Paul's Boutique KEXP Large
Source: Artist
It should only take one listen to take in the sheer brilliance of Paul's Boutique, the Beastie Boys' second full-length LP. Seattle independent radio station KEXP is well aware of that fact, but are still opting to devote an entire 12 hours of programming to the record. Dubbed "KEXP Steps Inside Paul’s Boutique," the special feature will run Friay, July 24th (that means today), and spin not only every track on the album, but also every known cut the Beastie Boys sampled. It's being touted as "an odyssey of diverse, unorthodox radio," and we couldn't have summed it up better ourselves.
Things will kick off at 6 a.m. PST (9 a.m. EST) with a sharp dissection of the album, including rare bonus tracks and demos that never made the final track list. Paul's Boutique co-producers The Dust Brothers will also stop by the KEXP studio to talk shop. "The unpredictable-yet-cohesive composition of Paul’s Boutique will result in truly one-of-a-kind programming blocks," the station promised. "Expect to hear spoken word artist Lightnin’ Rod, the R&B horn band Tower of Power, Bernard Herrmann’s iconic score from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and the Eagles in close proximity."
In an interview with Dangerous Minds, radio station program director John Richards detailed a bit of what he's already learned about Paul's Boutique during the day's planning stages. "One thing was that [The Dust Brothers] were really trying to make a hit with the Beastie Boys (and said they easily could have)," Richards said. "But that the Beasties were against it, they wanted a cool record that people would discover years from when it was made. Turns out, that’s exactly what happened and continues to happen."
It's a truly wonderful thing--digging back deep into the annals of hip-hop history and devoting and entire day to the process. Those in the Seattle area should keep their FM radio dials locked to 90.3 today, and the rest of the world can tune in as well via the KEXP online stream.
