‘Paul’s Boutique,’ the Beastie Boys’ fantastic second album recently received the reissue treatment with a digitally remastered 20th anniversary edition available in stores now.

The album was recorded in 1988, at a time when the record-buying public — and even the Beasties themselves — had written off the trio as one-dimensional pretenders and shallow purveyors of frat-boy friendly hip-hop that had long worn out its welcome. Intending to prove everybody wrong, the Beasties moved to Los Angeles to bug out for a while and enlisted the production services of studio maestros the Dust Brothers in order to record an album that had more depth and artistic vision.

The record that followed played like a dense, kaleidoscopic journey through the darkest annals of pop music with the Dust Brothers utilizing dozens upon dozens of samples creatively piled on top of each other, resulting in some of the dopest beats in history. The Beasties, too, had stepped up their game, expanding their focus from partying and girls to tell tales of washed-up rockabilly singers, terrorist egg raids, crack-dealing policeman and High Plains drifters. The samples blend brilliantly into one another as MCA, Adrock and Mike D nasally compete for who can drop the most obscure pop culture references and the stupidest similes.

The legendary hip-hop record is famous for initially flopping commercially, bewildering a public used to the old Beasties, more inclined to rap about Budweiser over Led Zeppelin samples than rap about ecstasy over Funkadelic samples. Either that, or hip-hop fans failed to care, which is a shame because they were missing out on one of the most original, boundary-pushing rap records up to that point, and there would never be another like it again because it would be legally impossible to clear so many samples.

Over time, “Paul’s Boutique’s” reputation grew in stature, and it is now considered an all-time classic by critics and fans alike. The past 20 years have been kind to this landmark, sounding as fresh and richly-textured as ever. The remaster adds a commentary track featuring the Beastie Boys discussing each track as they play out.

An interesting curiosity to be sure, but the music is the real attraction.