Paul’s Boutique is still a criminally underrated gem of an album, and ‘Hey Ladies’ is probably the strongest song on it (although hands up for ‘Shake Your Rump’ and ‘Egg Man’ – hell yeah).

Released just before all those highly-strung musicians brought a court case against sampling, Paul’s Boutique contained over 100 different song samples, from artists like The Beatles, Curtis Mayfield, Led Zeppelin, James Brown and Pink Floyd. There are also loads of different TV and movie samples just thrown into songs seemingly at random. But everything fits together, and it’s a great album to listen to and try to guess the riff.

On ‘Hey Ladies’ alone, there are samples from all over the place. For 1989, it’s an extremely funky song, and mirrors in a way what the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were doing over in Manchester. It’s not a million miles removed from what Public Enemy were doing, either.

Groovy bongo drums, choppy guitar (’mickey guitar’ as a friend of mine calls it, ‘mickey’ being Irish slang for a certain body part), and some great little bass riffs are dotted all over this tune, while the Beasties trade skits about the type of ‘ladeeez’ they like.

The video for ‘Hey Ladies’ is also very cool, done in a retro-70’s disco style, very Saturday Night Fever. You’ve gotta love that yellow suit and hat. Actually, the Beasties also released ‘Shadrach’ off of Paul’s Boutique, and the video for that is absolutely class – it seems to be hand-drawn.

Anyway, check out the ‘Hey Ladies’ video. A song like that simply couldn’t be made today – with all those samples on the song, the band would get lawsuits from all over. But, samples aside, it’s just a really good song, and a great way to kick off any summer party.

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