I'm glad Dr. Dre waited sixteen years to give this to us. I really am. Detox may finally be officially over, but with the release of Compton, that's no matter at all. In the decade and a half since 2001, Dre's sophomore solo effort, Hip-Hop has undeniably changed. The 90's where crammed to the rafters with hardcore rap - The Wu-Tang, Nas, just to name a few - but now, that isn't the case. Newcomers have tried new things; you'd never have caught a rapper singing on his albums before 2008, but Kanye did it, and then so did Drake, which resulted in R&B and Hip-Hop merging into one untidy mess. The era that Dre first made music in has long gone, and Compton makes a clear point at why this is a good thing. (Don't worry, there's no sappy R&B here though)
I didn't like The Chronic. I didn't like 2001, besides a few of the better songs I picked out of it. (And it always confuses me why he called it that when it came out in 1999, only two years prior to the album title. Sure, you can name your album anything you like, but if you're going to title it a year that hasn't yet arrived, why not call name it a year that won't come and pass in such a short space of time?) Because this album is so sonically departed from the last two, and the topics are more serious, (less about smoking weed every day, for starters) I can easily say I really like this album. The beats are modern and heavily layered. The verses feel energized - Dre has an entirely new, almost unrecognizable flow. If there's ever a time where you want to hear him spit poison from his bared fangs, look at "Genocide". The beat is perfect here - it captures the atmosphere violently, powerfully. The steadily lowering bass line feels like it's shuddering down your spine. Dre unleashes an unseen fury, backed up by the one and only Kendrick Lamar, who seems to be using his To Pimp A Butterfly voice with his good kid, m.A.A.d city subject matter. Could it get any better? Speaking of Kendrick, all of the features on Compton all live up to expectations, showcasing both new talent (Anderson .Paak, Justus, and King Mez, the newcomers who are all scattered across the writing credits of the entire 16 songs of the album) and old talent from Dre's time (Ice Cube comes through with a verse, and Snoop Dogg is angrier than we've heard him in a long time). Kendrick delivers three solid verses on three tracks ("Genocide", "Darkside/Gone", and "Deep Water") and Eminem can be found right on the back end of "Medicine Man". Here's the thing with Eminem - we've already mentioned that Hip-Hop has drastically changed since Dre's time. Eminem proves the point harder than most - on 2001 we heard his 1999 nasally, pipsqueak, but still very compelling flow that was to be found on The Slim Shady LP and a few other places, like the Sway & King Tech posse cut. Now, we have his Shady XV, 40-year-old angry shout, the rage slowly building up from a calmness that I hoped would last, but didn't. Dre claimed that the inspiration for the album came from watching "Straight Outta Compton" the 2015 bio-film titled after N.W.A.'s 1988 debut album. It seems cliche, but it works; the album talk of Compton street violence and N.W.A. comes out fresh and re-polished, even after so many years. You can tell Dre misses N.W.A., especially Eazy-E, who succumbed to AIDS in 1995 after the group had fallen apart. A twenty year old Eazy voice sample is used for a spectacular beat switch on Darkside/Gone; "Eazy-E, CPT, OG from the other side" brilliant. Two decades down and Eazy still kills it from the grave. Another reason I'm glad Dre waited so long for Compton is because it feels like it's also inspired by so many things since the 90's, musically and otherwise. In terms of the music inspirations, I was drawing comparisons between good kid, m.A.A.d city and this album. Not the impeccable, genius, personally narrative flow that GKMC has, but it feels musically inspired by Kendrick's masterpiece, which isn't surprising due to Kendrick's appearances on this album, Kendrick and Dre's outside affiliation, and the fact both albums are set in Compton, Los Angeles. The the beats on both "Genocide", and also "Satisfiction", remind me of Chance The Rapper's "Paranoia" in the way that the sound almost draws you completely into the realm of the artist, and makes the lyrics feel so much heavier, with a much harder punch. But atmospheric music all we get; lines like "I lie on the side of a one way street / Nowhere to go, death all I can see" definitely wouldn't fit on the celebratory horns of "Talk About It" which instead houses the lines "I said I want it all! / Damn, I'm too old, I forgot I got it all." Dre just bought California. 9.0/10 |
201820162015Scores0-30 = Bad
31-49 = Sub-par 50-60 = Average 61-70 = Decent 71-80 = Good 81-89 = Great 90-99 = Incredible 100 = Perfect Archives
September 2018
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