So before doing this list, I had no idea so much hip-hop would make the final cut. Guess I'm more of a fan of the genre than I thought I was, which makes sense -- I do love hip-hop, and I'm excited to have the next album in this trek be not only my favorite record from '92, but my favorite hip-hop album ever released: Dre's The Chronic.
The album became as synonymous with the idea of ‘Sunny California’ as The Beach Boys were in the 1960’s. Just think of the music videos Dre put out for this album: dance parties, getting wasted with your friends, cruising with the top down, playin’ dominos, going to see a P-Funk concert, BBQ’s with pretty girls and…is that…I think it could be…volleyball?!! That’s not too gangsta, is it? At least not compared with the video for “Fuck Tha Police”, and other videos of the era. I think the moment anyone would realize why The Chronic is special is to just put it on, press play, and turn the volume up. It’s loud as you want it to be, mixed to blow the speakers rolling down the boulevard. It’s that sound, a massive funk pastiche of whatever Funk records Dre had from the 70’s: a whole-heckuva lot of George Clinton’s Parliament Funkadelic collective, Ohio Players, Willie Hutch, Donny Hathaway, Isaac Hayes and so many others. The moment the “Intro” hits, you know -- the bass shook your soul, the squealing synthesizers challenged your eardrum: tt was a whole new world in Hip-Hop. Where there were once shouts and chants there are now choruses. Where there was once dissonance there is now melody. Where there were once thin drum machines there is now full-bodied, arranged music played on instruments. Where there was once brutal nihilism there is now breezy leisure. And of course, there was Calvin Broadus.
Dre’s gifts with hooks and choruses and melodies and arrangements made Hip-Hop real music; detractors could no longer complain that these weren’t songs, and Dre took the songs and dropped them on the charts, and everything was different from then on. The legacy of The Chronic is one with a very long shadow.
Key tracks: "Fuck Wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')", "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang", "Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat"
Next week: 1993
Hint: "We spent like, $5,000 to make it."
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