Soul Strut 100: # 76 - Dr. Dre - The Chronic

RAJ

I will slowly be unveiling the Top 100 Soul Strut Related Records as Voted by the Strutters Themselves.

# 76 - Dr. Dre - The Chronic



Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.

We are all familiar with this classic album. How about we share some "Chronic" Memories.

Related Threads

The Chronic v. Doggystyle

Dr. Dre/Chronic Q for the older heads

bboyparkz

Straight up dope.
Essential.
Can remember the day I bought it and talking about how amazing it was in the pub that night.

batmon

Still sounds fresh twenty years later.

HarveyCanal

Nuthin But a G Thang = the hood's Smells Like Teen Spirit.

It was inescapable when it dropped. Was basically putting dudes in a weed-fueled trance.

Then the album that followed, just as potent.

High Powered, Little Ghetto Boy, Stranded on Death Row...My Gawd!

I remember some Native Tongues types attempting to shun the rawness. Yep, too many bitch references and gun violence, true. But the musicality itself...undeniable.

Who woulda thought that Dre could ever outdo Straight Outta Compton?

But he did it indeed.

*****

Burns

One of the best sounding rap tapes. Flawless production, great intros & skits, and superb sound.
Bought the cassette twice, after scotch taping together the first one from abuse, and then bought the shitty sounding repress LP. This album was made for cassette imo. Zig-Zags made a huge killin' after this album.
Five star album.

asstro

Unfadeable. Check the original review in The Source.

Rishan

was my introduction to hip hop. my friend and i would skive class (at the age of 11) and find an empty room to play this tape

Stranded on Death Row is the perfect cut

EIGHTY

I remember copping the tape when I was thirteen and bumping this in my dads car all over the city in the Summer. Everytime he hit a red light he would turn it down and as soon as the light turn green I would blast that fucker as loud as I could.

jaymack

and that "G-Thang" video. The volleyball scene, and the pouring of the 40oz on the young lady are moments you can't forget.

Dawhud

It is the best BBQ/summer crusing soundtrack. (period)

Rishan

gomez80 said:

I remember copping the tape when I was thirteen and bumping this in my dads car all over the city in the Summer. Everytime he hit a red light he would turn it down and as soon as the light turn green I would blast that fucker as loud as I could.

haha, what did your dad say about The Doctors Office? i would have been mortified if my parents ever heard that!

YNOT

I'll never forget coping the cassette tape from the mall with my mom and the uncomfortable ride home. I was in 4th grade and had discovered G thing via MTV. Living in the suburbs of Portland yield to many outlets for the G Funk. I distinctly remember chatting with this Indian girl about the video in School. One day I found myself in Washington square mall with some $, I grabbed "The Chronic" and the "Let Me Ride" cassette single. My sister convinced me to put back the single because the song was on the other tape, duh. On the ride home my mom prompted me to pop in my new album. I was hesitant at first, but reluctantly unwrapped the tape and threw it in. Was fully expecting to have the tape confiscated but my mom actually turned it up and explained how this reminded her of these Parliament Funkadelic guys she grew up on. She popped the tape out when we got home and said although the lyrics are vulgar they weren't hurting anyone. She explained how she didn't care what I listened to as long as I wasn't doing anything illegal, immoral, or hurting anyone. That tape became our soundtrack for our after school basketball sessions. What really blew my mind is when my neighbor told me there used to be this super group with Dre, Ice Cube AND Eazy-E (I know, I know). I've said to much, this was def a game changer tho.

batmon

Video Music Box played the unedited version of "G-Thang" before MTV got their hands on it and blurred out the weed symbols and shit.

Did this album introduce RBX or was he bubblin on other albums before?

Controller_7

I was a freshman in high school when this came out and my brother was all about it, which instantly made it kind of shitty to my ears. We didn't have the same taste. I didn't dislike it, it was just that he played it over and over and he would shit on all of the rap that I liked. One time, while giving me a ride home from school, I asked him to turn it down and he dropped the line that became a classic to me and my friend.
"if you've got a system you've gotta bump it."
Still makes me laugh.

As I got older and was able to take it in on my own terms, it became one of my favorites. Top 5 rap record for sure. Solid end to end and sounds so good. I've owned more than one cd and have several copies on vinyl.

I love all of the little scratches, vocals, stabs, etc that are thrown in. Great production.

lougehrigsson

Burns said:

One of the best sounding rap tapes. This album was made for cassette imo.
Five star album.

agreed. i've had a few copies of this tape - some legit, some not. kept playing out. end to end a great rap record.

SIRUS

always wondered how much (if any) george and co made from this album?

BallzDeep

kinda hard to imagine 75 records more SS related than this...

finelikewine

it was quite a bold move for gangster rap album to have that extended jazzy flute instrumental outro on lil ghetto boy.
Btw. from what was it sampled from?

Junior

batmon said:

Still sounds fresh twenty years later.

Yep, hard to believe it's been that long.

This pretty much soundtracked a year of my life when it came out.
I believe I had one of only two copies in my year at school and my original tape was rinked within a month of owning it due to it being constantly passed around for more and more people to copy. It finally ended up lost for good after someone decided to play it on one of the tape players we were supposed to be using for French language lessons. The giggling quickly gave the game away that the students weren't listening to how to ask for a croque monsieur and my tape vanished forever. It probably marked the only real time, as brief as it was, during senior school when all the different music cliques were into the same album.

On a side note, at the time, not having massive access to information about what was going on in the wider world of rap beef, I spent a good while trying to find out who the fuck Tim Dog and, even more confusingly, Luke were.

HarveyCanal

The Chronic along with the first Cypress Hill album became great stoner indicators when you'd be out, especially at house parties, and either album would be on and you would in a second be able to pinpoint the degree of weedhead around you by how well they knew the lyrics and just how much of a twinkle they had in their eyes based on hearing what was to us perfect music.

Also, the emergence of Snoop marked when gangsta rap crossed over from high school into elementary schools. When NWA dropped, there weren't any little kids hearing that shit. But upon Snoop dropping, all of a sudden you'd see 6 year olds with their own G Thang dance perfected from repeated practice with older siblings. Having a hard time thinking of a time since when a single album was so pervasive.

DustedDon

"You'se a penguin lookin muthaf*cka"....

:sonned:

bassie

First low placement on the chart I feel some ways about. #76???


Summer this was out, my boyfriend and I took a car trip to DC and Baltimore. We played it non-stop. I am not even exaggerating when I say there was not a day that passed when we didn't go by another car blasting this.
Coming back to Canada, we got stopped and searched. It was all casual and friendly conversation til the guy popped the dashboard and pulled out the cassette case. Maybe he meant to the whole time, but we blamed that find on the whole car getting tossed.

And I agree, it has aged beautifully.

Dante

i read / saw an interview with ?uestlove not long ago where he said he hated it when it dropped because it was too polished and didn't sounded like the first jungle bros album. i guess i'm still in that stage. i've never been ebale to fall in love with it.

the stories in this thread are pretty cool, though.

batmon

Dante said:

i read / saw an interview with ?uestlove not long ago where he said he hated it when it dropped because it was too polished and didn't sounded like the first jungle bros album. i guess i'm still in that stage. i've never been ebale to fall in love with it..

That was a gripe i heard as well.

The JBs first albums "sound" was long dead by 92.
Low End Theory upped the ante already.
CMW was been smooth since the first album.
Pete Rock and CL's All Souled Out
Daily Operation
Redmans debut

Dre and them really upped the ante.

Big_Stacks

Hey,

I committed more than my share of young man sins to this LP. I can't begin to tell stories associated with this LP, like my cheeba-hazed drives on I-76 during grad school. This is a landmark album and further cemented the West-coast imprint on hip-hop. I still pump this joint on the regular. "Dre Day" = :hard_as_fuck:

Peace,

Big Stacks from Kakalak

hogginthefogg

HarveyCanal said:

The Chronic along with the first Cypress Hill album became great stoner indicators when you'd be out, especially at house parties, and either album would be on and you would in a second be able to pinpoint the degree of weedhead around you by how well they knew the lyrics and just how much of a twinkle they had in their eyes based on hearing what was to us perfect music.

Man, I didn't even smoke and those two albums were in constant rotation for me (and for lots of heads in Austin). The level of permeation was incredible.

SoulOnIce

Played this tape around 12-15 times a day, every day, for months in 93. It was like there were no other albums.