“3-Minute Rule” starts with the sounds of a ping pong game. This opening sample seems apropos for a track that is relentlessly laid-back, almost lazy-sounding, in fact. Coming after the aggressive intensity of the end of “The Sounds of Science”, “3-Minute Rule” seems slight, like the Beasties went on a mini-vacation. It’s forgivable, though, since everyone needs a rest sometimes, including the listener. 

The texture of “3-Minute Rule” is remarkably sparse. The main samples are from Sly & the Family Stone, the Steve Miller Band, and Fancy. The groove settles into a mid-tempo, lethargic funk. Lyrical interaction between the three Beasties, the quality that characterizes so much of the group’s best music, is notably missing. Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock each contribute about a minute of rapping without any commentary from the other two. We realize how much the Beasties are dependent upon collective storytelling. When they try to each tell their own narrative, devoid of the other’s support, the result is slightly stilted verses. After Ad-Rock’s final “And I’m out”, the groove continues for another thirty seconds or so. This ending feels kind of tedious and perfunctory.

It’s fitting that the most recognizable samples from “The Sounds of Science” come from the Beatles’ catalog. On this tune, the Beasties are experimenting with form and pushing the boundaries of their genre in a similar manner as the Fab Four did in the second half of their career. “The Sounds of Science” is essentially a three-movement suite about hip-hop bravado, and rarely has science sounded hipper.

The central conceit of “The Sound of Science” is that the Beasties’ music and personae are like great scientific discoveries that might not be appreciated at the time (“No one really knows what I’m talking about”) but will someday be celebrated as ingenious. Sure, it’s arrogant as can be. It’s also pretty prescient.

After the playful sonic complexity of “Egg Man”, the next track on Paul’s Boutique, “High Plains Drifter”, has a notably sparse texture. The track starts with the sound of a gun being cocked, proving to us that the petty crime of throwing eggs at people from the last tune has gotten more serious. The main sample found on much of “High Plains Drifter” is from “Those Shoes”, the Eagles song from the 1979 album The Long Run. The accented, double kick-drum and bass part imitates the sound of gunfire throughout. Despite the more solemn subject matter, the Beasties still give us the chance to play that old game “spot the pop-culture allusion,” with references to Clint Eastwood, Hunter Thompson, The Andy Griffith Show, and more. 

“High Plains Drifter” tells the story of a roaming kleptomaniac who likes to knock down mailboxes and fight with his girlfriend on his “cellular” (not a common activity in 1989). Much like Clint Eastwood’s character in the 1973 Western film that gave the song its title, our protagonist is a man of mystery. As the song starts, we’re not exactly sure what his crimes entail, we just know that he pulls out “a pair of pliers and pulled the bullet out of [his] chest”. Gross. He’s running from something, because he describes “fear and loathing across the country listening to my 8 -rack”, which he apparently shoplifted somewhere along the way. He seems like a nice enough guy, but then he reveals that he can be like “Travis Bickle when I feel that I’m getting pushed”. The reference to Robert De Niro’s character in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver suggests that our hero may in fact be a time bomb waiting to go off.

After the mostly serious storytelling of “Johnny Ryall”, the Beastie Boys remind us once again that they are truly the masters of jokester rap. “Egg Man”, as Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz reports on the audio commentary for the 20th-anniversary reissue of Paul’s Boutique, was inspired by the trio’s longtime penchant for egg throwing. The boys would drop eggs from hotel room windows and drive around in limousines launching shells at innocent bystanders. As if to prove that an accomplished work of art can be inspired by anything, no matter how trivial or adolescent, the Beasties turn their shell-cracking exploits into a mock-heroic epic full of faux pathos and legitimate laughs. 

“Egg Man” begins with the narrator noticing a bald man outside his window and launching an egg at his unprotected head. As if to confirm the old adage that once a criminal has committed a crime, he feels the urge to repeat it, the speaker then throws another egg at an unarmed man (he had no “egg gun”) in a convertible. These egg-throwing shenanigans quickly become habitual. Next, the criminal enters a man’s home, throws the yolk in his face, takes his cash, and leaves “my man standing with an egg moustache”. Our egg villain doesn’t rely on just one type of weapon, though. He sometimes uses hard boiled eggs instead of raw eggs (“tossed it out the window three minutes hot”). The speaker talks about how “drive-by eggings” are “plaguing L.A.” and begs us not to laugh, for “it’s no joke”. Indeed, crime doesn’t pay, so the jokester finds himself in a cell for his disservice to society. By the end of the song, though, it appears that the speaker has decided to use his egg-throwing powers for good. He warns us that “You made the mistake you judge a man by his race / You go through life with egg on your face”. The Egg Man has become a kind of vigilante, then, a Robin Hood figure who uses eggings to bring justice to those who have shown hatred toward their fellow humans.

On “Shake Your Rump”, the Beastie Boys proved that they could have as much fun as the next rap group whilst moving the genre in a more complex, intelligent direction. As stimulating as the disparate samples and multifarious cultural allusions are on this track, the Beasties still lock themselves securely into the “frat-rap” zone. Thematically, “Shake Your Rump” does little to move beyond the bravado-laced, dance-centric focus of Ill Communication (1986). With the following cut from Paul’s Boutique, though, the Beastie Boys manage to challenge the audience’s ideas of what they have come to expect from hip-hop. The Beasties were no longer just rappers—they were crafters of one of the 1980s’ great short stories. 

“Johnny Ryall” spins the sensory detail-rich tale of a homeless New York man who claims to have once been a great rockabilly musician. There’s a Mark Twain-like quality to the credulousness with which the speaker seems to accept the far-fetched facts of Johnny’s former life. Even though Ryall finds his home on the streets, “he’s no bum” because he “used to have teeth all filled with gold”. He had a “platinum voice” and claims to have written the song “Blue Suede Shoes”. He is referred to as the “leader of the homeless” and wears classy hand-me-down clothing. At the same time, Johnny is an alcoholic who “goes to sleep by falling down on his face” and has to “go upstate” to “get [his] head together” .