Dr. Dre's The Chronic is on Spotify and other streaming services for the first time today -- 4/20, of course -- so I thought I'd make a playlist. I kind of wish this was volume 187 in the series instead of volume 178, though, that would've lined up nicely.

Dr. Dre deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. The Day The N****z Took Over featuring RBX, Snoop Dog, and Daz
2. Lil' Ghetto Boy featuring Snoop Dogg and The D.O.C.
3. Bitches Ain't Shit featuring Colin Wolfe, Snoop Dogg, The D.O.C., Kurupt, Daz and Jewell
4. Stranded On Death Row featuring Bushwick Bill, Kurupt, RBX, The Lady Of Rage, and Snoop Dogg
5. Deeez Nuuuts featuring Warren G, Daz, Snoop Dogg, Colin Wolfe, and Nate Dogg
6. Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat featuring Snoop Dogg and BJ
7. Got Me Open with Hands On
8. Firm Family with The Firm
9. Zoom with LL Cool J
10. What's The Difference featuring Eminem, Xzibit and Phish
11. Xxplosive featuring Hittman, Kurupt, Nate Dogg, and Six-Two
12. Fuck You featuring Devin The Dude and Snoop Dogg
13. Let's Get High featuring Hittman, Kurupt and Ms. Roq
14. The Message featuring Mary J. Blige and Rell
15. If I Get Locked Up with Eminem
16. On The Boulevard with Snoop Dogg
17. Genocide featuring Kendrick Lamar, Marsha Ambrosius and Candice Pillay
18. Animals featuring Anderson .Paak
19. Darkside / Gone featuring King Mez, Marsha Ambrosius and Kendrick Lamar

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from The Chronic (1992)
Track 7 from Dr. Dre Presents... The Aftermath (1996)
Track 8 from The Firm: The Album by The Firm (1997)
Track 9 from Bulworth The Soundtrack (1998)
Tracks 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 from 2001 (1999)
Track 15 from The Tunnel by Funkmaster Flex and Big Kap (1999)
Track 16 from The Wash (The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2001)
Tracks 17, 18 and 19 from Compton (2015)

Obviously, Dr. Dre only made three solo albums, and only two of those are really essential. So I added some stuff from soundtracks, and the only non-singles where Dre raps on the two big overhyped projects he was involved in that kind of fizzled in the mid-'90s: the only album by the supergroup The Firm, and the inauspicious compilation that launched Aftermath Records. In a way I had even less material to work with than my Notorious B.I.G. playlist, but again, so much of this stuff is excellent that it was easy to pick out 80 minutes of good and great songs. Did you know that the guy who did the hook on "What's The Difference" goes by the name Phish? That's hilarious.

I loved Dre and Snoop stuff on the radio and MTV in the '90s but for whatever reason I didn't buy a lot of the albums at the time, maybe east coast bias. So I bought a CD of The Chronic for the first time in just the last decade or so because I was annoyed that it wasn't on streaming services, even if I heard it who knows how many times before that. And it's fun to just pull out some great songs from that and 2001 without any of the skits (aside from brief funny stuff like the intro to "Deeez Nuuuts"). Obviously Dr. Dre isn't an amazing MC and the great verses he does have on these songs were probably mostly penned by others, but he really assembles and orchestrates talent like few others ever have, in hip hop or otherwise. I wish history had gone a little differently and he'd released albums more often, though. Imagine if we got Dre solo albums at the peak of the 2Pac era, or the 50 Cent era.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20, 2020 at 11:58 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.