Why The Chronic Is the Greatest Album in Rap History

Why The Chronic Is the Greatest Album in Rap History

By Jeff Weiss Mon., Nov. 19 2012 at 4:00 AM

Lead single "Nuthin' But a G Thing" never left MTV rotation and became the nation's go-to party soundtrack. It went mainstream without losing its subversive edge.

Snoop and Dre may have terrified parents and even many of their fans, but they were embraced because they were funky and larger than life. They did for gangsta rap what Michael Jackson's Thriller did for black pop -- shatter glass ceilings and rewire the national zeitgeist.

No great rap album has ever been so influential. It electrified Death Row's reign and introduced the world to the hydroponic slang of South Central. Suburban adolescents suddenly dreamed of being G's in baggy jeans and Raiders caps, flipping switches in a 6-4 Chevy -- red to be exact.

From San Diego to the Bay, G-Funk became the de facto sound of most commercial West Coast street rap until the middle years of the next decade. Its influence spread to the sound of the South and Midwest, too -- listen to the serpentine synth whines on Master P's "Bout It Bout It" and you can hear Dr. Dre's inspiration.

"The Chronic set the bar. If you wasn't bumping it, you wasn't bumping shit. Even New Yorkers knew that," says Freddie Gibbs, the current best gangsta rapper, who felt the record's effect on his native Gary, Ind. "A lot of rappers today brag that they're going to make their Chronic. But they won't. That was a one-time thing."

See also: The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs

Even if you weren't down from day one, listening to The Chronic can still transport you into a foreign but familiar world. The street signs and stresses might look the same, but it is a land where the smoke never stops and the Slauson Indoor Swap Meet is always open. Maybe Snoop said it best: Perfection was perfected.

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ballzachertz

As with most LA Weekly lists or "top" anything, I assume this is a joke. Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Million to Hold Us Back" is widely and correctly considered the grreatest rap album of all time.

The problems with you listing the Chronic? Like Ken Burns fawing over Louis Armstrong, you are giving Dre FAR too much credit here - he's a great producer but a pedestrian rapper and writer at best - without Snoop Dogg and the DOC this album is impossible. And you repeat the fallacy that Dre broke ground by creating "West Coast G Funk" when Too Short in Oakland has been making the same stuff for 8 years before "The Chronic" came out. And that title - for a guy who had rapped that he "don't smoke weed or sess, cuz it's known to give a brother brain damage" to suddenly comeout with an album called The Chronic 4 years later reeks of jumping on the Cypress Hill bandwagon. (there WAS one at the time)

I never knew there would be such a generation gap in rap, The Chronic is good album, but comparing it to an earth shattering musical l work like Straight Outta Compton is absurd.

James

Like the Kanye quote though he calls "Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde" the top hip-hop album of all-time.

Guerro

What makes Dre the best?, why poetry like this no doubt:

"Can't scrap a lick, so I know ya got your gat

Your dick on hard, from fuckin your road dogs

The hood you threw up with, niggaz you grew up with

Don't even respect your ass

That's why it's time for the doctor, to check your ass, nigga

Fuckin me, now I'm fuckin you, little ho

You fucked wit me, now it's a must that I fuck wit you"

---

Gawd, how could anyone argue there is any greater art? Better than Shakespeare!!!

StupidKid

and your tonsillitis,

and caved in nasals.

Curtis DeMartini

Ice-T - Power ...start to finish

Marcial Diego

in the west coast maybe top ten.

Reza Velayati

I doubt it, he wasn't really a good MC. Definition by Black Star is a hip hop purist's dream.

Heriberto Reyes

Soulja Boy

L.A. Native Private Tours

its a tie between Ice Cube, Dre and NWA..maybe 2pac

Aaron Mendoza

Of course not. It's a great record but not the greatest in history. Nas, Illmatic or WuTang 36 chambers

PitchForksandTorchez

DeathRow Records had it all. Too bad they shit the bed.

Moses Ruben Lafia

Greg Chapman

It's good but it ain't no Straight Outta Compton

Reyna Sandoval

I still bump that shit. Heyullyea!

Rolando Roman

Ice Cube has the most best albums in history

Jipali

The Chronic is what really put rap mainstream

Rap was around way before and there were big artists like Run DMC and the beasties but they were knocking on the door - before the chronic you could go into an average white high school and find plenty of rap haters but the chronic knocked the door down and saw rap fully mainstreamed

Of course it also lead to its demise so not sure I'ld say its the greatest rap album - most important would be a better arguement

BushidoBrown32

@Jipali

Man you must've been born in the late 90s or somethin, Run DMC did a song with Aerosmith, at the time that was huge, and still is huge and just that one song helped catapult hip hop to the mainstream. And NWA sold millions of albums before Dre even did his solo thing and who were buying most of those albums? White people. The Chronic was a great album and it changed the way people approached their production, but you give it waaaaaaay too much credit by saying it's what really put hip hop on the mainstream.

BushidoBrown32

@Jipali

sold a million+ records*

thatcatlos

I highly disagree. kris kross and naughty by nature had all the white kids saying "dope" and "fresh". the only thing the chronic did was launch gangster rap into mainstream. beef between eazy and dre sure helped as well. side note: eazy got him good with real muthafucking g'z. and yes I do remember dre in the world class wreckin' crew wearing lip stick.