New Books In Music

After spending millions to steal superstar Brooklyn-based rappers the Beastie Boys away from Def Jam Records in 1988, Capitol Records had high hopes for the act’s follow up effort. And why not? License to Ill (1986) had sold over five million copies while topping the Billboard charts. MTV had fallen in love with the trio and played their videos around the clock. By all accounts their next LP would be another MTV-ready commercial monster. But as Dan LeRoy recounts in his eminently entertaining and essential Paul’s Boutique(Continuum, 2009), the Beastie Boys had a different agenda. They took Capitol’s money and relocated to Los Angeles to party, write and record the new LP. Rather than spend their advance on expensive recording studios, they laid down most of the tracks in the living room of one of their collaborators. While at work, the Beasties — and their producers the Dust Brothers — drew on an encyclopedic knowledge of pop music as they selected the hundreds of samples of othe