The Beastie Boys' landmark 1989 album Paul's Boutique gets a 30th anniversary reissue.

From Rolling Stone: Like this summer’s block-buster movie sequels, the Beastie Boys' second album was anticipated with some hope tempered by much dread. On their bratty 1986 debut, Licensed to Ill, the Beasties — Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, Adam “MCA” Yauch and Michael “Mike D” Diamond — established themselves as the Sultans of Swagger. Thanks to the heavy-metallic single “Fight for Your Right (to Party),” the album went multiplatinum and helped bring rap to a wider (whiter) audience.

"It’s easy to forget exactly how painted into a corner the Beastie Boys were after Licensed to Ill came out. Every complaint people harbor against so-called “hipster rap” today had its genesis in that debut album nearly 23 years ago—a bunch of upper-middle-class, never-been-battled punk rockers in leather jackets and skinny jeans bellowing knowingly obnoxious, semi-ironic lyrics—and it only escalated once the question of the inevitable follow-up came around. The only thing that would piss purists off more than the notion of three clownish white Jewish kids accidentally inventing frat-rap is the fact that they wound up ditching a beloved hip-hop label in Def Jam for the corporate juggernaut of Capitol Records." - Full Review at Pitchfork
img:Getty Images

The Beastie Boys' landmark 1989 album Paul's Boutique gets a 30th anniversary reissue.

From Rolling Stone: Like this summer’s block-buster movie sequels, the Beastie Boys' second album was anticipated with some hope tempered by much dread. On their bratty 1986 debut, Licensed to Ill, the Beasties — Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, Adam “MCA” Yauch and Michael “Mike D” Diamond — established themselves as the Sultans of Swagger. Thanks to the heavy-metallic single “Fight for Your Right (to Party),” the album went multiplatinum and helped bring rap to a wider (whiter) audience.

"It’s easy to forget exactly how painted into a corner the Beastie Boys were after Licensed to Ill came out. Every complaint people harbor against so-called “hipster rap” today had its genesis in that debut album nearly 23 years ago—a bunch of upper-middle-class, never-been-battled punk rockers in leather jackets and skinny jeans bellowing knowingly obnoxious, semi-ironic lyrics—and it only escalated once the question of the inevitable follow-up came around. The only thing that would piss purists off more than the notion of three clownish white Jewish kids accidentally inventing frat-rap is the fact that they wound up ditching a beloved hip-hop label in Def Jam for the corporate juggernaut of Capitol Records." - Full Review at Pitchfork
img:Getty Images