There will never be another record like Paul’s Boutique. Not because there aren’t innovative musicians, but because after changes in copyright law required all samples to be cleared with their creators, the only person who could afford to make it is Bill Gates. On one song, “Egg Man,” the Beasties sampled Sly and the Family Stone, Public Enemy, Curtis Mayfield, Bernard Herrmann’s score from Cape Fear and dialogue from Jaws and Psycho. All of the samples were stitched together and overstuffed until they became a mattress for bouncy, pop culture obsessed rhymes (“There’s more to me than you’ll ever know/ And I’ve got more hits than Sadaharu Oh/ Tom Thumb, Tom Cushman or Tom Foolery/ Date women on TV with the help of Chuck Woolery”). Few records of any kind evince this much head-spinning joy, and coming on the heels of Licensed to Ill, their self-consciously idiotic debut, it announced that the Beasties were an innovative force.
All-TIME 100 Albums
The album may be dead, but it's certainly not forgotten. TIME's critics have chosen the 100 greatest and most influential musical compilations since 1954.
Paul’s Boutique
Full List
1950s
1960s
- Abbey Road
- Bitches Brew
- Stand!
- Astral Weeks
- The Band
- At Folsom Prison
- Lady Soul
- The Beatles (“The White Album”)
- Are You Experienced
- I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- The Velvet Underground and Nico
- Blonde on Blonde
- Pet Sounds
- Revolver
- Highway 61 Revisited
- Otis Blue
- Rubber Soul
- A Love Supreme
- Live at the Apollo (1963)
- Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
- King of the Delta Blues
1970s
- London Calling
- One Nation Under a Groove
- Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
- Rumours
- Hotel California
- Ramones
- Songs in the Key of Life
- Born to Run
- Horses
- Red Headed Stranger
- Call Me
- Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
- The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust
- Exile on Main Street
- Talking Book
- The Harder They Come
- Blue
- Coat of Many Colors
- Hunky Dory
- Led Zeppelin IV (a.k.a. Zoso)
- Paranoid
- Sticky Fingers
- Tapestry
- What’s Going On
- Who’s Next
- After the Gold Rush
- Bridge Over Troubled Water
- John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
- Moondance
1980s
- Like a Prayer
- Paul’s Boutique
- The Stone Roses
- It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
- Straight Outta Compton
- Straight Outta Compton
- Document
- Paid in Full
- Sign O’ The Times
- The Joshua Tree
- Graceland
- Master of Puppets
- Raising Hell
- Legend
- Stop Making Sense
- The Great Twenty-Eight
- Thriller
- Back in Black
- Purple Rain
1990s
2000s