Track Listing

1. To All The Girls
2. Shake Your Rump
3. Johnny Ryall
4. Egg Man
5. High Plains Drifter
6. Sounds Of Science
7. Three Minute Rule
8. Hey Ladies
9. Five Piece Chicken Dinner
10. Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun
11. Car Thief
12. What Comes Around
13. Shadrach
14. Ask For Janice
15. B Boy Bouillabaisse

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33691 in Music
• Released on: 1993-08-16
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
After the out-of-nowhere success of Licensed to Ill, the Beasties had to prove they were more than one-album wonders, and they hit it out of the park with this follow-up. The Boys' lyrics are a hysterical deluge of cultural allusion (Ponce De Leon, Japanese baseball legend Sadaharu Oh, and Love Connection's Chuck Woolery all get name-dropped), compressed wordplay, and adenoidal snottiness, but the real stars are the Dust Brothers, whose production is a hip-hop landmark. Their music tracks sound like the history of rock and funk radio boiled down to a pure concentrate--monster jams built out of thousands of unexpected samples (Johnny Cash! The Sweet!). It's a killer party album, kinetic and dense, and it never slows down. --Douglas Wolk

CD Description
When The Beastie Boys hit platinum with their debut album, they were instantly labeled the Elvises of rap, accused of being just another bunch of white musicians stealing from black music. But what was overlooked was that the Beasties actually had some interesting ideas to take hip hop to new levels. While in the years to come other white rappers like Vanilla Ice and Jesse Jaymes would prove they were the true cultural thieves, the Beasties defended themselves by recording aseminal rap album, PAUL'S BOUTIQUE. The record was, in fact, so legit that it eroded their commercial appeal in middle America.
PAUL'S BOUTIQUE is a sample-fest--a post-modern epic of cut and splice studio wizardry. Taking snippets of music from sources as disparate as Curtis Mayfield, The Beatles, B.D.P., The Ramones and The Jaws soundtrack (as well as countless others), they built songs out of the debris of modern culture. Over these mind-blowing tracks, they weaved tall tales, self-promotional proclamations and sheer non-sense into a singular vision of inspired lunacy. Besides Public Enemy, no one else was producing albums as complex as this. PAUL'S BOUTIQUE sounds two or three years ahead of its time, perhaps this is why the album was considered such a failure upon its release.
Whatever the case, there really is no album that sounds quite like this one does; the Beasties returned to the top of the charts a few years later with CHECK YOUR HEAD, but they may never be able to top the originality and depth of their stunning sophomore effort.

Customer Reviews

I cannot fault this record in anyway
I first got hold of Paul's Boutique in 1993 after Check your Head got me into the Beasties. Nearly 12 years later it still sounds as exciting as the first time I heard it. I never want to skip any of the tracks and I always hear something new that makes me smile.

I don't know why it's this good, so I won't speculate. But, it's a proven fact that your life is less good if you don't own this album.

Masterpiece
Just where to start with the Beastie Boys? With the drunken frat-boy anthem packed Licensed to Ill behind them, in itself a gloriously obnoxious party record - and full to the rim with hip hop classics - the Beasties returned in 1989 with something not only unexpected, but undeniably briiliant, groundbreaking, and as far away from Licensed to Ill as possible.

Well, maybe not too far away; for the 3 MC's - Adrock, MCA and Mike D - still rap in and around each other to splendid effect, only with about a zillion references to various tv shows, characters, films, musicians, or really whatever suits them in a free flowing lyrical extravaganza.

And the music? Damn, the music! Regrouping in LA with the Dust Brothers, taking a step away from Rick Rubins basic, albeit big sounding, beats, the Beasties rhyme over sample upon sample, be it the various percussions (Shake Your Rump alone samples about 4 different rhythms) or the various sounds - Egg Man emplys a 70's funk bass line over some classical stabs. Sounds of Science meanwhile emplys various moments from the Beatles back catalogue.

And the thing is, it all comes out as the Beasties own work. Such is the imagination and depth in this record, it really is deep enough for you to infintely catch something new every time you play a select track, yet alone the whole album.

Along with De La Souls 3 Feet high and Rising, Paul's Boutique not only showed early signs of the Beasties creativity and willingness to try new things, but groundbreaking sampling techniques that really form something of a one-off album. This record would never make it out today - it would cost millions!

Before the return to instruments, on the following record, Check Your Head, the Beasties re-defined their hip hop sound whilst taking it in another direction. Highlights come by in the way of the excellent Car Their, a real gem, with the Beasties rhyming over a mellowed slice of funk. Elsewhere, the aforementioned Shake Your Rump is a bombastic opener, with clattering drum rolls, hot bass lines and the Beasties on real form rapping wise.

Everything about this record, from the chilled intro and outro, and so much music in-between, is perfect. And not just in hip hop terms, but for any style of music. It really shows the creativeness that real hip hop can bring to music, from people who clearly love their music. Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun for instance, is essentially fierce rhymes over metal guitars, whilst the excellent story telling of High Plains Drifter uses all of one bass note, but it's effectiveness is supreme.

Essential.

paul's boutique? c'est fantastique!
this is and album that sounds like no other. well certainly not anything else at the time. if you like odelay by beck then this is an absolute must. by far and away the best album that the beasties ever did, and that's not to say that most of the others aren't top. hearing paul's boutique was what inspired james lavelle to set up mo'wax too. i agree that the appeal lies in the out of this world production but the rhyming is the kind of wise guy type stuff that you'd expect from ad rock, mca, and mike d. pure class basically