So why is Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Paul’s Boutique lives and breathes in the subway.
It’s sentient.
I was born in Queens, grew up on Long Island, and lived in Astoria post-college. I spent countless hours back in the day traveling across the swath of Long Island via car, train (the good old LIRR), and subway.
“Stop That Train,” tucked within the glorious sonic stew that is B-Boy Bouillabaisse on the back half of the album, is the most Queens track of all time, born in the funky, gritty, graffiti-strewn, dangerous but exciting subway bowels in the year of our hip-hop lords, 1989.
First of all – and this might piss off some funk and soul aficionados – “Stop That Train,” B-Boys style, is the hardest funking track I’ve heard in my life. I mean, this thing scorches. And then the fellas – Mike D, Ad-Rock, and Adam Yauch (RIP) – are super on point on this one, both lyrically and flow-wise.
The sentient beast that is Paul’s Boutique was born here, in other words.
Party people going places on the D train
I was 15 in 1989, just at the age when I’d occasionally head all the way into The City on my own from way out in East Northport. “Stop That Train” is a time machine and an uncannily accurate take on what riding the subway was like in the outer boroughs during that era.
Trench coat, wingtip, going to work
And you’ll be pullin a train like you’re Captain Kirk
Pickpocket gangsters, payin’ their debts
I caught a bullet in the lung from Bernhard Goetz
Overworked and underpaid, starin’ at the floor
Prostitute’s spandex caught in the slide doors
Now you’re stuck between the stations, it seems like an eternity
Sweating like sardines in a flophouse fraternity
I’ve always been taken with the way the line lands on Bernhard Goetz. It sounds like someone raps Bernie Goetz while another stomps out the name at the same time with Burn Hard Goetz.
I imagine the name Bernie Goetz doesn’t mean much to younger people or non-New Yorkers these days, but it sure would have back then. In late ’84, Goetz shot four young Black men on a subway train in lower Manhattan. Goetz was eventually acquitted of all wrongdoing save for an illegal weapons charge.
“A Year and a Day” follows “Stop That Train,” and it’s like the party people from the D train arrived at the club, and it’s time to get right.
A wild soul/disco sample from The Isley Brothers (“That Lady, Pts. 1 & 2”) conjures a vibe that feels like the best kind of late-night scene, one that has the exact right number of people around, all of whom are cool – characters with insanely intriguing life stories – and looking to get as loose as you are.
I think there are a number of reasons why Paul’s Boutique wasn’t nearly as successful as the Beastie’s debut album, Licensed to Ill (#41), but would go on to become revered over the years. One of course is that it veers sharply away from our heroes’ beer-drenched bro-rap roots, and another is that Paul’s avoids anthems a la “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (to Party!)” in favor of a collage of sounds that hurl samples at you like a pitching machine gone rogue and manic.
In fact, one of the album’s most consequential legacies is that it helped lead to court rulings that forced musicians to pay for samples.
The sample-fest was spearheaded by the Beastie Boys’ collaboration with the Dust Brothers, a duo who worked with old school rappers such as Tone Loc and Young MC, and would go on to produce an eclectic array of artists, including Beck and They Might Be Giants.
Paul’s Boutique is a feral creature, a subway car replete with the vibes of Queens and NYC, the rank smell of hot garbage in the summer and the cool (if weird) taste of Orange Julius. It’s a subway car full of fragments, beats, turnstile jumpers, taggers, suits who wandered off the set of Wall Street, and the propulsion of the greatest city in the world.
For example, I need to tell you about how, at the end of “Shake Your Rump” – post-arrest at Mardi Gras for jumping on a float – that spooky wind sound effect picks up and continues through to “Johnny Ryall,” meshing those two tracks.
And speaking of Johnny, this is the Beasties in full on character study mode, and quite effectively at that, something they wouldn’t really ever do again. The funk is also jumping on this one, and dig the references to mayor Ed Koch and Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm.”
“Egg Man” is the boys at their call-and-response peak, on a track that ingeniously only seems to accelerate across its three minutes. This part always crushes my egg-like skull:
We all dressed in black
We snuck up around the back
We began to attack
The eggs did crack on Haze’s back
So then what do I do with the two-parter ear blast that is “The Sounds of Science,” the slow, sing-song glide of the first half launching into the frantic, head-spinning delight of the second, powered by a Beatles sample, no less?
The beastie straight out the subway is sentient, as was foretold.
But then of course we have to take a little meander off to the side of the barn for the deep-fried country-cheese romp of the “5-Piece Chicken Dinner,” because. Just because.
And if you dig that, I beseech you to check out “Country Mike’s Theme,” off of the B-Boys’ Anthology box set.
Come back quick though as I need to ask you if any hip-hop track has evoked tactile, grimy 1970s genre movie vibes more than “What Comes Around”? Or if the boys ever meshed their aggressive hardcore roots with their rapping chops better than on “Shadrach”?
But then I know for sure we can all agree that the Beastie Boys are the only humans on the planet to conjure up hilarious-perfect lines like:
More Adidas sneakers than a plumber’s got pliers
Got more suits than Jacoby & Meyers
I could keep going on, but I think you feel me – and anyway, the D train’s gonna hit the end of the line way out in Coney Island eventually.
Paul’s Boutique, that sentient beast straight out the subway, is a ride that I get something new out of every time I hop on. And for that reason, it pulls in at #6 of the best 1,000 albums ever.
Just don’t forget to ask for Janice when you dial this one up next time around.
Some stats & info about Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rap, Hip Hop, East Coast Rap, Underground Rap, Alternative Rap
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #125
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Paul’s Boutique released? 1989
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #6 out of 1,000
Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
It’s the sound of science.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.