The Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique 180g 2LP

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Paul's Boutique is the second studio album by the Beastie Boys, released on July 25, 1989, on Capitol Records. Featuring production by the Dust Brothers, the album was recorded in Matt Dike's apartment and the Record Plant in Los Angeles from 1988 to 1989, and mixed at the Record Plant. Remixes were made at the Manhattan-based Record Plant Studios. Aside from the vocals, the album is almost completely composed of samples.

Paul's Boutique did not match the sales of the Beastie Boys' previous record, Licensed to Ill, and Capitol eventually stopped promoting it. However, its popularity grew and it has since been recognized as a breakthrough achievement. Highly varied lyrically and sonically, Paul's Boutique secured the Beastie Boys' place as critical favorites in the hip-hop genre. The album's rankings near the top of many publications' "best albums" lists in disparate genres has given Paul's Boutique critical recognition as a landmark album in hip hop.

Musically, few hip-hop records have ever been so rich; it's not just the recontextulations of familiar music via samples, it's the flow of each song and the album as a whole, culminating in the widescreen suite that closes the record. Lyrically, the Beasties have never been better -- not just because their jokes are razor-sharp, but because they construct full-bodied narratives and evocative portraits of characters and places. Few pop records offer this much to savor, and if Paul's Boutique only made a modest impact upon its initial release, over time its influence could be heard through pop and rap, yet no matter how its influence was felt, it stands alone as a record of stunning vision, maturity, and accomplishment. Plus, it's a hell of a lot of fun, no matter how many times you've heard it.

For their second album, the Beasties hired the Dust Brothers, a production team that provided some of the best samples ever on wax - from the Ramones to the Funky 4+1. The title is a goof on Abbey Road, which was Paul McCartney's boutique; like that LP, it stitches together song fragments in a way rarely seen before or since.

Paul's Boutique is still a sumptuous feast of rhyming and stealing other people's tunes; in The Sound Of Science alone they grab the new sample culture by the horns and sample three Beatles tunes. With the then very hot production team of The Dust Brothers aboard, nothing was off limits - country, funk, Bernard Herrmann scores, Chic, ping pong; all are fed into the mix. Nobody would even attempt to copy it, such was its audaciousness. Lyrically, Tibet was a few years off. Instead, here were tales of the Egg Man, Johnny Ryall and Shadrach; there were dedications To All the Girls in the sumptuous opener; and subsequently in Shake Your Rump and Hey Ladies too, two of their most funktastic moments. It's interesting to wonder what would have happened had the Beasties carried on in brat mode. Would their influence on contemporary culture have been the same if Paul's Boutique hadn't happened? Most definitely not. To tire of this album is to tire of breathing. A genuine masterpiece.