After the debut, the group moved away from Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin's Def Jam, probably due to artistic differences, and moved to Los Angeles in early 1988, signing with Capitol and EMI.
The trio composed by Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, Adam "MCA" Yauch and Michael "Mike D" Diamond creates a profoundly different album from the previous one in terms of sound: the music is mainly based on sampling and touches every genre with numerous samples (105, record), fresh, varied and crackling chosen by the Dust Brothers (Easy Mike and Giz), who can still sample everything from anyone and create a rich and flourishing sound panorama, clean and brilliant, dope, technically impeccable and by a fortunate coincidence, unequaled.
Lyrically, the trio maintains simple, casual, braggadocio themes, bringing good, always brazen, explicit, hedonistic and absurd, but more socio-conscious, and ironic, intelligent lyrics to the field, delivering several festive hymns with excellent narratives and demonstrating maturity unexpected lyric that not even their fans initially appreciated: the cuts are full of ideas and each one has its own different style, the trio sounds inspired by this fantastic and excellent production, delivering with strong and energetic flows, fast and fun, smoothness and with a rapping back and forth dope, providing one of their best career performances, however the lyrics are why this album isn't perfect.
It's an ambitious, experimental and fun album, it presents a relaxed and pleasant mood and is joyful in its unconscious carefree, quite intricate and not obvious: despite its simple accessibility, it deserves several plays to be fully appreciated. Before then, nobody had ever thought of making a mini-opera, here the group makes a nine-cut one and a dozen minutes to close the album, and it's fantastic. Even Paul's boutique, located in Brooklyn, NY, has become iconic: after the owner gives the boys various clothes for free in exchange for a small quote on the disc, the trio, who accidentally entered the shop, repays him with the title of album, cover and various quotes in the album.
It's a deeper effort from every point of view than the debut, less commercial, and this has disadvantaged them: still mocked by the mainstream critics for the debut, with which the boys had invented what the workers called "frat rap", the three come back into the game and kick everyone's ass. Sales don't help them: the album stops at half a million copies, while the debut was at four, and continues to be not appreciated by the public for many years, reaching platinum only after 1995. In retrospect, it's a classic, musically impressive and a must-have for any hip hop head, 9.5/10.
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