The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique (33 1/3)

To this day, I'm still ashamed to admit that I didn't appreciate the Beastie Boy's iconic and classic rap album Paul's Boutique when it first came out. I'm afraid I followed the herd, scratching my head upon its release, wondering what they'd done with the rock/rap that I had loved so much on Licensed to Ill. (Hey, I was only 19 when it came out) I then followed the herd again years later, after the B-Boy's early and mid 90's revival, and found, like everyone else, I now got their point and loved nothing better than throwing on my headphones and getting lost in the intricate quilt the band built with the hundreds of samples used on the album. (Odd fact from the book: no one knows for sure how many samples were used. And another: sampling laws were changed after this album, ensuring there will never be another quite like it.) So it was with a sense of nostalgia and humility that I sat down to read Dan Leroy's take on Paul's Boutique for the 33 1/3 series.LeRoy is a regular contributor to the New York Times and Rolling Stone, so you get a good piece of rock journalism here. He covers a lot of ground, interviewing almost everyone involved in the music, the bands' friends from that time, like Donovan Leitch and Ione Skye, and even Mike D. (Though not interviewing MCA and Ad-Rock were major misses.) A good chunk is devoted to the origins of the music, probably because there were so many people involved. Rap albums seem to be unusually dependent on producers, who often craft many of the beats and samples underneath the rap. Paul's Boutique was no exception.LeRoy goes back to the mid 80's and the beginnings of the California DJ scene where Matt Dike and The Dust Brothers, the producers of the album, got their starts. He follows them through their discovery of sampling and the evolution of it as an art form for clubs and parties. The Beastie Boys got hooked into this scene when they flew out to California in 1988 to get away from the protracted legal battle with their first label, Def Jam. (A battle that LeRoy sheds some juicy nuggets about through the Capitol A&R guy who had run-ins with Russell Simmons over the matter) The guys were literally just hanging out at Matt Dike's apartment when they heard for the first time the music that would eventually end up on the album. Mike D offered to buy Dike's work on the spot. The first quarter of the book is so devoted to Dike and the Dust Brothers that one could be forgiven for wondering what the Beasties themselves actually did other than buy the music.Thankfully the book gets to that, and it's here where we come to understand why the Beasties are the stars. The book, which will be slow going at first for anyone who isn't a fan of Matt Dike and the Dust Brothers, bursts forth with life once they jump onto the stage. LeRoy shows us their childish pranks and rock star lifestyles, their antagonism towards their record executives, and we remember why we loved them so much.What LeRoy does best though is to show us what a risk Paul's Boutique really was. Everyone (I raise my hand meekly) expected more of the metal-rap that had made the band famous. Instead, The Boys, like all great artists do after a success, went another direction. They went back to their favorite music of the 70's, (not Zeppelin this time though) tore the songs apart, and put them back together into a musical stew centered on the work of their three unknown producers. It was a recipe for commercial disaster, but they were having fun, which was all they wanted to do. A particularly scary moment in the book for fans of the bands later work is when Mike D shares that the band really thought their careers could be undone by the album and wondered what they would do next.Though the album got some great early critical reviews, the shock people got when they heard the work, the 70's aesthetic the Beasties prominently displayed in the first video, and the lack of a tour all ensured that Paul's Boutique would be a commercial flop. Luckily, time often renders great art great. Once the Beasties put out two more great albums, (Check You Head and Ill Communication) and once the times caught up with its own 70's nostalgia, Paul's Boutique finally got the credit it deserved.This is one of the better installments of the 33 1/3 series. If you're a Beastie Boys fan, you'll want to pick this up.

"Paul's Boutique" is one of those masterpieces that was unheralded at its time (or at least failed to sell as much as its predecessor), and thus a whole legion of myths and stories have grown around the making of this seminal work by New York's finest, the Beastie Boys. Dan Leroy sets out to set the record as straight as he can with this entry in the 33 1/3 series.The record itself is a collection of various other records, through the then-standard-but-not-quite-legal art of sampling. Exploring each track in terms of its riffs and their possible sourcing (a task which is hard even for the creative team behind the album to decipher), the author does an admirable job of tracking down various sources and explaining some of the process in the selection of those samples and their meaning within the context of the songs. He also delves into the story of the album itself, and how the Beasties made it almost as a rejection of their success with their debut album (License to Ill) and of their former record label (they moved from Def Jam to Capitol). The album, quite well-reviewed at the time of its release, struggled to find any kind of audience due to the label's insistence on hit singles (hard to do with an album that almost fit together like the old-school concept albums of the Sixties and Seventies) and by the band's unwillingness or inability to tour in support of it. But the album would not be denied, and the final part surveys the growing sense of appreciation for what the Beasties (and Matt Dike, and the Dust Brothers) managed to achieve with this, their one and only collaboration together.The writing is informing and engaging throughout, and while this won't serve as a definitive history of the group, it is a definitive and tantalizing history of "Paul's Boutique."

I am not much of a Beasties fan. Like some of their music but their voices can drive me nuts at times, truth be told. I don't even own Paul's Boutique. I only bought this book on a lark as I knew the recording techniques forged within this record was a turning point of sorts in music. When I received the text in the post, I picked it up then could not put it down until I finished the entire thing. After that I went directly back to page one and started again from the top.The book begins in the late 80s and goes until '92 or so. Everyone the author discusses gets treated fairly, whether they deserve it or not. Delicious Vinyl is seen as a sort of west coast magnet for all things creative, though in truth they were a controversial label to say the least. Def Jam is somehow given a pass for not paying The Beasties over a million dollars in royalties after the author finds relevant quotes to show that Russell Simmons was just looking out for the group by stiffing them. The crazy thing is that everything seems so vivid, understandable and believable. It makes you long for those halcyon days when Joe Smith was CEO of Capitol Records but seemed more concerned with Magic Johnson's rebound average than any of his own recording acts. Of course, none of this makes any logical sense at all, but within the context of the book it is proven that some good things actually came out of this upside-down era in music.Rather than blow the book by revealing some of the sorrid details within it, I will simply say that whether you dig the Beasties or not, Pauls Boutique is worth a read. It is a fascinating story. Perhaps even the great Bob Mack himself could not have told this story any better.

It's kind of poignant that i'm writing this 4 days after Adam Yauch sadly died. He was a cool dude, a hip and humble man, both gentle and powerful...and massively inspiring...he will be greatly missed.I highly recommend this book...it may look small and basic and like one of those surface detail manual's you find in garden centre's, but never ever judge a book by it's cover. Paul's Boutique is a complex album...a mish-mash of sounds and influences and samples at a time when personal growth within the band was taking The Beastie Boys out of puberty and shaping them into early adulthood ... and this book characterises that stage in a ground level no-frills detail for each band member and also the albums important associates. This isn't a glamourous 'Beastie Boys are great' book, it's a peek into their world warts'n all in all it's intracacies at the end of the 1980's, and how they wanted to push the boundaries of sampling and beats and creativity to make an album that is a landmark recording, though at the time was fairly ignored due to bad marketing and old reputations. There's drugs yep, and partying yep, but also it shows how they desperately wanted to distance themselves from everything surrounding the Fight For Your Right era and to be taken seriously for their music and art...R.I.P MCA

Dan LeRoy's 331/3 book on the Beastie Boys "Paul's Boutique" is like an insightful and well-researched set of liner notes (Extended Mix). The style is informative without ever being opinionated; unlike some in the series, LeRoy is happy to let the story tell itself without inserting himself into the mix. The result is engaging and entertaining - even to a non-fan like myself. I ended up with a much greater appreciation of what the B-Boys achieved with Paul's Boutique and indeed, of a genre of music I've rarely even listened to. That the book delighted friends who ARE fans of the band says much about LeRoy's skill.

Never quite clicked with Paul's Boutique but, having read this, dug out my dusty CD and gave it another go. And you know what, it's growing on me. I'm a big fan of these books, having read about half a dozen on a variety of artists. They're not cheap, given how slender they are, but for anyone with more than a passing interest in popular music, they're a great way of acquainting (or reacquainting) yourself with some classic albums. The best of these books combine the creation of the music, with some gnarly anecdotes of life in the band. Fortunately, the Beastie Boys are a fairly interesting bunch, and certainly during this time, following their major first blast of success, they were wild. Thus some great anecdotes hurry along the story of the music. Give it a go.

Perfect.

Well written and insightful, lots of intimate detail and background into the making of one of hip-hops early masterpieces. .