As I write this, MTV's showing the Beastie Boys live at one of those $2 Bill concerts they occasionally show, usually when an artist's got a new album out (the Beasties' new one is
To The 5 Boroughs). A nice way to cap off the Beasties-related kick I've been on for the past two days.
Going back a bit: well it's the first Beasties album in six years, so naturally they've been getting all sorts of mainstream exposure. Yesterday morning before leaving for campus, I re-read their feature article in the latest
Spin with the obligatory mention of how great
Paul's Boutique is. So before leaving, I made a point to dig through the closet and find my copy of it, which I hadn't listened to since after I bought it, which was, like, in '95 or '96, when I first got into them and they happened to perform over here in Jakarta, along with the Foo Fighters and Sonic Youth (for the measly price of Rp. 40,000! Man, those were the days).
Anyway, I probably just didn't get it the first time around, so it's nice that I could dig it out after all these years and give it a spin (and on a side note: hopefully all the tapes I've only listened to once or none at all will one day get their due). The thing is, I'd give it a spin if I could find it, which I couldn't. Failing that, I tried looking for their double-sized Best Of compilation,
The Sounds Of Science,
but could only find one part. Decided to put the search on hold and just listen to the Pet Shop Boys'
PopArt compilation which had been idle in the car's glove box, and made a mental note to put my tape collection into some semblance of order.
The search resumed this morning, and after digging through several possible places, I managed to find what I was looking for...and decided I might as well dig out their other albums I had, to boot. I put on
Paul's Boutique, and even though I knew some of the songs (well, at least the choruses), it was like listening to it for the first time. Maybe I've been biased by all I've about it, but yeah, it's a great album. I'm not a hip-hop nut by any means; heck, I can't remember ever listening to any entire hip-hop albums aside from the Beasties'. But based on whatever I've heard over the years in that genre, this album just pisses all over it. In fact, just about everything the Beasties have done pisses all over the rest of whatever passes for mainstream hip-hop nowadays. I guess I can safely say that the Beastie Boys are the only reason I listen to hip-hip at all.
