10 Perfect Albums That No One Saw Coming

The entire appeal of the Beastie Boys in the early '80s seemed to be catering to the meat headed brand of frat bros. From the moment that Fight For Your Right to Party made its way onto MTV, you never really had to think all that hard to get the message behind this kind of juvenile attempt at rapping. The Beasties were still serious artists though, and Paul's Boutique may have been the album that the fans needed.

At first, there were a lot of Beasties diehards who didn't care for this album, being a lot more mellow and pulling from less hard rock this time around. If you look back on what they were doing though, this was the kind of psychedelic wall of sound that's still unmatched in the world of hip hop. Taking the entire concept of sampling to its logical conclusion, every single one of these songs has a kaleidoscope of sound to draw from, as Mike D, Ad Rock, and MCA flirt with different genres like funk and jazz on some of their breaks.

Even though the record didn't necessarily do well right out of the gate, this might have been the reason why the Beasties were able to survive in the next few decades, going past sampling altogether and writing their own backing tracks on albums like Check Your Head and Ill Communication. In between all of the macho posturing that you got back on Licensed to Ill, there was still a ton of potential in these knuckleheads from New York.