Dr. Dre - The Chronicle (1992)

Dr. Dre's debut studio album 'The Chronic' was released in 1992 on Death Row Records, and made him one of the best-selling American music artists of 1993. It earned him a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance for the single 'Let Me Ride', as well as several accolades for the single 'Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang'. Not only that, but also that year he produced Death Row label-mate Snoop Doggy Dogg's debut album 'Doggystyle', as well as mentoring producers such as his stepbrother Warren G, Snoop Dogg's cousin Daz Dillinger, Sam Sneed and Mel-Man. The album is named after a slang term for high-grade cannabis, and its cover is an homage to Zig-Zag rolling papers, and although it was a Dre solo album, it featured many appearances by then-emerging American rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, who used the album as a launch pad for his own solo career, making him a superstar before he'd even released a recording of his own. The album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and has been certified 3x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, which led to Dr. Dre becoming one of the top ten best-selling American performing artists of 1993. It established Dre's patented G-funk sound, consisting of fat, blunted Parliament-Funkadelic beats, soulful backing vocals, and live instruments for the rolling basslines and whiny synths, and for the next four years it was virtually impossible to hear mainstream hip-hop that wasn't affected in some way by Dre and his patented G-funk. The album launched the careers of many West Coast hip hop artists, including Snoop Doggy Dogg, Daz Dillinger, Kurupt, Nate Dogg, and Warren G, all of whom subsequently pursued successful commercial careers, and 'The Chronic' is widely regarded as the album that re-defined West Coast hip hop, demonstrating gangsta rap's commercial potential as a multi-platinum commodity, while establishing G-funk as the most popular sound in hip hop music, and Death Row Records as a dominant force in 1990's hip hop. The album was re-released in 2009 as 'The Chronic Re-Lit', which included seven previously unreleased tracks, but these weren't the only out-takes to surface over the years, and so when a number of them appeared on the net they were eagerly pounced on by fans, with the the most frequent comment being 'why don't they make music this good today?'. I've added those seven tracks from the 'Re-Lit' re-issue to another half a dozen that later surfaced online, including the original longer version of 'Rat Tat Tat Tat', to make a companion album to that classic record, which I've wittily titled 'The Chronicle', as taken together they provide a complete history of the album that jump-started hip-hop in the 90's. A few of these out-takes have also appeared on lost collections from Snoop Doggy Dogg, as both artists featured heavily on the tracks and so they could have appeared under the name of either artist, and so to avoid duplication I've removed them from this album as they can be heard on the recent Snoop Doggy Dogg post.     

Track listing

01 Die Muthafucka Die (feat. Top Dogg)
02 Poor Young Dave (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
03 Foo Nay Mic (feat. CPO)
04 Rat Tat Tat Tat (original recording feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
05 O.G. to B.G. (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
06 Slippin' In The West (feat. CPO & Kurupt)
07 Niggaz Don't Give A Fuck (feat. Tha Dogg Pound, The Lady Of Rage & Snoop Doggy Dogg)
08 Dogg Collar (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
09 Mr. Officer (feat. RBX & Prince Ital Joe)
10 Touchdown (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
11 Smoke Enough Bud (feat. Jewell & Snoop Doggy Dogg)
12 187um (Deep Cover Remix feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
13 Would You Ride (feat. Kurupt, Tyrone, Daz, Snoop Doggy Dogg & Amber)