Paul's Boutique: The Science of Shaking Your Rump

Yo yo yo yo. Guess who’s back? That’s right, your boy Perspicacious P aka the Vanilla Thrilla aka White Steve Prefontaine aka the Avenging Methuen Disco Godfather. This was going to be in my last post, but it would have made it incredibly long and I know the masses can’t take my brilliance in such vast quantities. It’s almost like seeing the face of God. Let me tell you folks, I’ve seen that face and it’s FANTASTIC.

Any damn way, today is a special treat. A review of a book about one of my favorite albums ever, Paul’s Boutique.

Paul’s Boutique – 33 1/3 (Book 15 of 25)

This book is a history of the Beastie Boys’ best album, Polly Wog Stew. OK no. It’s actually about Paul’s Boutique, which to me is the greatest hip hop album ever recorded, with all due respect to NAS, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Lil Wayne, Lil B, Dr. Dre, Justin Bieber and Public Enemy.

Let me start by saying I am one of the biggest Beastie Boy fans in the world. The greatest moment of my concert-going life was when I was front row at a show in 1998 at the Worcester Centrum. Mike D kept sweating on me and I was so dehydrated that afterward I almost passed out. 

Obviously it was totally fucking awesome.

Of course, we can’t talk about the Beasties without mentioning MCA’s recent passing. This was the celebrity death that has affected me more than any other. I wasn’t moved to tears or anything, but I was pretty bummed out. I’ll write a post in the future on what the Beasties meant and still mean to me, but let’s stick to the book for now.

After License to Ill (Fight for Your Right to Party, Girls), the Boys got into a dispute with their label, Def Jam. They eventually left their native New York and went to LA to escape the madness of the East Coast, start a new album and embrace the madness of the West Coast.

They hooked up with the Dust Brothers production team (who eventually went on to work with Beck and um…Hanson) who were the perfect partners for this stage of the Beasties’ career. Paul’s Boutique was simultaneously sampling’s greatest moment and final act. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to make this record in 2012 because of all the lawsuits it would spur or money it would take to clear the samples. One member of the production team said it had between 100 and 300 samples. Many are changed/slowed down/twisted beyond recognition, showing how sampling isn’t simply ripping something off, but instead artistic recycling in its highest form. These layered samples, when mixed with the Beasties 70s pop culture obsessed rhymes and breakneck delivery, created a pastiche collage of brilliance.

The book itself is more about the production team and the creation of the music than it is about the writing of the lyrics or the Beastie Boys themselves, which allows for a different perspective than most have heard. That said, more from the Boys would have given the book another layer of depth that second-hand accounts simply can’t provide. Although the author interviewed Mike D, Ad Rock and MCA are noticeably absent. It would have been immensely interesting to hear their take on the album. 

One especially compelling passage was when the Dust Brothers were surprised--and almost hurt--that the Beasties never called to work with them again. The Dust Brothers thought that it would be the beginning of a fruitful creative relationship, but apparently the Beasties wanted to explore their own impulses and kept production largely in-house on subsequent albums.

The book also explored the corporate side of the album and the bidding war that preceded its creation. After the Boys left Def Jam, they went to Capitol Records, who were hoping to get an album whose sales would be on par with License to Ill. Unfortunately, Paul’s Boutique was a commercial disaster upon release, and many in the corporate office who were supporters of the Beastie Boys soon found themselves without a job. Eventually the Beasties made good on their end of the deal, but it wouldn’t be until 1992’s Check Your Head. Paul’s Boutique would also ultimately go platinum, but in 1989 it was a bit too much for most to take in.

I read this EXTREMELY fast, at least by my standards. But by the end I slowed myself down because I didn’t want to finish the book. The inside story of my favorite album from my favorite group was like crack to me. All the details in their acid-dropping, blunt-smoking and egg-throwing glory.

My one wish would be to have a time machine to go back to 1989 to hang out with the Beastie Boys and their crew while they made this album. Since I can’t do that, this is the next best thing. I recommend it to any Beastie Boys fan. It’s a Delorean in paperback form.

Guest Post: I Sing The Body Electric

Today's guest post is from Dawn who blogs over on her blog Joyberry Pie.

Enjoy:

So this week on Mad Men it was revealed that Don Draper is completely unmoved by music. It does nothing for him, it all sounds the same, it's useless beyond what it can do for him to help to sell a product. I thought that this was a brilliant stroke in his character development because, of course Don Draper has no ear for music. He can't put his penis in it, for one, but seriously, it makes sense because his life is full of pain he's still not ready to negotiate and music is superfluous, a nuisance, a pastime for people who can afford silliness and impracticality or don't know the joy of drowning it all in whiskey. I know people who feel that way, I recognize the type, and I can't relate even a little bit. 

Music moves me like nothing else in the world. It tricks me emotionally, moves me to tears in its power even when it's not sad. I cry more because of music's effect on me more than I cry due any other stimuli, except maybe death of a loved one. Sometimes I cry like a normal person, because I'm sad or overwhelmed or frustrated or hormonal. I'm pretty sure I cried at the birth of my son, but I don't know if I can trust my exhausted memory on that. I didn't cry at my wedding, I don't think I've cried at any wedding ever (except because of the music, I'll get to that later). But a song, any song in the right presentation, can trigger the waterworks in the most embarrassing ways. I'm talking during amateur plays, my toddler's music class, oh christ, youtube clips of flash mobs. I'm so sensitive to swelling and crescendo - if I were a supervillian, this would be my undoing. Show me that bit with the seemingly random people singing from The Sound of Music in the train station and you'll know all my evil secrets by the first time we're brought back to "doe, a deer."

And I know I'm not alone in this (though I sometimes--when I'm the only person snuffling away in a movie theater--I feel mighty alone). It's advertising, it's movie scores, it's memorial montages. Not even Scientific American can really explain this phenomenon, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-music-make-us-fe and that's, like, totally science, people. It's sort of fantastic to be caught up in this level of feeling, uncontrollable and inconvenient and inexplicable as it may be. So let's just call it divine something and move on to what this post is really about, which is:

9 Musical Moments in Pop Culture That Move Me To Tears, Every Time

1) Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles


Fuck this song. Never play it around me. I recognize it's one of the best songs ever written, I mean, I'm not a total philistine. But between the heavy strings and the subject matter (nobody came to her funeral! That is ice cold!), I can't do it. I just can't. Revolver is my favorite of all Beatles albums, but I've never once listened to Track 2. 

2) Oh What a Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold


I heard this on the radio when I was a kid, and I listened so hard to the words and it sent me into the biggest depression spiral. I just cried and cried and I couldn't explain to my parents what happened. I mean, in my head there was a swirl of, "HE IS SO LONELY. Why didn't anyone notice? And why you gotta be so upbeat about it, Andrew Gold?" But expressing that at the time, it seemed impossible. I think eventually they got that the song is what made me cry, but I don't think anyone in the world can relate to the sad it inspires in me. 

3) I Sing The Body Electric from the movie Fame

http://youtu.be/tG-wl2qqD7Y

Fame is a totally underrated movie. Not interested in the remake. It's just a terrific, objective, unforced look at a year in the life of performing arts students. There's jealousy and coming out and suicide and abortion and DANCING. And this scene, the finale, the culmination of the year you spend with these kids for better or worse, it just knocks me over every time with the chills factor. 

4) Sunrise Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof


Ah, more childhood trauma. I remember so clearly getting choked up hearing this in the church at my uncle's wedding when I was five. Five years old and I was all, "Oy, the passage of time, so cruel." No but for real this song really broke something in me, and even then I struggled to keep the tears in because I didn't want anyone to see, I didn't want to talk to anyone about why I was . See also: Sabbath Prayer. Or any song from this musical, come to think of it. I mean, even the most celebratory number is disrupted by a fucking pogrom. So just... never see Fiddler on the Roof. I mean, see it, but just know you'll want to kill yourself by the end. It's music that does that.

5) Century Plant by Victoria Williams
I never heard her version of the song, if there is one. There probably is one. But I'm speaking about its appearance in the movie Camp. I was so conflicted about this movie when it came out, and I can't for the life of me remember why. Maybe I thought it was too stereotypical? But I guess that there's a movie at all about a performing arts camp that allows a birthday breakfast party with everyone in drag, gives agency to gay teenagers and features not only a juvenile Anna Kendrick KILLING a number from Company but a real-live cameo from Mr. Stephen Sondheim himself is nothing short of unbelievable. And this scene is climactic in and of itself does me in. What a song, what a performance. Blubbering, commence.

6) The "Maybe" reprise from Annie (this is the original appearance, I can't find the reprise with Daddy Warbucks anywhere. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.)


I saw Annie in the theater when it came out and have no clear recollection of my first experience. But I must have liked it enough to want to see it again because I won a free pass to the cinema in a limbo contest at the roller skating rink (WOW that is a true sentence and I did not even live in Happy Days) and I used it to go see Annie again. My beloved grandfather accompanied me, and I remember getting to this part of the movie and bawling uncontrollably, like gulping for air and snotting all over the place and he gave me one of his ever-present pressed white hankies. God what a gentleman, I miss my Pup so much. ANYWAY if you have a heart this little number affects you, no? 

7) Fix You from Young @heart 

http://youtu.be/W_n0zvoHlVk

This is another gimme. Anyone with a soul would bawl here. I bawled through the entire movie, but that's just me and my weakness for the elderly. But this number, man. I won't even give you the surround of what leads up to it because it's too gutting. Just be prepared to feel raw.

8) Les Miserables


All of it. Just all of it. Starting from "For God's sake," in this number--and even through the innkeeper number because it's just so goddamn rousing, and "rousing" can sometimes be the stealthiest provocateur in these cases-- and straight through to the end. I would love to see this musical live in a theater, but I don't think my constitution could handle it. 

9) I'll close with the most recent occurrence in my life: the do-over proposal scene from Up All Night. I can't find the link to this scene anywhere unfortunately, so I embedded the entire episode - if you have the inclination fast forward to the last couple of minutes, it's pretty sparkling.



Like I said, I rarely cry at joyous occasions. But all bets are off when a flash mob is involved. And Will and Christina do make a believably wonderful couple. I felt as choked up as she was.

So! Music! Goddamn! It's a comfort to me that while this may be the lamest bit of subject matter this blog has ever showcased, it's not even close to being the lamest thing about me. Thank you Kev for inviting this madness, and giving me a chance to cry all over again as I re-watched each link. 


-Dawn

Welcome to Three tha Hard Way!

Let’s begin at the beginning.

One day I was having a debate with two of my friends on Facebook over whether or not the Beatles deserve all the accolades that have been heaped on them by every music critic since 1970 (they don’t). The gentlemen I was debating with, Matt and Kevin, are smart, funny and articulate. They love music. They love movies. They love pop culture. So I thought to myself, why not bring our incredible insights from the shadows of Facebook into the light for all the world to see?  I mean, a blog dedicated to music, movies and pop culture? Totally unique and not-at-all a saturated concept, amirite? How could it not work?

I have no idea where this will all go. Maybe we each do one entry and then we’re done. Maybe we blow up and I finally realize my dream of making over $30,000 over a two-year span. The bar of expectation has been set low. I would like this to be a place for our friends to debate and discuss those things that move us in life. Whether it’s reminiscing over the Webster episode where he hid in the clock to evade the burglars, the first concert we went to, how crappy the new Weezer album is or how dope the new Kanye single is, I hope this can be a place where people interact and share what they love about the world of pop culture. It should be funny, classless, occasionally insightful and never dull.

The base will be me and Matty and Kevin. Hence the name of the blog, Three tha Hard Way. But we’re totally open to putting up posts by anyone else who is interested, especially if that person loves Eddie Money. So come one, come all. Let’s talk about how rad life is.

(For the record, Matty genuinely believes that the Beatles don’t get nearly enough credit for whatever it is that they did. I think he said if Beethoven were in Liverpool at the time they formed, he wouldn’t have been fit to wipe Ringo’s ass.)