The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique: 30 (33 1/3)

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

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.

Paul's Boutique was the soundtrack to my teenhood, I still listen to it this day as a *cough* mid thirties *cough* man(child)Dan LeRoy captures everything that made the beastie Boys' the Beastie Boys' and goes the extra mile in tracking down what made Paul's Boutique the frankly stupendous album it is.I really can't recommend this book, or the series enough ​

This is a really great book. Even with the brilliant audio commentary now available this is still pretty much pitch perfect. Anyone with even a passing interest in hip hop needs to read this.

Bought for my boyfriend, but so interesting I ended up reading it too! Any beastie boys fan will love this