Bought it after reading the rave reviews and talked it up constantly to friends at high school to whom the Beasties were yesterday's news, a total joke. Every single one of them came around (as I recall we all got different colored cassette tapes, somebody's was marbled) and we looked like geniuses when Check Your Head came out a few years later and *everybody* was on board. Fun times!
Well said. That's the greatest thing about the BBoys to me as a jazz fanatic and New Yorker who made his way out west. Pretty much everything about them resonated with me, musically, culturally, commercially, in a way no other chart topping artists did, with the possible exception of Donald Fagen/Steely Dan.
I was 13 and remember everything about buying the tape, popping it in the Honda Accord tape deck, and the feeling I had listening to it for the first time. It was like one of those watershed moments in life that you never forget where you were and the details of the event. I didn’t even know what to make of it the first few times through because it is so dense. It’s been my fave album of all time ever since. I can listen to it over and over…
I didn't take immediately to the first album so Paul's Boutique caught me off guard. It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was the hip-hop album that I first ever loved. As a result, I was ready for something as experimental as Paul's Boutique and Three Feet High and Rising. This was by far my favorite era of hip hop. My friends and I loved listening to it on the cassette deck in our cars on the weekends. Great memories!
The singles have since been made available digitally in the last few years. Album An Exciting Evening At Home With Shadrach, Meshach And Abednego, Beastie Boys | Qobuz: download and streaming in high quality Album Love American Style EP, Beastie Boys | Qobuz: download and streaming in high quality
I found it on EU vinyl for 1€\$ some 20 years ago Listened to it and passed it on. Stupid now yes (20 years later due to value increase) but 20 years ago a album on vinyl that just sucked, just sucked.
I thought it was weird, unexpected, and amazing. The memory of hearing it and 3 Feet High and Rising for the first time on the same day (while being slightly more than 3 feet high) in the company of the kick-ass kids I was friends with in HS is extremely positive.
At first listen, I thought it was crap. I was working for a Strawberries outlet at that time. The store had distributed in-store tapes and it was a new thing. The store made you play those cassettes with the announcements built-in. They wanted to create some revenue for the labels, and Capitol cared about the record, but only so much. You could tell. It was on sale for a very long time; about 3 months. $7.99 and $9.99, I think. So I heard about 40% of the record in the store I was at, for days. I thought it was ok. I thought the artwork was compelling, the wrap-around connected stuff and how they made it fit on a cassette was neat. but I didn't care for it. Then I went to college and found out a lot of people cared about it big time. So I had another exposure to it. Because it's literally a mash-up album when, at the time, it was still a wee bit legal (and then illegal), then all the samples came to light and the way it was all used by the Dust Brothers, made me stand up and like/love the record. While I'm not the best hip-hop fan in the world, I consider it to be a masterpiece.
I was hooked when I first heard the album, I was a freshman in high school. I first heard it playing on a boombox during lunchtime. I picked up the cassette that same week, had my mom drive me to The Wherehouse.
I was very into the debut, as were many people. But it was essentially a pop singles hit so average citizens weren't looking out for the follow-up. I bought PB DOR and immediately thought it was one of the most intellectually exciting and ass shaking albums I'd ever heard. But no one with whom I was acquainted gave a rat's. Nor did most of the tiny global population subset of music buying westerners for many subsequent years.
I know. I went to see if it was available as a podcast, and it wasn’t. KEXP does have other podcasts, though.
The podcast Dischord and Rhyme did a deep, two hour analysis of Paul’s Boutique: 048: Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique (1989) - Discord and Rhyme: An Album Podcast
It took me a couple of listens to really warm up to it. But eventually I grew to love the album. There was a period where I was playing it practically every day, and it remains one of my favourite albums of all time.
My friend had the cassette of this masterpiece. When I first heard Egg Man I instantly fell in love. The both of us listened to this album for an extended period of time. Many months listening to this. Hey Ladies was a smash on MTV. I was 11 when this came out but it was probably at age 12 that my friend and me went full Beastie Mode. We both realized quickly how brilliant this album is. Classic!!!
I was 17 when it came out and it was the soundtrack to my life for a few years. I had a part-time job at Wherehouse Records on Market Street near Powell in San Francisco for a while. I remember BLASTING the song Heloooo Brooklyn, with its relentless 808 kick, in the store one time and it blew the amp! I got “laid off” from work after that.
I'd like to say I was paying attention back then, but I was a pre-teen metalhead in 89 and I only had heard 'Fight for Your Right' (which did not occur to me to be anything but another party song). It's possible I heard 'Hey Ladies', but I don't recall. When Check Your Head came out, and I saw the video for 'Pass the Mic', I was truly surprised. I backtracked and found Paul's Boutique shortly after and haven't stopped playing it since.
No worries! It’s 32 years later and I recently got a job at a record store one day a week. I think I’ll just have to play Paul’s in the store tomorrow!
The 'Year and a Day' section of B Boy Bouillabaisse is a total banger, its always been one of my favorite Beasties grooves. RIP MCA M.C. for what I am and do The A is for Adam and the lyrics, true So as pray and hope and the message is sent And I am living in the dreams that I have dreamt Because I'm down with the three, the unstoppable three Me and Adam and D. were born to M.C. And my body and soul and mind are pure Not polluted or diluted or damaged beyond cure Just lyrics from I to you recited Arrested, bailed but cuffed and indicted Enter the arena as I take center stage The lights set low and the night has come of age Take the microphone in hand as that I am a professional Speak my knowledge to the crowd and the ed. is special For I am a bard but not the last one I'm am the king and this is my castle Dwell in realms of now but vidi those of the past Seen a glimpse from ahead and I don't think it's gonna last And you can bet your ass
I dismissed it. I didn’t get it at all. Though the peer pressure to love it back in university was immense. Years later I was working at Tower Records, my boss told me I should give it another shot - it still sounded like noise, shrill, grating, puerile noise. Now 25 years later, I have figured out how to process it. I hear the ingenuity of those bed tracks, definitely, so on that level can enjoy it, though it would never be a record I would reach for.
