The Chronic [PA]

Performer: Dr. Dre
Artist: Bushwick Bill; The D.O.C.; Snoop Dogg
Producer: Dr. Dre
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: Personnel: Dr. Dre (keyboards, drum programming); Chris Clairmont (guitar); Katisse Buckingham (flute, saxophone); Colin Wolfe (keyboards, bass guitar); Justin Reinhardt (keyboards). Audio Mixers: Dr. Dre; Chris "The Glove" Taylor. A great hip-hop album relies on a balance of two components: lyrical skill and correctly-matched production. Often they can be found in conflict, undermining one another; but when an artist masters both techniques, the results can be incredibly rewarding. On his solo debut THE CHRONIC, Dr. Dre not only discovered this balance but took it to the next level, making gangsta funk a multi-platinum commodity and changing the face of rap forever. Dre (nee Andre Young) began his musical career with the World Class Wreckin' Cru, but came to prominence as one of the founding members of hip-hop's first super-group, N.W.A. By the time of THE CHRONIC's release, he had already returned to the limelight with a slammin' single, "Deep Cover," on which he shared the stage with a previously unknown rapper named Snoop Doggy Dogg. It was Snoop's idiosyncratic flow that lay behind Dre's Funkadelicized G-Funk and powered THE CHRONIC. Dre is the West Coast's king of hard-core production, but the content of lyrics such as "A Nigga Witta Gun" and "Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat" hit hard enough. Songs such as "Bitches Ain't S**t" also showed that Dre and the rest of his crew could get away with many controversial opinions by simply adding a mean bass line and a hypnotic beat. Yet, "Nuthin' But A `G' Thing" and "Let Me Ride" both used the smooth G appeal to capture not just rap fans, but the pop audience as well. In fact, THE CHRONIC's success demonstrated G-Funk's mass appeal, and paved the way for hip-hop's gangsta (r)evolution.

Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.128) - Ranked #137 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "[Dr. Dre] funked up the rhymes with a smooth bass-heavy production style and the laid-back delivery of then-unknown rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg." Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.53) - Included in Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90's." Rolling Stone (3/18/93, p.40) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...A hip-hop masterwork full of big beats and little surprises....THE CHRONIC drops raw realism and pays tribute to hip-hop virtuosity..." Spin (9/99, p.122) - Ranked #8 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s." Entertainment Weekly (1/8/93, p.54) - "...No one in the pop universe makes more visceral--or more visual--music than he does....THE CHRONIC storms with rage, strolls with confidence, and reverberates with a social realism that's often ugly and horrifying..." - Rating: A+ Q (12/99, p.76) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s." Q (1/94, p.82) - Included in Q's list of `The 50 Best Albums Of 1993' - "...a mature, progressive, marvelous new record..." Q (1/94, p.85) - Included in Q's list of `The 50 Best Albums Of 1993.' Q (12/02, p.122) - "...Chock-full of impossibly thrilling basslines....Hugely influential..." Vibe (12/99, p.157) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century Vibe (6/02, p.109) - Ranked #6 in Vibe's "Top 10 rap albums" - "...Dre's decade-defining opus introduced the world to the laid-back luxury of Californian 'G-funk'....The game would never be the same." The Source (2/93, p.55) - 4.5 Stars - Excellent Plus - "...Following the hype behind one of his hardest tracks ever, `Deep Cover,' Dre has unloaded all over this album with the same furified intensity....An innovative and progressive hip-hop package that must not be missed..." Village Voice (3/94, p.5) - Ranked #2 in the Village Voice's 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll. Village Voice (3/1/94, p.5) - Ranked #6 in the Village Voice's 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.

Dr. Dre has dictated the pace of change in West Coast rap more than any other single figure. As DJ/producer for N.W.A., he ushered in a whole new era in rap by adapting the raw sonics of Public Enemy & Boogie Down Productions to the ethos of L.A.'s youth gangs. After the group's split, he expanded his style to include eerie P-Funk synths on his solo releases and those of prot�g� Snoop Dogg. The resulting "G-Funk" sound influenced many other West Coast rap artists. In the late 1990s, Dre found another notable prot�g�, a promising young lyricist from Detroit named Eminem.

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