Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee, Paul's Boutique

Paul's Boutique is by far my favorite Beastie Boys record.  Check Your Head is a distant second, and I like the style change of Hello Nasty.  Licensed To Ill, Ill Communication, and To The 5 Boroughs didn't get much interest from me.  The Mix Up is pretty cool, but kinda doesn't count.  I wasn't going to get this latest, their 8th album, because I bought the Paul's Boutique 20th anniversary reissue, and figured it's all the B-Boys I really need, even though I'd seen comments that this album is most like Paul's Boutique in it's funkiness.


Thanks to some blow-out pricing on Amazon the past few weeks, I couldn't resist grabbing a copy for $10, especially being white vinyl!

I still prefer the Dust Brother's random sample funkiness of the strongest cuts on Paul's Boutique- but this is a far more consistent album. Still, nothing quite tops the farty bass-ness of Shake Your Rump.

This is a 5-star vinyl package with key elements being: double set, colored wax (white), gatefold cover, printed sleeves with lyrics, and download card. Bonus material: white 7" single with 2 bonus cuts (NOT included with download but are available as separate purchases on iTunes/amazong/etc).  The album download DOES include a bonus remix of Make Some Noise, which is not available otherwise as far as I can tell, and 1 of 4 different t-shirt iron-on portraits. 

Hot Sauce Committee Pt.2 on metacritic.
Beastie Boys online.
Beastie Boys on Facebook.
Beastie Boys on MySpace.
Also available:
LP BOX SET REISSUES OF:
Ill Communication:
Interactive / Product
Check Your Head:
Interactive / Product
and Hello Nasty:
Interactive / Product.
AND..
Paul's Boutique 20th Anniversary Limited Edition 180 Gram LP:Recently I read that Paul's Boutique was considered a flop upon its release in 1989? This was no flop in the record store where I worked!  I played the hell out of it and our stock constantly sold out (this is one that we actually got in regularly, along with the Love American Style EP). I remember getting a call from the operations manager because I played it in the store: an unhappy customer called the corporate office to complain that our store was playing records that we were sold out of, which in turn ratted me out for playing an album that was banned from in-store promotional use due to lyrical content. 

According to Wikipedia, because initial sales were not as strong as Licensed To Ill with it's MTV slam-dunk smash Fight For Your Right, Capitol tossed the towel in too early here, releasing only Hey Ladies and Shadrach as singles/EPs. In time, however, it has gone on to be considered a landmark album in Hip-Hop, and a breakthrough achievement for the B-Boys (whatever that means!).  Rolling Stone ranked it #156 in their 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time (2003). Here are some other 'Best of All-Time' lists it made.



Packaging for the 20th Anni reissue is pretty sweet on it's own, but completely lame compared to the 3 other reissues: Check Your Head, Ill Communication, and Hello Nasty- all of which got huge 3 & 4 LP fancy BOX SET treatments with all the era b-sides and cover recreations, etc.  This could have been a double set with b-side/bonus cuts, unreleased extended versions, and a few Dust Bros. instrumentals.

There was a Deluxe set sold through the website that included the remastered CD & LP, download of the album + 5 videos, 3D interactive album art, commentary download, t-shirt, and an 8 foot poster of the cover photo. But it wasn't a box set and has long since sold out. The LP comes in an 8 panel gatefold (4 panels each side), printed sleeve with lyrics/credits, and a download of the B-Boys commentary- NOT the album.  Why no download at least with the 6 b-sides from the EPs?
Paul's Boutique:
Interactive / Product