Dr. Dre’s ‘The Chronic’ 20 Years Later

Suburban voyeurism? A modern-day ghetto western too awesome to ignore? It’s hard to pinpoint the reason for its popularity when taking into consideration the time period. That being said, despite the album’s hard exterior, there is something incredible calculated in how it’s presented. There is clear composition and crafty songwriting. And the hooks (sometimes arguably better than the funk tracks they are built off) soften the gritty lyrics because the tracks are just so catchy, pulled off with a seamless ease.

This has not gone unnoticed. As countless journalists, rappers and hip-hop heads have pointed out, the album was an absolute game changer. Establishing Dr. Dre’s now patent G-funk sound, which is sonically full of wheezing synths, descending bass lines and female backup harmonies nurtured off a pile of scratchy vinyl from Parliament, the Ohio Players, and Isaac Hayes, The Chronic brought in a new musical style for hip-hop that still resonates today.

Taking “gangsta rap” to the masses, the album launched the career of mega star Snoop Dogg and to a lesser extent, the careers of other rappers such as Kurupt and Warren G. It also opened the door for the likes of 2Pac, Cypress Hill, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and countless other rappers coupling life on the streets with that laid-back, funky-as-shit midtempo sound. As The New York Times wrote, “it made the gangsta life sound like a party occasionally interrupted by gunplay.” As a result, rappers and producers took note of The Chronic as a blueprint to make their own funk-laden, Blaxploitation-heavy modern day wild west record.

Has any other album, especially one so steeped in the “gangsta rap” label, earned such universal recognition from outlets both in and outside of the hip-hop community? You’d be hard pressed to find many. Rolling Stone rates it 137 on its 500 “Albums of All Time.” Vibe has it number six in their top 100. All Music gives it five out of five stars. In a retrospective, XXL gave it a perfect score. Kanye West once wrote that “The Chronic is still the hip-hop equivalent to Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life.” Hell, even Time ranked it as one of its 100 greatest albums.

All this praise, though, has a downside. Putting albums like The Chronic into some sort of canon can be the biggest adversary to personal taste. Which makes such lauded albums hard to talk about without sounding like one’s offering up the same repeated reverence to the album’s alter. And when everyone is force-feeding its importance, how does a new generation of listeners approach these album’s and learn to love them for all the personal, intimate and emotional reasons without it feeling required like math homework?

The importance of The Chronic is indisputable but that shouldn’t be conflated with the necessity to like it in order to be a respected listener of hip-hop. In the end, it’s just taste. And yet, this actually might be where the brilliance of the The Chronic lays: it still earns new fans.

Year-end lists will be coming out any day now and Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city is going to be all over them. Earlier this year, Lamar named The Chronic as one of his top favorite albums. Lamar was four when The Chronic dropped. What more can showcase an album’s excellence than its ability to maintain popularity and garner new listeners over twenty years after it came out? And Lamar is not the only 25-year-old out there who would put it in their own, personal “best of” list.

Without the love from the listener, music is nothing. In the case of The Chronic, it still burns brightly. And 20 years later, we’re all still happily inhaling its smoke.