#156: Paul’s Boutique- The Beastie Boys

Nick Young:

Listened To: CD

Looking back on the Beastie Boys’ sophomore album-length hymn for sample-loving hipsters, “Paul’s Boutique,” it’s hard to put into context just how cutthroat the crossover for pre-Eminem white rappers really was. After those twenty million Slim Shady lookalikes emerged on the scene straight from the industry cookie cutters (which Mr. Mathers lamented on Caucasian hip-hop’s landscape forming anthem “Without Me”), white American urban poets and all the controversy they worked so hard to stir up was forever grayscaled.

Luckily for us, “Paul’s Boutique” serves as a musical monolith that we can listen back on to remind us how ragged, dirty and thrilling the sound of breaking race rules truly was. To me, the album sounds like the Beasties and their maverick producers, the Dust Brothers, were trying to craft a clunky ode to Run D.M.C. while spending hours sniffing glue in Ad Rock’s basement before hitting up the recording studio. The result is not so much an "Odelay"-esque experiment as you might think. Rather, what I think the aforementioned MC Ad Rock and his buddies MCA and Mike D. were going for was their answer to “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).” It’s loud, nasally, unapologetically vulgar, occasionally violent, often foul-tempered, and fucking brilliant for being that way. In short, it’s the most thrilling fingernails-on-a-chalkboard experience the Beastie Boys have ever been able to put on record- even more so their low-class landmark “Licensed To Ill.”

Somehow it all miraculously works in their favor. I used to be tempted to compare “Paul’s Boutique” to Beck’s beloved magnum opus better known as “Odelay” since it was also helmed by the gritty aural pyrotechnicians the Dust Brothers. I still think both works are disaffected, darkly comical musical triumphs, but I’m not so sure that they’re meant to be compared after finally sitting down and actually listening to the album. What I heard on “Boutique” was RZA-influenced turntable heroics that sound a long way off from Beck’s rhinestone melting pot eclecticism.

The grit and the guile can be found in either work, but I’m a little less convinced that Beck is going to mow me down with machine gun lyrics on “Odelay” or any of his other albums as ferociously as the Boys do on “Boutique.” Beck has always veered towards hillbilly hip-hop and honky-tonk freak-funk, but the Beastie Boys tend to favor a career-defining urban ember that burns from within. The result construes an imaginary, universally familiar Brooklyn neighborhood full of colorful personalities all trying to get themselves heard. The Beastie Boys, with their “Bed-Stuy” spirit, sound like white people painfully trying to rap their way into a Spike Lee joint. Oddly enough the uncomfortable, challenging vibe they bombard you with all the way through “Boutique” is their greatest strength. Getting my ass kicked never felt so good.

-Nick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mike Natale:

Listened To: MP3

Since this was to be our first selection of this 500 day journey, I was ready to rip into an album that bored me from the opening track. And I’ll admit that the first 3 tracks on this album (To All The Girls, Shake Your Rump, and the exceedingly irritating Johnny Ryall) had nothing new to offer me. Nothing exciting. But it is fortunate the Paul’s Boutique, The Beastie Boys 1988 album considered to be their magnum opus, was the first album on this expedition, as it reminded me to always keep an open mind as I survey these albums. The fourth track, “Egg Man”, and it’s sampling of the song Superfly by Curtis Mayfield, caught my attention, and drew me in for the rest of the album. It was then I shut my eyes, and devoted my attention fully to the sonic world created by the Dust Brothers, and the rhythmic banter of Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock.

By the time I reached "The Sounds Of Science" , a track which samples both "When I’m Sixty-Four" and "The End" by The Beatles, I was already convinced what this album is, besides a masterpiece. It is truly the Pet Sounds of hip-hop. I still stood by what I had discussed with Nick on the phone prior to listening, that this album (what I’d listen to of it before today, scattered tracks on shuffle) lacked that overall rock feel of License To Ill, their debut album, which was the only hip-hop I grew up on. Yet this was the first time a rap album gave me that cathartic, skin quavering feel that one gets when listening to Dark Side Of The Moon or Tommy from start to finish.

The album is so ahead of its time. “3-Minute Rule” has a Odelay-era Beck beat before Beck was even making them (Admittedly, their mention of Jack Kerouac on this track adds a special appeal to me). And just when I thought the soundscape of Paul’s Boutique had no room for the hard rock antics of License, “Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun” came on, with that heavy bass and guitar kick to the balls of “Sabotage” (from their later album Ill Communication), and the Beastie Boys I’d come to love. Yet, the most ambitious rack on the album is its finale. Yes, I would go so far as to describe the twelve-and-a-half minute masterpiece-in-its-own-right “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” a finale. While modern-day MC Jay-Z may owe a debt to Paul’s Boutique (I’d go out on a limb and assume we’d never have the Jim Morrison sampling “Takeover” from The Blueprint were it not for Paul’s Boutique), Hova has never laid down a track as epic and masterful as Bouillabaisse.

Of all the tracks, I’m still surprised “Hey Ladies” was chosen to be the single (by the way, does anybody else think the guitar riff sounds like Mysterious Ways by U2?). This just goes to show how out of touch their record company was. When the album failed to move as many units as License To Ill, Capital Records considered it a commercial failure and stopped promoting it. Since then, the album has gone double platinum and is revered by music critics, just proving the record company doesn’t always know best. It’s hard to believe the Dust Brothers originally wanted to release the beats to this album as an instrumental record, which probably would have been just as, if not more influential (it would be 10 years before the instrumental beats of DJ Shadow would revolutionize the music scene, even if he still doesn’t get the recognition he deserves) but it wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable as I found Paul’s Boutique to be.

So, if you were expecting me to rip this album to shreds, I assure you, so was I. But Paul’s Boutique turned out to be an album I thoroughly enjoyed, so much so I listened to it three times before even writing this post, and intend to again after I’ve finished. I cannot recommend this album too highly. I feel that anyone who approaches it with an open mind will walk away with at least one track they enjoy, and for an album to provide that, it has done its job. The Beastie Boys most ambitious album to date proves to be their best. Enjoy, everyone. See you all tomorrow for #385: Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan!

-Mike