Look Back At the Beastie Boys Part 2: ‘Paul’s Boutique’

by Cam Cannon

“Paul’s Boutique.” I remember thinking, “That’s a weird name for an album.” Turns out, that wasn’t the only thing weird about the album. Masterfully produced by the Dust Brothers, “Paul’s Boutique” contains samples on top of samples, twisted into other samples. I know there are some that, at best, don’t consider this an art, and at worst consider it theft. 

 I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever heard. 

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The Eagles, The Supremes, The Commodores – no one was safe from the Beastie Boys; Mike D. was ecstatic that the Beatles threatened to sue over the use of three of their songs in one Beastie Boys song, “Sounds of Science”  (Best. Song. Ever.). Lyrically, the album was, again, the height of hilarity. Mike D. rapped, “I’m Mike D. and I’m back from the dead. Chillin’ at the beach. Down at Club Med.” This in itself is not funny, but the line shows how in tune to the pop culture zeitgeist the Beastie Boys were. Again, this is pre-Internet, but a rumor had circulated in, oh, 1987 or 1988 that Mike D. had died. My first college roommate was from DC, and he refused to believe it was in fact Mike D. on “Paul’s Boutique”: “That dude’s dead, man.” Their pop culture references grew more varied. They are uniquely conscious of pop culture bits that the rest of us have forgotten about, as demonstrated with the line from “Hey Ladies”: “I’m not James at 15, or Chachi in Charge”. Who in their right mind had any recollection of “James at 15”, a 1970s dramedy about a boy who was, well, 15 years old (It was called “James at 16” once James had a birthday)? But the line that made me declare them to be hip hop geniuses was: “Make another record ‘cause the people they want more of this, suckers they be saying they can take out Adam Horovitz.” Dude rhymed Horovitz. Damn. 

This was now the era of the aforementioned Chuck D.’s Public Enemy, and N.W.A. was also big about this time. So Rap music was evolving, and one of the evolutionary branches included the wonderfully weird De La Soul. So the Beastie Boys’ first foray into such weirdness should have been a hit. It, of course, was not. Sure, Rolling Stone magazine, in a bafflingly ahead of its time review, gave the album four stars. Capitol asked the Beasties not to tour until the album had sold a million copies. 

The Beastie Boys never toured in support of “Paul’s Boutique,” and thus I was denied another chance to see them perform live. Poor me, I know. They only released a couple of videos in support of the album, including the 70’s disco themed “Hey Ladies!”, which features a great shot they lifted right from “Mean Streets” (It occurs to me that Ben Shapiro would really think I’m nuts because I love hip hop and Scorsese). 

Even though the album bombed, insiders knew it was the shit. Years later in an interview with Vibe Magazine, Chuck D. said as much, and Russell Simmons never moved forward on his plan to repackage previously produced Beastie tracks (someone tell me if this was, in fact, just a rumor along the lines of Mike D. is dead. Anyone?). Within the mainstream, they were largely seen as a joke. Now, of course, the album is seen as a landmark achievement, landing on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 greatest albums of all time. The problem at the time wasn’t that it was ahead of its time, it’s that the masses refused to give it a chance. Or maybe they did. I defer to Chris Rock on the subject of “Paul’s Boutique”: 

It’s one of those records that you buy every time you’re in a rental car. It’s also one of those records that you thought sucked the day you bought it. You were mad because it sounded nothing like Licensed to Ill. Then a month later, you’re like, “This is the best shit ever. High Plains Drifter is the best song ever made.” 

He’s probably expressing the opinion of many, many people. “High Plains Drifter”, a slow, beat-heavy tale of a crime spree in which Ad Rock name-checks Travis Bickle, is perhaps the best song ever. Despite the sophomoric streak that continued to pulse through their music, The Beasties had a little bit more on their mind this time around. They just dealt with it humorously. On “What Comes Around”, they mock skinheads with the witty line, “You’re all mixed up. Like pasta primavera. Yo, Why’d you throw that chair at Geraldo Rivera?” The song “Car Thief” marks the first time, to my knowledge, that they came remotely close to being political, with the line, “All the wife beaters. And all the tax cheaters. Sitting in the White House pulling their peters.” It’s a funny line, in a seventh grade sense of humor kinda way, and for my money more effective than the specific nature of their later political lyrics. 

Twenty years after its release, “Paul’s Boutique” is considered a classic in the genre, and rightfully so. Everybody claims to have loved it from the get go, most of them are lying. You’ll have to trust me on this (maybe I get leeway for admitting I had never heard Led Zeppelin?), it’s a sincere promise: I considered it an instant classic that expanded on the possibilities of a relatively young musical genre. On my first date with my wife (Waffle House and a movie, “Cape Fear”), I blared “Sounds of Science” in my Hyundai, and we’ve been fanatics together ever since. Immediately after its release, it struggled to get a foothold in the marketplace, and again, the Beasties seemed to disappear. 3rd Bass, a racially mixed rap group, signed with Def Jam, and their debut album was filled with anti-Beastie Boys lyrics, some of them aimed directly at the commercial failure of Paul’s Boutique. 3rd Bass was a good group, they would go on to release the popular “Pop Goes the Weasel”, which took out another easy target, Vanilla Ice. But they broke up a couple of years later. The Beastie Boys would rise again, and MC Serch of 3rd Base once intimated to Spin Magazine that if he and his partners Pete Nice and Daddy Rich ever recorded another album, they would take back some of the verbal punches leveled at the Beastie Boys. 

With two albums and two reinventions down, the Beastie Boys again went into hiding in Los Angeles, and their third album “Check Your Head” was only marginally anticipated. I’ll cover “Check Your Head” right right here, next next week. 

PAUL’S BOUTIQUE, 1989

Best Songs: High Plains Drifter, Lookin’ Down the Barrel of a Gun, Egg Man, Sounds of Science, Hey Ladies, Shadrach
Cool samples: The Eagles, The Beatles, Sly and the Family Stone, The Steve Miller Band
Political references: A scant few
Cam’s Rating: In 1989: 5 Stars, In 2010: 5 Stars


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Posted Feb 27th 2010 at 2:50 pm in Featured Story, Music, Reviews | 227 Comments