Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

LeRoy does an excellent, thorough job covering everything you'd hope he'd cover about the making of Paul's Boutique: The people behind the disc, including musicians, producers, and record-company types. The circumstances that led up to the album. The story of the Beastie's protracted legal complications with Def Jam. How the tracks came together. The stories behind the songs. The Beasties' relationship with Capitol. The disc's initial disappointing commerical reception. Its eventual recognition as a masterwork. A song-by-song look at the disc. The promotional campaign (or lack thereof). A rundown of B-sides. Actual conversation with a Beasite. Actual scenes. It's all there.

33 1/3 is a decent series, but in too many of the books, you learn as much about the writer as you do about the album -- sometimes more. You get a bunch of "I was in college when this disc came out, and it STILL reminds me of my ex-girlfriend! Awesome!" or a collection of lengthy, speculative interpretations of the lyrics. Like a true pro, LeRoy writes about the subject and keeps himself out of the book. He even includes a full-on works cited list.

This is the best book I've read in the series.

One of the best books ever written detailing the inspiration, creation, and on-going influence of a work of popular music. Leroy's thorough (almost obsessive) research and reporting, combined with his razor-sharp skills as a creative writer, offer a fitting tribute to one of the most interesting works of modern popular music of the late 20th century. If you don't own this book and the album it celebrates...well, YOU SHOULD!

Paul's Boutique may be my favorite album of all time, but I'd never known much about its creation. In this excellently written (and never over-written) little book, Dan LeRoy has constructed the most complete narrative we'll probably ever get regarding the Dust Brothers, the Beasties, and their once-in-a-lifetime creative synergy.

This is from a series of books by 33 1/3, each one devoted to a landmark album in the history of pop music. Paul's Boutique is the first I've read, and although I've heard mixed reviews on others, particularly those that emphasize the author's subjective theories and interpretations of the albums, this one is pure journalism-- lots of well-researched facts and entertaining memories from most of the people involved: the Beasties (mostly Mike D.), their producers, managers, promoters, and friends.

Good books on popular music are, frankly, few and far between. This is one of those precious few. Journalist Dan LeRoy has done a remarkable job of piecing together the details of the creation of this album. Even better, he has written an engaging story. It might be a cliche, but I couldn't put it down.

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.

... and then I came here and read the unanimous 5-star reviews and agree with all of them.

There's not much I can add that wouldn't be redundant.

Except to say that "Paul's Boutique" -- one of my favorite albums -- has always kind of been shrouded in mystery. The album may be dense with information, but there's not a lot of background that I could find.

This book changes all that. It is as filled with names and details as the album is full of samples.

From Leroy's very well-reported account, we learn the backstory of the Dust Brothers and the mysterious Matt Dike (long rumored to be the main mastermind behind "Boutique") plus, a sampling of the late 80s L.A. scene from which this album emerged; we meet a host of side players like Mario C and Money Mark, and also the ill-fated exec Tim Carr (whose heart and mind, I'm convinced, where in the right place all along); there's the promotional wrangling that went on at Capitol before the release and after the record flopped; and also what was going on with the three main charcaters -- MCA, Ad Rock and Mike D -- who wanted to derail the locomotive of "License to Ill" and almost got crushed under the cattleguard.

The book tells the story of the album, and at first I thought it kind of scrimped on the background of the recording of the individual songs, but it closes with a finely detailed track-by-track examination that reveals a lot (but not nearly all) of the samples that helped make up one of the richest, coolest, bangingest records ever made.

poured through it in a couple of days, fantastic read during probably the most 'heady' times of the Boys. enjoy!

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.

Think you know Paul's Boutique? Chances are you only think you know until after reading this book. The backstory to this record will grab a hold of your attention like a theif in the park. Author Dan LeRoy took Paul's Bouitique and wrote the book on it - literally!

Through bad luck, the first 2 books in this series I picked up were the ones on Prince's Sign o the Times and Radiohead's OK computer, which were boring, self-indulgent and wasteful. Dan LeRoy's book on Paul's Boutique, however, is a benchmark for the series. It's the best kind of musical journalism. Get it.