Shake Your Rump-ah

July 25, 2015 9:27 AM

Looking for a great soundtrack for your Saturday? Yesterday, to celebrate the 26th anniversary of the release of the seminal album, Seattle radio station KEXP spent 12 hours playing every song sampled on the Paul's Boutique. The station's streaming archive of the show will be available for the next 2 weeks and is filled with history and interviews interspersed with a pretty eclectic mix of some fine music.

There is of course a Spotify playlist of just the sampled songs, but you'll miss out on the Beastie's themselves as well as a ton of history and trivia.

You can also listen to the archived show at a higher bit rate by launching KEXP's player here (show starts at like 6:02 AM), this seems to work better for me through Chrome.

Finally, KEXP is a goddamn national treasure and listener supported. Consider a donation.

posted by Slarty Bartfast (26 comments total)

Incredible.
posted by fungible at 9:41 AM on July 25, 2015

Listened to a lot of this yesterday. Heard Sweet "Into the Night" and the riff at 3:15 was sampled somewhere else but whosampled does not have the song I'm thinking of -- anybody have any clue what it might be? I'm thinking something breakcore-ish, but I just know that I instantly knew that riff from something.

I definitely recommend this. I think this is what Radio is awesome at. I've got a few loooooooong mixes from Autechre they did live on radio (a couple 10 hour mixes and a 12 hour mix). You just can't get that on a CD/Album unless it's a boxed set (actually can you imagine a boxed set special edition of Pauls Boutique with all the songs packaged? Again prolly impossible, because it's an album, not a broadcast, which prolly costs more licensing, but then - if they can make those compilation albums, I don't see why not?)
posted by symbioid at 9:48 AM on July 25, 2015

I'm reminded why I never listen to Internet radio stations. Finding anything is a complete disaster. That link goes to a place that is essentially _everything_ and you have to know what you want before you see it.
posted by clvrmnky at 10:00 AM on July 25, 2015

This is brilliant, thank you!
posted by billiebee at 10:01 AM on July 25, 2015

Ask for Janice!
posted by chavenet at 10:13 AM on July 25, 2015 [5 favorites]

That link goes to a place that is essentially _everything_ and you have to know what you want before you see it

You just go to show archive, Friday 24th and launch from the 6am morning show. Those details are all in the post, no?
posted by billiebee at 10:22 AM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

KEXP is my single favorite thing about living in the Seattle metro area. Thanks for posting this! I heard about it on the morning show on Thursday but life got in the way and I would have totally forgotten.
posted by town of cats at 10:27 AM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

I spent a couple of hours yesterday listening to this, tuning in right at the beginning of the Shadrach portion and jumping off the train an hour or so into the B-Boy Bouillabaisse stew. The music is just phenomenal, of course, but the addition of recorded interviews with the Dust Brothers and really astute DJ commentary made this a top-shelf musical analysis. Really worth listening to.
posted by vverse23 at 11:00 AM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is so great. I'm currently downloading this and plan to spend the next week listening to it on loop, along with a donation, because this is so, so great. So great!
posted by TheNewWazoo at 11:17 AM on July 25, 2015

I'm currently downloading this

How can I do this?
posted by chavenet at 11:20 AM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

the addition of recorded interviews with the Dust Brothers and really astute DJ commentary made this a top-shelf musical analysis. Really worth listening to.

I totally agree of course. It is really hard to think of another popular music record that has so earned the right to serious scholarship as Paul's Boutique. I mean if people "study" Bob Dylan or Sgt Pepper or Exile in college courses, then Paul's Boutique is the Ulysses of pop music.

I'm always impressed by bands who achieve early commercial success, decide they don't like where their career is headed and say "Fuck it, we're gonna do what we love and if this is our last album, then so be it." (Rush's 2112 comes to mind).
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:26 AM on July 25, 2015 [4 favorites]

How can I do this?
posted by chavenet

You just have to know to look behind the curtain.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 11:33 AM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Did anyone ever calculate what it would cost today to make that record, actually paying for the samples?
posted by gottabefunky at 11:34 AM on July 25, 2015

St. Peter: "MCA's in the house. Whatcha gonna do?"

Whole host of heavenly choirs: "Go AWOOOOOOOOL!"
posted by Groundhog Week at 11:34 AM on July 25, 2015 [6 favorites]

This is fantastic! (for an alternative, slightly more concise take, get caught in the middle of a three way mix)
posted by steganographia at 12:05 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Did anyone ever calculate what it would cost today to make that record, actually paying for the samples?

Yes. (Excerpt from Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling)

The estimate is that the licencing fees would have been about $10 per CD sold.
posted by frimble at 2:19 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Well, I know what I'm playing for grill night.

Paul's Boutique + Local steaks + Grundhofer's brats + copious amounts of craft beer + bonfire should be a slam dunk, right?
posted by Sphinx at 2:48 PM on July 25, 2015 [3 favorites]

This is fun, thanks. Good as Paul's Boutique is, I'll argue that it's the second best hip-hop album celebrating an anniversary today.

Twenty years ago today.

Though, Sphinx, your soundtrack (& menu!) for a cook out sounds preferable. BTNH fits best once the focus of the evening is a bonfire and darkness, rather than grilling -- it's a brilliant album, but dark.

No samples here: E 1999 Eternal deserves note for its production. A sample from the album, from DJ U Neek.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 3:25 PM on July 25, 2015

Not my favorite Beasties album (I'm a Check Your Head guy) but it's definitely groundbreaking. The 33 1/3 book on Paul's Boutique is a great history on the Beasties in general.

Also, KEXP is a treasure.
posted by Ufez Jones at 4:10 PM on July 25, 2015

Along with '3 Feet High and Rising' and 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,' 'Paul's Boutique' is the pinnacle of the free-sampling era. Thanks for this post.
posted by box at 5:33 PM on July 25, 2015 [3 favorites]

Shake Europa!
posted by Brocktoon at 5:53 PM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

Driven to listen to the actual album once again, one thing strikes me beyond the sampling work (which was extraordinary). The way they rapped then is something you just don't see - even in their more recent releases. They do constant trading back and forth, finishing each other's lines, chorusing together at vital moments, working as... a band! I really think that, to this day (and I listen to a lot of rap) I can't think of anyone (except RUN DMC, occasionally) who really did that. Rap is usually more like jazz - one guy does his solo, then the next guy (or girl) and so on. Even earlier rap (like Sugarhill) was more like that. Can anyone name others? I've always been curious.
posted by fungible at 7:39 PM on July 25, 2015 [5 favorites]

Doesn't work for me. I tried the regular link and the high quality link. Both times I'm getting a few minutes of music then "Air Break" that lasts for hours. It's too bad because I like Paul's Boutique quite a bit and the source music for their samples is great.
posted by philquadra at 7:53 PM on July 25, 2015

Yeah, I think their server is probably overwhelmed, this event got a lot of press. I'm hoping to grab a complete download in the next few days because the commentary and interviews really flesh out the process that created the album nicely. Through the course of yesterday live and today through the archive I've heard most of it and it is well worth it. This was my soundtrack to my BBQ this evening and it was perfect as background and as a conversation starter.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:02 PM on July 25, 2015

OK, I was wondering if this was region-blocked (the stream never loads for me in .au), but "server overwhelmed" seems viable too. I guess I've got 2 weeks to try and get a working connection, and then it's off to the torrents.
posted by russm at 4:04 AM on July 26, 2015

Well, it seems to work again. Listened for a couple of hours and it's a really fun show up until the DJ's change. The first DJ is a bit long winded but well, I can take it. The next one is much much worse and can't stop talking in a exceedingly irritating voice about mostly nothing (like radio DJ's are prone to). I'll pass this one and will look up the sampled tunes on youtube or whatever. It's a pity such a great concept is ruined in the execution.
posted by Kosmob0t at 8:42 AM on July 29, 2015