Most Misunderstood or Poorly Received Great Album

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Fables did fine.

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Paul's Boutique

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Upon initial release, Paul's Boutique was alienated commercially for its experimental and dense sampling and lyricism, in contrast to the Beastie Boys' previous album, Licensed to Ill.[11] Music critic David Handelman called the record a "rap opera."[10] While major music publications such as Rolling Stone favored the album's unique name-dropping lyrics and the album peaked at #14 on the Pop Albums chart, Paul's Boutique did not equal its predecessor's commercial success with hip hop fans, as it only peaked at #24 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.[22] The album received a gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America on September 22 of its release year.[2] Paul's Boutique would go on to sell over 2 million copies by 1999.[2] In retrospect, the album has also gone on to receive much critical acclaim and has been recognized as a landmark album in hip-hop. In a review of the album for Allmusic, contributor Stephen Thomas Erlewine summed the initial reaction to Paul's Boutique and praised the density that the album contains:
Musically, few hip-hop records have ever been so rich; it's not just the recontextulations of familiar music via samples, it's the flow of each song and the album as a whole, culminating in the widescreen suite that closes the record. Lyrically, the Beasties have never been better — not just because their jokes are razor-sharp, but because they construct full-bodied narratives and evocative portraits of characters and places. Few pop records offer this much to savor, and if Paul's Boutique only made a modest impact upon its initial release, over time its influence could be heard through pop and rap, yet no matter how its influence was felt, it stands alone as a record of stunning vision, maturity, and accomplishment.[11]

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Fables was well-received

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their best seller to that date

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