Was Paul’s Boutique really a flop?
The Beastie Boys’ second album is commonly acknowledged as a poorly promoted, misunderstood, commercial flop. These days it’s hailed as one of the greatest albums ever. So, was it really a flop?
When the Beastie Boys debut album Licensed To Ill was released on 15 November 1986 it was a near instant hit. It quickly entered the Billboard album charts, reached #1, and within 12 months had sold over four million copies.
After a disagreement with their label Def Jam over unpaid royalties, the Beastie Boys moved to LA and begun recording a new album for Capitol Records with The Dust Brothers as producers. That album was Paul’s Boutique, released on 25 July 1989. But it wasn’t quite the hit everyone expected.
“All of my records are records on charts” — Desperado
Weeks after being released, Licensed To Ill debuted in the Billboard 200 Chart at #92 on 29 November 1986, and had reached #1 on 7 March 1987. The album went Platinum on 2 February 1987, meaning it had sold one million copies (or units), and went 3x Multi-Platinum on 6 April, then 4x Multi-Platinum on 20 October. Over the years it continued to sell and by 4 March 2015 Licensed To Ill had gone 10x Multi-Platinum, having sold over 10 million copies.
No album by the Beastie Boys has ever done so well. But when Paul’s Boutique was released, there were understandably some high hopes.
Looking at the Billboard charts, Paul’s Boutique peaked at #14 in the Billboard 200 on 2 September 1989, and spent 18 weeks in the chart. It also entered the Top Hip Hop/R&B Albums, peaking at #24 on 23 September 1989.
The Billboard charts only represent albums sold in the USA, and Paul’s Boutique was released around the world. In the UK, it entered the album charts on 5 August 1989 at #44. It then dropped to #67 and didn’t return to the Official Top 100 again.
Outside the US and UK, in 1989 Paul’s Boutique spent 11 weeks in the German charts and peaked at #28. It also entered charts in Netherlands (peak #30), Finland (#30), Sweden (#38), New Zealand (#50), and Australia (#65).
“If you don’t buy my record, I got my advance” — Brass Monkey
As mentioned, Licensed To Ill had sold over one million copies within three months in the USA. Paul’s Boutique sold 500,000 copies about two months after being released on 22 September 1989, but didn’t reach one million until 1995, and two million in 1999. Sales were even slower in the UK, where the album finally sold 60,000 copies in 2013.
But why did it perform so poorly? One likely reason is Kmart stores in the US decided to ban the album from sale due to the belief it may have contained offensive lyrics. Adam Yauch pointed out, “A lot of towns in America don’t have any other stores than a Kmart…So some towns can’t even buy our album.”
Notably, the Beastie Boys also didn’t promote the album outside of a few TV appearances and some benefit shows.
In August 1989 they were interviewed in Chicago Tribune, who wrote the band were planning a tour, and earlier in the year, when The Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed Adrock about his acting career, they said he’d committed to a Beastie Boys tour to follow the release of Paul’s Boutique. But when the album was arrived no tour happened.
“Nobody wants to hear you ’cause your rhymes are so frantic” — Shadrach
Upon release, Paul’s Boutique received mixed reviews. Some were disappointed it was too similar to Licensed To Ill, while some were disappointed it was too different, and others praised it for those same reasons.
David Browne, writing for The New York Daily News, gave the album one star, and criticised the number of samples used. Notably, the instrumentals of Paul’s Boutique were created from over 100 samples including The Beatles, James Brown, and Kool and the Gang. But Browne thought this was overbearing and accused the band of trying to “compensate for their own lack of writing.”
Rolling Stone gave it four stars, and noted, “If the misogyny, hedonism and violence of the first album bothered you, the sequel shows little remorse — merely replacing beer with cheeba — but it’s a much more intricate, less bludgeoning effort…Paul’s Boutique is littered with bullshit tough-guy bravado, but it’s clever and hilarious bullshit”.
Spin praised the mix of “smart and stupid” rhymes, and felt it was better than Licensed To Ill, and The Boston Phoenix wrote that it was part of a “quantum growth of rap” that also included recent albums by De La Soul and Neneh Cherry.
Cash Box also compared it favourably to De La Soul’s 3 Feet High And Rising, while Punch wrote that De La Soul had stolen the Beastie Boy’s thunder, and that De La Soul’s “blend of rap and sampling far outdoes their Brooklyn colleagues in attack”
Melody Maker (29 July 1989) heaped Paul’s Boutique with praise, from the rhymes to the production, and wrote, “There isn’t anything remotely resembling a sure-fire hit this time, though doubtless they’ll chart on their reputation alone.”
“I’ve got more hits than Sadaharu Oh” — Hey Ladies
Although Hey Ladies and Shadrach were released as singles, John King of the Dust Brothers said they had wanted to make some songs that would have become hits, but that the Beastie Boys weren’t interested.
“They had a desire to do something super artistic and cool, and anytime we tried to move in with a track that sounded like it could be a hit, it would get rejected. I mean, we wanted it to flow and be great, but also have a hit. The Beasties could have totally made a hit song, and we could have too. But they didn’t want to make one”, John King said.
Shadrach didn’t chart at all, but Hey Ladies made appearances in Top 50 and Top 100’s around the world. In the US, it spent 10 weeks in the Billboard chart and peaked at #36. Only Fight For Your Right and Intergalactic have done better in Billboard’s Top 100 Singles Chart across the Beastie Boys’ entire discography.
“They tell us what to do, hell no!” — Shadrach
Both John King and Mike Simpson of the Dust Brothers have expressed disappointment that Paul’s Boutique didn’t do well at the time. The album instrumentals were originally intended to be a Dust Brothers album before the Beastie Boys became involved.
The collaboration allowed the Beastie Boys to start again with a fresh sound and move on from their previous work. At the time, the Beastie Boys were best known for their song Fight for Your Right, but wanted to distance themselves from that song and the image they’d built so far.
“They really wanted to reinvent themselves”, Mike Simpson said. “One of their mandates for Capitol Records was that there was no promotion. They wouldn’t do any interviews. There was no marketing department involvement in the record. They really wanted to make a record that people would hear about from word of mouth. They wanted to surprise people and show people that they were more than this one hit wonder pop rap band.”
“Yauch wanted the album — and this was extremely disappointing to us — to be the cool album that people would just discover in used or cutout vinyl stores”, John King said. “We’re very proud of it, but it was disappointing at the time.”
Shortly after Paul’s Boutique was released, David Berman, president of Capitol Records at the time, left the company. The Beastie Boys have suggested he was fired for giving them too much money, but the official word at the time was that he quit to pursue other interests.
After noticing Paul’s Boutique wasn’t readily available in stores, the band tried to get a meeting to find out what was going on, and the new president told them Capitol was just too busy to promote Paul’s Boutique and suggested they go record another album instead. That album became 1992’s Check Your Head which would debut at #10 in the Billboard Chart, where it peaked, and sold half a million units in its first month and went Platinum in September 1993. Much better than Paul’s Boutique did, but the album was also promoted and toured significantly more too.
“Make another record ’cause the people they want more of this” — Shake Your Rump
Paul’s Boutique did eventually get the universal acclaim it deserved. It sold over one million units and went Platinum in 1995, and later went Double Platinum in 1999.
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Other than Licensed To Ill, few Beastie Boys albums have gone over Triple Platinum according to the most recent data available from the RIAA. While on the charts, Paul’s Boutique has the second lowest peak of a Beastie Boys album in the Billboard Top 200 Chart.
Album Title (Year) — Latest Sale Award | Date of Award
Licensed To Ill (1986) — 10x Multi-Platinum | March 4, 2015
Paul’s Boutique (1989) — 2x Multi-Platinum | January 27, 1999
Check Your Head (1992) — 2x Multi-Platinum | July 24, 1998
Ill Communication (1994) — 3x Multi-Platinum | September 29, 1998
Hello Nasty (1998) — 3x Multi-Platinum | September 29, 1998
Anthology (1999) — 2x Multi-Platinum | December 23, 1999
To The 5 Boroughs (2004) — Platinum | July 20, 2004
The Mix Up (2007) — N/A
Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (2011) — N/A
Album Title (Year) — Peak Chart Appearance | Date Peaked
Licensed To Ill (1986) — #1 | 7 March 1987
Paul’s Boutique (1989) — #14 | 2 September 1989
Check Your Head (1992) — #10 | 9 May 1992
Ill Communication (1994) — #1 | 18 June 1994
Hello Nasty (1998) — #1 | 1 August 1998
Anthology (1999) — #11 | 11 December 1999
To The 5 Boroughs (2004) — #1 | 3 July 2004
The Mix Up (2007) — #15 | 15 July 2007
Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (2011) — #2 | 21 May 2011
“Cause I’m the high plains drifter, the best that you can get” — High Plains Drifter
These days, Paul’s Boutique is considered a great album, and is often ranked as one of the best albums ever.
It’s hard to map when that change occurred. It received good reviews upon release, but was praised more frequently as time went on.
This started as early as 1991, when Spin included Paul’s Boutique in their list of the Ten Most Underrated Albums of All Time. Listed at #3, Spin wrote it was, “Funkier than Licensed To Ill and almost as much fun, but sold zilch.” That same year, the book Bring The Noise : A Guide to Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture was published, and included Paul’s Boutique in their list of 25 essential hip hop albums.
In 1992, the All Music Guide was published and included reviews and recommendations for every Beastie Boys album to date. While Licensed To Ill was marked as essential, Paul’s Boutique is marked as the album new fans should buy and listen to first, and is considered their best work so far. They wrote it is “complex, innovative and brilliant…a few listens are needed before it all sinks in, but the rewards are great.”
When Ill Communication was released in 1994, Paul’s Boutique was being bought more than when it originally was released. Whether that was because of word of mouth or just fans exploring the back catalogue of a band they liked isn’t clear. But as their new album was reviewed, Paul’s Boutique was mentioned again and this likely brought it to the attention of those who had missed it in 1989.
Melody Maker’s Everett True (21 May 1994), called Paul’s Boutique “the vastly underrated follow-up to the multi-platinum selling Licensed To Ill”, Vox’s Stephen Dalton (July 1994) called it “an inspired, idea-stuffed masterpiece”, while Paul Moody re-reviewed Paul’s Boutique in NME on 19 November 1994. He gave it 9/10 and wrote “five years on from its release way back in August ’89, [Paul’s Boutique] is still an electrifying blast of cool… If you thought Ill Communication was cool, check its younger incarnation.”
The Guinness Who’s Who of Rap, Dance & Techno (1994) wrote that Paul’s Boutique “remains one of the genre’s most overlooked pieces”. Likewise, when James Lavelle of Mo’ Wax Records spoke to Vox in July 1995, he said “Paul’s Boutique is regarded as one of the most classic hip-hop albums ever recorded.”
The album gained further exposure in 1996 when the Dust Brothers produced Beck’s album Odelay. Reviews compared it to their work on Paul’s Boutique, and in an article about Odelay, Erik Himmelsbach wrote in Pulse! (June 1996) about how Paul’s Boutique had “since been recognized as something of a groundbreaking hip-hop recording.”
When the Beastie Boys’ next album Hello Nasty was released in July 1998, it sold three million copies in two month, and a few months after, Paul’s Boutique finally reached its own milestone of selling two million copies in January 1999.
By then it’s legacy was secured. It has since appeared on various Best Album lists, including Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time where it was ranked #125 in the 2020 edition. In 2005, Spin magazine ranked it #12 in their 100 Greatest Albums (1985–2005) list, and it was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
“Now here we go dropping science” — The Sounds of Science
In the Beastie Boys Book Paul’s Boutique’s commercial failure is acknowledged and Adrock writes, “the most weirdest and most bummerish thing happened after the record came out. We just assumed that because Licensed to Ill sold a billion copies, Paul’s Boutique would do the same. But, like, it didn’t.”
It was a commercial flop. But that failure, regardless of who was at fault, meant the band were left to do whatever they wanted, and that freedom led to albums like Check Your Head and Ill Communication, made up of a mix of hip hop, funk instrumentals, punk, and chanting Tibetan monks.
Those explorations in sound wouldn’t have been possible without Paul’s Boutique, as Mike D explained in i-D (March 1994), “Most people viewed Paul’s Boutique as a total commercial failure…but it was necessary to get us to where we are now.”
