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Faceplams: I feel like the name MC Ren should be somewhere there, but whatever....Originally Posted by Mr. Blaileen
Throbbing Member
I feel like the name MC Ren should be somewhere there, but whatever....
Throbbing Member
I’m reading that the album is exclusive to Apple Music and iTunes? No physical release?How is no one talking about this?!
The Chronic went 3× Platinum, and 2001 is 6x Platinum. It’ll be interesting to hear what The Notorious Compton G, D.R.E. has for us after 16 years.
tempus est umbra in mente
maybe the fact that there's no physical release is why there's been no leaks, which is interesting. You'd think an album this big would leak.
Active Member
Yeah. The fact that he managed to keep the project completely under wraps until a week before release is pretty amazing.
I'd imagine there will be a physical release down the line.
Throbbing Member
I really hope so. The music world is going to get very weird if artists start going exclusive to a particular music service, with no physical CD purchase option, forcing their fans to jump through hoops to get access to their music the legal way. Plus I like my tangible CD collection, that I fucking own. Archiving files on a hard drive, or streaming just isn’t the same.
Dis-member
Dres album streams tonight starting at 6:00 Pacific time an Apple music for 3 hours apparently. Don't think I'll be able to listen to it but if anyone gets a chance post reviews!
Billy Howerdel fanboy
They put it up an hour earlier.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/station/idra.1027639986
Active Member
Almost done with my first listen to Compton, and so far it's been pretty great. The beats on this album are fantastic. But, obviously.
Banned
Solid and surprising album. It sounds very different from 2001. More nuanced and jazzy. More melodic. Only song I don't really care for is the Eminem one.. He sounds so out of place on this album.
Throbbing Member
Compton, the new album is good. Not The Chronic good, but it stacks up with 2001. Dre was more edgy back in his feudin’ days, I miss that.
Active Member
Agreed. It actually reminds me of TPAB at times.
Active Member
Massive chronic & 2001 fan, really don't like the new one. Doesn't compare at all, sounds nothing like the previous 2, awkward melodies, so so guest stars. Just meh, really disappointed.
Dis-member
Yeah, I'm having a hard time getting into this album. Nothing seems to "stick" or standout for me, pretty forgettable. It sounds modern so it's got that- wasn't really expecting The Chronic or 2001.
It seems like the vocals are constantly being fucked with (over production?). First few listens grade: "meh"
Maybe I'm just getting old, along with their voices. :/
FATUM NOS IUNGET
Nah, I'm in the same boat. It's not bad by any stretch, it's got some memorable hooks and some of the beats are nothing but 'Only Dre could do this, ever.', but damn 2001 had soooo many memorable lines/hooks...it's almost as if it reached the zenith with that album haha.
Active Member
I don't really like rap, all that much, but I'm looking forward to Compton and the N.W.A. movie.
Active Member
It's growing on me a bit, I like the first 2 tracks, one shot one kill and satisfiction. Talking to my diary is almost like something off 2001 but the im just im just talkin to my diary bit sounds so clunky.
RA-MEN ROPPAI
Herd mentality?
I'll be having my 4th listen today and honestly, I'm not really feeling any of this so far. I think o_m hit the nail on the head with his post above.
Last edited by Jon; 08-09-2015 at 09:10 AM. Reason: I dunno why I typed o_c the first time
Stubby Member
It's a decent album - very far from great. At 16 tracks, there's plenty of fat that could have been trimmed. The tracks with hooks from the arbitrary R&B vocalists come off as particularly lazy and generic. Dre's production, as always, is very clean and polished; it's a solid foundation to an otherwise flimsy project. Tracks like Genocide, Deep Water, One Shot One Kill, and Animals are great, but you have to sift through a good bit of filler to find the true gems. As a whole, it tries desperately to shine next to Kendrick's 'Good Kid M.A.A.D City', but nothing is nearly as nuanced or endearing as that album. Honestly, even YG's Compton ode 'My Krazy Life', is a better West Coast rap album.
What I really find disheartening is how corporate the whole thing feels. Dre suddenly gets the inspiration to release a new album right around the time a NWA biopic gets released? Right around the time Apple Music gets rolled out? Right around the time West Coast rap sees a rebirth with the likes of Kendrick, YG, Schoolboy Q, etc? The whole thing reeks of a savy businessman being opportunistic, not a music artist feeling inspired to create something new.
Dis-member
This is another reason I'm having a difficult time with this album. In the end it shouldn't matter, but I'd be full of crap to say this hasn't crossed my mind numerous times.
Active Member
Yeah I'm getting that impression tbh... so few reviews seem to mention what a departure this is from his other 2, it leaves me tempted to assume they don't really get it and are giving glowing reviews because they know he's a legend. And like... even if one likes the album, it's certainly not 9/10 or 8/10... I mean what would that make the chronic, an 11 out of 10 unesco world heritage artefact?
RA-MEN ROPPAI
Exactly, that's pretty much what I was getting at. The reviews seem to all be, "Yep, Dr. Dre is back and we should be happy". I'm very happy to have a new Dr. Dre album, I'm just not understanding why it hasn't gotten a "full" review yet.
EDIT: We need you, Big Ghost!
Throbbing Member
I’d have no problems with that score for The Chronic. The Chronic impeccably typified Gangsta rap and was a blueprint for the G-funk sound. Pretty much a flawless album.
Compton has pretty much zero G-funk going on in it. Instead it sounds like mostly above average hip hop with elements of… trap music, maybe? Compton is good, but it don’t come close to The Chronic.
Banned
This album is truly an album in the sense that it's cohesive. Each track continues the story being told. I've listened to it about 20 times already. From start to finish the album is solid. I'm impressed by how much Dr. Dre's rapping has improved. I'm impressed by how pop-savvy these songs are. Some of the songs address the racism and ignorance of black life that Kendrick Lamar dealt with so passionately on his album.
I must say that as a whole, 2001 had more mega great songs. However Compton has several great songs and the others are never below good.
(and the quality of this work is much better than any NIN album Trent Reznor has released in the 21st century [apart from Ghosts])
Throbbing Member
Yeah, Compton is a grower. I like it a little bit more each time listening through. And it does feel like the tracks flow really well. I particularly like the tracks All In a Day's Work and Darkside/Gone. Hearing the clip of Eazy-E got me (Eazy-E CPT OG from the other side).
Agreed. I think Dre went at 2001 from a business angle. The Chronic was different, it was more from the angle of Dre and his posse raising hell and turning heads, and in the process of doing that they made something truly groundbreaking. By 1999 Dre was long over being a ‘gangsta’ and had gone into businessman mode. I can’t blame him, he saw how that lifestyle turned out for Eazy, Tupac, and Biggie. 2001 felt calculated and designed for more potential hits and a better commercial performance than The Chronic. While 2001 did commercially outperform its predecessor, I still don’t see it being anything really groundbreaking like The Chronic.
I’ll need to give Compton more time to see where it fits in with the other two albums. But it’s still Dre making businessman decisions here. It can’t be just a coincidence that the new album appears out of the blue, and virtually coincides with the film, and the Apple music thing (and an Apple exclusive at that).
Hip hop can be a difficult production to stack up against. Hip hop albums like Compton have the collaboration and writing and performance of many very talented artists bubbling up to the surface from one track to the next. Creatively and performancewise, Trent works with a few talented people, but he carries the bulk of nin studio albums himself.
Last edited by Dr Channard; 08-10-2015 at 11:55 PM.
tempus est umbra in mente
There's a good chance he hasn't been composing new material on a consistent basis for the past 16 years. That's part of the problem that meets expectations like you hit with an album release like this.
Also... just saying, there should be a separate thread for the Compton album. We sound like such a band of dorks discussing this album under the banner of a general "rap music" thread.
Throbbing Member
Overall, I like 'Compton', but I need to give it a few more listens yet. I think one of the issues this album has is that it's the Chinese Democracy of rap albums, so the hype for it/Detox was sky high. Those expectations were impossible to meet.
I'm not a huge fan of some of the guests on the album, but none of them are that bad, either. The beats are rich, luscious, and are sometimes more interesting than the vocalists themselves. I wish the album had more of that G-funk rap sound, but maybe Dre wasn't feeling that stuff so much as a 50 year old man. Who knows.
Overall, I like it.
tempus est umbra in mente
I'm still really thrilled whenever there's an album that a lot of people get genuinely excited about.
This used to happen all the time.
I'm curious to see the numbers it sold though.
Actually, I think the album is great.
Last edited by Jinsai; 08-11-2015 at 03:39 AM.
Throbbing Member
I don’t listen to much modern hip hop so I don’t really even know much about the artist it features. I also think it would have been great if some of the old guard had been more front and center on Compton. But using today’s stars is probably Dre’s way of keeping this album relevant to a 2015 audience, and if this is indeed his last album it may be his way of passing the torch.
I also miss those G-funk groves. I know we’re 20+ years removed from the early 90’s, but G-funk was the Compton sound, like Grunge was the Seattle sound. Not to detract from what he did with this album, which is pretty good, but calling the album Compton when it doesn’t have that sound is a little bit weird for me. What if Nirvana had put out its third and final album, calling it Seattle, but when you listened, it was a Post-metal album with little to no Grunge sound? I guess it shouldn’t matter if it’s a good album, but it would still be weird to me.
Dis-member
Since I didn't see a thread in Le Cinema, just got back from Straight Outta Compton. If you're a fan- go see it. Great casting and moved really well for a nearly 2.5 hour movie. Nothing earth shattering as far as revealing things, just entertaining.
God is an American
Yep, it's pretty great, as far as biopics go. Quite a fine display of vintage 80s–90s recording gear, too (sadly, they used historically inauthentic LED lighting fixtures for the big stage performance scenes).
Last edited by botley; 08-15-2015 at 09:33 PM.
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