Favorite albums: Paul's Boutique (Beastie Boys)

When this first came out in the summer of 1989, it absolutely blew me and all of my friends away. It was as pungent as our weed and as dense as the way we became after we smoked it. We would drive around in the car like fools, singing every word, and loving every stolen sample and crazy lyrical reference. This album must have been released before you needed to clear the usage of samples with the original artist, because they were like Bernie Madoff with other people's music! It re-contextualized all of these elements and made them new though, much the way the Beatles did in their work. As a matter of fact, it is very Abbey Road-ish in the fact that the record even ends with like a 9 song medley. They even overtly sample the Beatle's "The End" from Abbey Road on "The Sounds of Science". When you hear that, you realize how damn funky the Beatles are!

The cover art was mind blowing too. My brother bought the vinyl version and if I remember correctly, it had like three or four folds instead of two. And when you wrapped it around to let the left and right side touch, it was a 360 degree view of some street corner in Brooklyn with a store whose sign reads, "Paul's Boutique". Here is the cover:


But back to the music. "Shake Your Rump", "Hey Ladies", "Shadrach", and "A Year and a Day" are just a few examples of the ridiculously grooving beats and insane layering going on with this album. "A Year and a Day" had that crazy "That Lady" (Isley Brothers) guitar wailing away over an obnoxious hard-hitting beat, topped off by stream-of-conscious, nonsensical and heavily distorted raps that became just another rhythm element, instead of something to be comprehended. It was a total noise fest and I loved all 48 seconds of it.

We loved their first album, which was simple frat boy lyrics over the sparest of beats. Talk about changing direction! They sure didn't hit the sophomore slump with this one, although I don't think it was nearly the commercial success that the first was. They've never topped this in my opinion, and really, not many other rap records come close to this, regardless of the artist. I'm sure this is on many people's list of guilty musical pleasures, but if you've never heard it, give it a listen. You'll be glad you did. And "Ask for Janice"!