Compton
by Dr. Dre

From Skinny TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/15/2015 13:30 | #147720 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Frankly, this album is far better than anybody could have reasonably expected it to be. If you think back to the singles he's put out in the interim since The Chronic 2001, both 'Kush' and 'I Need a Doctor' were overhammed and half-speed, precisely the sorts of out-of-touch songs you would expect from a hip-hop artist nearing his fifties. 'I Need a Doctor' in particular reeked of all the focus group balladry trappings that have marred Eminem's work over the past six or seven years, and it was difficult to imagine Dr. Dre ever sounding relevant again. Thankfully, those songs can now be consigned to history, along with everything else locked away in those infamous Detox vaults; Dre finally binned that album in favour of something far more focused, and I'm delighted to say that it's an unqualified success. Now, for an album named after the city of Compton, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this album is going to be a trip down memory lane, a retrofetishist jaunt through Dre's past, from the g-funk sounds of the early '90s to the brash and cocky clean lines of his second album - and that would, in all honesty, probably be welcome (to some extent) among a lot of listeners. But, instead, Dre has opted for something else, a labyrinth of different styles, heavily layered and maximalist in the extreme, snaking in multiple unpredictable directions, refusing to settle on one particular style. It makes the album feel refreshingly out of time, neither beholden to the ghosts of West Coast past or to the sounds of hip-hop's present. I mean, yes, we do get a couple of nods to trap, and the occasional moment that harks back to Dre's early Parliament-aping days, but on the whole this album defies any sort of categorisation. It's beefy, in the same way that The Chronic 2001 was, but it's also undeniably more frazzled than that record. It's lush, but it isn't always clean. Production-wise, it sounds to me like peak-era Timbaland being reimagined by MBDTF's ambitious perfectionist, but captured through an undeniably West Coast lens. It might be comparable to 2015's West Coast masterpiece, To Pimp a Butterfly, in that it doesn't ever settle into a particular groove, but where that album was tied together by its jazzy leanings, this record is harder to pin down - we get a lot of twinkling synths and triumphant horns, but its cohesion comes from how luxurious it all sounds. If Kendrick has had a major influence on this album, it's in proving to Dre that he can make a massive, mazy album in 2015 without it having to bend to current trends, whilst still sounding utterly contemporary. It's an exciting direction for Dre, and proves that even throughout these late-career, headphone-hawking wilderness years, he can still stay ahead of the game. In terms of rapping, the album feels more mature than previous Dre albums. Whilst he has always been able to offer a more sobering view of life in the ghetto than he's often given credit for (think The Chronic's 'Lil Ghetto Boy'), this record feel undeniably more mature than previous records, something that feels to me as though it's been brought on not only by middle-age but also by his current connection to Kendrick, who has proven that you can stay true and authentic and resolutely Compton whilst still offering some perspective on that gangster lifestyle. And so, yes, this album goes over a lot of West Coast gangsta tropes, but does so in a way that feels more grown up (and, perhaps, detached) than the Dre of albums past, for better or worse. Newcomers Justus and King Mez (and, to a lesser extent, Anderson Paak) excel whenever they show up throughout the record, and there are some brilliant throwback verses from Snoop, Ice Cube, Xzibit, and in particular Cold 187um. Kendrick predictably offers standout moments, but it's Dre evolution as a rapper that is most interesting on this album. Whilst his verses are obviously ghostwritten, I don't think Dre has ever sounded this comfortable on the mic - his flow has become much more nimble with age, and gone are the clunky missteps that occasionally marred albums past. That said, he appears to have lost something vocally, and he isn't quite as immediately recognisable as he has been in the past. Being as he's never been a writer, it's questionable whether nimble flows for booming voice is a good trade off, but I generally think it works on this album, which plays out like a real team effort, with Dre acting as a deep-lying playmaker, allowing others to steal the show as and when certain people are better suited to certain moments. So lyrically, this album is a cohesive love letter to Compton, comfortably and naturally speaking on both the positives and the negatives of the city over the past three decades. Sonically, it's unique within the Dre canon, but maintains a West Coast vibe without necessarily falling back on a stereotypical West Coast sound. I've only listened to the record three times, but it already stands out as easily one of the best hip-hop records of 2015 and, as I said in my opening sentence, a far better album than could reasonably have been expected from Dre in 2015. Brilliant stuff.

From travelful 08/12/2015 04:54 | #147560 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Ended up finding a download link outside of Apple. This album is amazing!!! Nearly up there with To Pimp a Butterfly on the year. I will certainly be buying a physical copy when they are released.

Anybody know if it'll be out on vinyl or will it just be CD?

From HoldenM TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/11/2015 23:09 | #147531 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This is a solid return. Not great, but very, very good. Great production, nice concept work, flawless slew of features. Rough around the edges, but impressive as hip hop albums come.

Not really a party album like the dr.'s first two records. Much more like a movie. Not as much fun as the first two but still epic and hard hitting and actually better in some respects than his first two classics even though I still prefer them. This is no afterthought but a real possible future classic. Love the cinematic quality of the album maybe why it's referred to as a soundtrack. The dr still got it.

Seemed to come and go very, very quickly but was one of the best hip-hop albums of 2015. It's obviously not as good as Chronic or 2001, but Dre does a very good job at creating a modern sound while keeping his signature sound. He also pulls in stellar features, such as Kendrick Lamar and Anderson .Paak. It's a little too lengthy and it falls short in some parts, but overall, I really couldn't ask for more.