Beastie Boys Reveal What’s REALLY on Their Gold Record

Beastie Boys members Ad-Rock and Mike D. recently revealed a surprising discovery, learning that the music on their gold record for Paul’s Boutique was not music from the album at all.

The two living Beastie Boys members were guesting on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast when they dropped a little bit of knowledge on the host about their gold record. One might naturally assume that the band’s own music is pressed into those gold record plaques that you get for reaching a certain sales plateau, but Ad-Rock proceeded to debunk that idea after conducting his own experiment.

How Did Ad-Rock Find Out What Was on the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique Gold Record?

“So we’re at our studio here in California and I was smoking the pot,” revealed Ad-Rock to the bemused host. “This was a long time ago. And we had a gold record on the wall. It was our record, Paul’s Boutique. I was looking at it and I could see it has our label and I could see that it has whatever, like nine songs on the one side. And I was looking at the actual gold record and it only had four songs on it.”

The off count piqued the musician’s curiosity, so he shared with O’Brien that the members decided to open up the gold record plaque and test it out. “Open it like, I mean, broke the glass and took the record out and put it on the thing,” clarified Mike D.

“It was somebody doing like piano versions of like Barry Manilow, like [Morris Albert’s] ‘Feelings.’ Just some other shit,” confirmed Ad-Rock of what was on their Paul’s Boutique gold record.

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The change up seemed to baffle O’Brien and the band members alike. “I don’t know about anybody else,” said Ad-Rock when O’Brien questioned if all gold records just had random music on them. “I’d like to think that for, you know, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, Barry Manilow, a real mega-star, that it was actually their record,” added Mike D.

Beasties Gold and Platinum

According to the RIAA, the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique album was certified gold for 500,000 copies sold on Sept. 22, 1989, just a little over two months after the album was released. While the boys may have deconstructed the plaque for that album to learn the great mystery of what was on their gold record, Paul’s Boutique has since been certified platinum (in 1995) and double platinum (in 1999), with the latest certification noting over two million copies sold.

Licensed to Ill remains their biggest seller, with the 1986 album reaching a diamond certification (10 million sold) back in 2015. Ill Communication (1994) is a triple-platinum seller, as is 1998’s Hello Nasty. Check Your Head, their 1992 album, is a double-platinum seller and their 2004 album, To the 5 Boroughs, went platinum.