from the seventies funk-rock group Fancy’s “Feel Good” (and not, as is sometimes claimed, “Take the Money and Run” by Steve Miller), Yauch’s riff drives a series of verses that encompass nearly all the Beasties’ major concerns on
Paul’s Boutique
.
The boys reference vintage TV favorites from “OurGang” to “Dragnet” to “Three’s Company”; slyly salute disparate musical inspirations (John Fogerty and George Clinton); compare themselves to a Big Apple sports team (the Yankees); bemoan their bad reputation while also threatening gunplay; and of course, make pit stops for girls and weed. The rhymes never reach the level of the two most famous writers cited—Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan, who both had a better knack for such breakneck lyrical bric-a-brac—but they do provide an effective three-minute Cliff’s Notes version of the disc.
The most intriguing couplets, however, belong to Adam Horovitz. The female object of his ire is not identified, but the references to her agent and promotional glossies suggest his sneering rhymes may have been directed to an actress girlfriend. Matt Dike concurs, noting, “They were really disgusted with a lot of these Hollywood chicks.”
Hey Ladies
“As to why this became the first single,” Mike D would say of “Hey Ladies” years later, “… your guess is as good as mine.”
The question is certainly valid, especially given the tune’s weak chart performance. But its density aside—and with no fewer than 16 samples and an equal number of pop-cultural references in the lyrics, it is the album’s most complex song—“Hey Ladies” made a certain commercial sense. One reason is its catchiness; the rhythm guitar lick from the breakdown of the Commodores’ instrumental “Machine Gun” provides a simple and solid foundation for the track’s wide reaching collage. Yet the tune can also be argued as single-worthy when considered alongside the trends of the moment.
In the summer of 1989, the swinging triplet-powered rhythm that powered “Hey Ladies” was nearly inescapable. Led by Bobby Brown, new jack swing remained urban music’s hottest offshoot; the influence of Britain’s acid house movement was beginning to make its way across the Atlantic, in mongrel fashion, via the group Soul II Soul; and even go-go, which had already missed the big time in the mid-eighties, was making a last-ditch attempt at wider acclaim, thanks to the huge 1988 success of E.U.’s “Da Butt.”
Go-go would also play a role in “Hey Ladies,” thanks to the Kurtis Blow sample from “Party Time” that gave the song its title. The tune’s other signature element, its cowbell, came from “Come Let Me Love You,” a 1981 club favorite by Jeanette “Lady” Day. And the presence of both samples points to something interesting about the
Paul’s Boutique
aesthetic.
While its Adam Bernstein–directed video, with its mirror ball, pimp suits and blaxploitation references, forever stamped “Hey Ladies” as a seventies pastiche, the fact is that such a title more properly belongs to “Shake Your Rump,” which draws much of its musical inspiration from disco-era touchstones. “Hey Ladies,” on the other hand, actually features more samples from the eighties, including bites from early hip-hop hits by Afrika Bambaataa and the World Famous Supreme Team.
The album’s fond look back ends at around 1986, when the rhythmically uninventive and aurally sterile pop of Stock, Aitken, Waterman and various imitators became music’s dominant sound. But several samples from the earlyyears of the decade—before rich, analog sounds gave way to cold, digital replacements—figure prominently on
Paul’s Boutique
.
Only hip-hop, music’s beacon of creativity during the digital winter, remained a valid post-1986 sample source for the Dust Brothers; Public Enemy’s “You’re Gonna Get Yours” and “Bring the Noise,” a hit just the summer before, are both quoted in “Egg Man.”
Paul’s Boutique
.
The boys reference vintage TV favorites from “OurGang” to “Dragnet” to “Three’s Company”; slyly salute disparate musical inspirations (John Fogerty and George Clinton); compare themselves to a Big Apple sports team (the Yankees); bemoan their bad reputation while also threatening gunplay; and of course, make pit stops for girls and weed. The rhymes never reach the level of the two most famous writers cited—Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan, who both had a better knack for such breakneck lyrical bric-a-brac—but they do provide an effective three-minute Cliff’s Notes version of the disc.
The most intriguing couplets, however, belong to Adam Horovitz. The female object of his ire is not identified, but the references to her agent and promotional glossies suggest his sneering rhymes may have been directed to an actress girlfriend. Matt Dike concurs, noting, “They were really disgusted with a lot of these Hollywood chicks.”
Hey Ladies
“As to why this became the first single,” Mike D would say of “Hey Ladies” years later, “… your guess is as good as mine.”
The question is certainly valid, especially given the tune’s weak chart performance. But its density aside—and with no fewer than 16 samples and an equal number of pop-cultural references in the lyrics, it is the album’s most complex song—“Hey Ladies” made a certain commercial sense. One reason is its catchiness; the rhythm guitar lick from the breakdown of the Commodores’ instrumental “Machine Gun” provides a simple and solid foundation for the track’s wide reaching collage. Yet the tune can also be argued as single-worthy when considered alongside the trends of the moment.
In the summer of 1989, the swinging triplet-powered rhythm that powered “Hey Ladies” was nearly inescapable. Led by Bobby Brown, new jack swing remained urban music’s hottest offshoot; the influence of Britain’s acid house movement was beginning to make its way across the Atlantic, in mongrel fashion, via the group Soul II Soul; and even go-go, which had already missed the big time in the mid-eighties, was making a last-ditch attempt at wider acclaim, thanks to the huge 1988 success of E.U.’s “Da Butt.”
Go-go would also play a role in “Hey Ladies,” thanks to the Kurtis Blow sample from “Party Time” that gave the song its title. The tune’s other signature element, its cowbell, came from “Come Let Me Love You,” a 1981 club favorite by Jeanette “Lady” Day. And the presence of both samples points to something interesting about the
Paul’s Boutique
aesthetic.
While its Adam Bernstein–directed video, with its mirror ball, pimp suits and blaxploitation references, forever stamped “Hey Ladies” as a seventies pastiche, the fact is that such a title more properly belongs to “Shake Your Rump,” which draws much of its musical inspiration from disco-era touchstones. “Hey Ladies,” on the other hand, actually features more samples from the eighties, including bites from early hip-hop hits by Afrika Bambaataa and the World Famous Supreme Team.
The album’s fond look back ends at around 1986, when the rhythmically uninventive and aurally sterile pop of Stock, Aitken, Waterman and various imitators became music’s dominant sound. But several samples from the earlyyears of the decade—before rich, analog sounds gave way to cold, digital replacements—figure prominently on
Paul’s Boutique
.
Only hip-hop, music’s beacon of creativity during the digital winter, remained a valid post-1986 sample source for the Dust Brothers; Public Enemy’s “You’re Gonna Get Yours” and “Bring the Noise,” a hit just the summer before, are both quoted in “Egg Man.”
Similar Books
