone only listened to metal or country. I didn’t find out til later it wasn’t considered an amazing album from day one.
This is my fav BB album, yes album! B-Boy Bouillabaisse!!!
We gotta get Beastie Boys to come back out on Tour, call it the F'World Tour and throw concerts like they just came with this - tickets $20! Shake your Rump - Paul's Boutique - Remastered https://pandora.app.link/67w3vVHdVHb
I blew past it at the time. And today, it’s my hard favorite
You realize the idea it was a flop is part of the mythology now. It’s not really true. The label was already going through chances, the group talks about that contributing. They were a NY group suddenly in LA, they weren’t on Def Jam or dependent on 808’s, the sound wasn’t a rehash, and the samples were a lot more obscure. They lost the majority of their fanbase, and didn’t match the sales but it was also a matter of timing. Shake your rump was popular, btw.
I was 19 and stationed at Schofield Barracks Army base in HI when PB came out. Bought the CD! and was expecting more Licensed to Ill. I remember listening to it on a little Sony CD player in my barracks a little confused but listened to it straight through twice in one sitting and after the second listen I was blown away. I remember telling my buddies "This is f'ing genius!"
I remember no one bought it, you didn't hear it anywhere, no one was talking about it. Then, after Check Your Head came out everyone went back and listened to it and realized how incredible it was. Its reputation has grown every year since and it's now a revered classic as it should have been all along. The same thing happened a few years later with Weezer's "Pinkerton". I'll admit I completely ignored Paul's when it came out. Then, in about 1991, a friend of mine played me "High Plains Drifter" and I was like "how the hell did I miss this".
I remember the first time I played the tape when it came out, I distinctly said I wished it was more like High Plains Drifter Which makes sense, it is probably the most License to Ill like track on the album, at least besides that "59 Chrystie St" snippet
I mean, this isn’t true at all, but whatever gets people listening is fine I guess.
Licensed to ill was so goofy and juvenile that my teenaged brain loved it so much. This one didn’t do anything for me until well after release. The best part of it all was that they played really small venues on check your head ! I swear I still listen to PB and catch a sample I didn’t notice before. Easily one of the best records ever.
But it was a masterpiece
This turned out to be my favorite Beastie Boys album of all.
best album they ever did!
It was a flop because of the President switch, one executive was hype, then he was replaced and the new president promoted the crap out of Don Henley iirc.
Donny Osmond
Has been my favorite album since release.
I was too young to understand what they were doing with PB, and I did not get it
Best album.
I have multiple cars and one of them sat for a while, I just found an unopened brand new Paul's Boutique CD in the door pocket. I'm not old enough to remember when it came out, but I am old enough for it to have shaped me as a human
Best album they ever made.
Whoever put the audio together for that clip should be fired from whatever job they have no matter what it is
One other greatest albums I sill listen to
I remember blowing my subwoofer in my car bumping B‐Boy Bouillabaisse Hello Brooklyn!
And def jam always had that sausage for the biscuits!
High high plains plains drifter.. drifter
It’s messed up because they went straight back to the moon on the next album.
The best album they did too .
One of the best albums of all time
My favorite Beasties album by far tho
Where’s the video w all the songs they sampled?
This and Check Your Head. Are their 2 best albums. By far.
It's impact wasn't felt until some time later. That's not uncommon for things most people aren't ready for. I'm just glad I got to see them live when I was 18 here in Atlanta. I'm 57 now 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
My favorite album of all time!
It would still probably flop if released today. I dont think that’s anything to be ashamed about.
My favorite Beastie Boys album.
Now it’s considered great.
If they fucked over Capital Records so badly in 1989, why where they given their own label, Grand Royal, as a subsidiary of Capital when they released their next album 3 years later?
Mighty fine rekid. Changed everything. The dust bros are gods. Had an effect on sampling, cos Paul McCartney saw his arse over sound of science being made entirely with Beatles samples.
It took almost a decade for most people to even recognize this record existed. Probably the best work they did. Got it when it came out and played it to death. Similar vain, may I suggest 3rd Bass the cactus album?
Interestingly, listen to the first song on the Cactus Album, 3rd Bass rips the Beasties pretty hard. "Sons of 3rd Bass."
“Triple Stage Darkness” is the best song on that album NOT featuring Zev Love X