DJ Shadow Endtroducing released

Endtroducing… DJ Shadow

Released: September 16, 1996 Peak: -- US, 17 UK Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.1 UK Genre: trip-hop (electronica/hip-hop)

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Best Foot Forward Building Steam with a Grain of Salt The Number Song Changeling/Transmission #1 What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 4 (untitled) Stem/ Long Stem/ Transmission #2 (10/96, 74 UK) Mutual Slump Organ Donor Why Hip Hop Sucks in ‘96 Midnight in a Perfect World (9/96, 54 UK) Napalm Brain/ Scatter Brain What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 1: Blue Sky Revisit/ Transmission #3 Total Running Time: 63:23

Rating: 3.985 out of 5.00 (average of 20 ratings) Quotable: “Rendered all other ‘trip-hop’ entirely irrelevant.” – Blender Magazine Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: In 1994, Josh “DJ Shadow” Davis, “a hip-hop DJ with a scholar’s sense of purpose” BL “locked himself in his basement with a sampler, a sequencer and one of the world’s strangest” TL and “gargantuan” BL “record collections. Two years later, he emerged with a completely original electronic symphony.” TL “Davis’ debut drew on horror-film ambience and pounding prog-rock, but was anchored by old-school production.” BL “As a suburban Californian kid, DJ Shadow tended to treat hip-hop as a musical innovation, not as an explicit social protest, which goes a long way toward explaining why his debut album Endtroducing... sounded like nothing else at the time of its release. Using hip-hop, not only its rhythms but its cut-and-paste techniques, as a foundation, Shadow created a deep, endlessly intriguing world on Endtroducing, one where there are no musical genres, only shifting sonic textures and styles.” STE His effort effectively “rendered all other ‘trip-hop’ entirely irrelevant.” BL Endtroducing “builds on a solid historical foundation, giving it a rich, multi-faceted sound.” STE “Shadow created the entire album from samples, almost all pulled from obscure, forgotten vinyl, and the effect is that of a hazy, half-familiar dream – parts of the record sound familiar, yet it's clear that it only suggests music you’ve heard before, and that the multi-layered samples and genres create something new.” STE “The 13 tracks vary in length and tone – some are beat driven and under a minute while others have orchestral swells and stretch to almost ten – but all are constructed entirely from samples, and the only voices are from obscure spoken word and comedy albums that sound like they’re being beamed from outer space.” TL “Somehow a narrative emerges, and on Building Steam with a Grain of Salt, we even get autobiography by proxy. ‘I’d like to just continue to be able to express myself,’ says a self-taught drummer through the fuzz and pop of vinyl scratches, ‘as best as I can.’” TL “It’s not only a major breakthrough for hip-hop and electronica, but for pop music.” STE

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for DJ Shadow BL Blender magazine (10/2008). “100 Greatest American Albums” STE Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide TL Time magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light First posted 3/23/2010; last updated 11/16/2023.

Dr. Dre The Chronic released

The Chronic Dr. Dre

Released: December 15, 1992 Peak: 3 US, 18 RB, 43 UK, -- CN, 91 AU Sales (in millions): 5.7 US, 0.3 UK, 6.1 world (includes US and UK) Genre: rap

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. The Chronic (intro) (with Snoop Dogg) Dre Day (with Snoop Dogg, RBX, & Jewell) (5/15/93, 8 BB, 8 CB, 25 RR, 6 RB, 59 UK, sales: ½ million) Let Me Ride (with Ruben & Jewell) (9/13/93, 34 BB, 31 CB, 38 RR, 3 RB, 31 UK) The Day the Niggaz Took Over (with RBX & Snoop Dogg) Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang (with Snoop Dogg) (11/19/92, 2 BB, 2 CB, 24 RR, 1 RB, 31 UK, 63 AU, 21 DF, sales: 1.5 million) Deeez Nuuuts (with That Nigga Daz & Snoop Dogg) Lil’ Ghetto Boy (with Snoop Dogg) A Nigga Witta Gun (with Snoop Dogg) Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat (with Snoop Dogg & RBX) The $20 Sack Pyramid (with Big Tittie Nickie, D.O.C., & Samara) Lyrical Gangbang (with Rage, Kurupt, & RBX) High Powered (with RBX, That Nigga Daz, & Rage) The Doctor’s Office (with Jewell & Rage) Stranded on Death Row (with Bushwick Bill, Kurupt, & RBX) The Roach (with RBX, That Nigga Daz, Rage, & Emmage) Bitches Ain’t Shit (with Snoop Dogg, That Nigga Daz, & Kurupt) Total Running Time: 62:52

Rating: 4.245 out of 5.00 (average of 25 ratings) Quotable: “One of the greatest and most influential hip-hop albums of all time” – Steve Huey, All Music Guide Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Without Dr. Dre, West Coast hip-hop wouldn’t be the same and the game would be eons worse for it.” PM “After helping write the book on gangsta rap with N.W.A, Andre ‘Dr. Dre’ Young started a smokin’ new chapter with his… solo debut.” BL We also have “The Chronic to thank for the burgeoning superstar careers of MCs like Snoop Doggy Dogg and 2Pac, as it effectively reinvented an entire generation of music.” PM “G-funk was vaulted into the mainstream, and gangsta rap became the prevalent mode of performance on the West Coast.” PM “With its stylish, sonically detailed production,” SH “The Chronic managed to be both dangerous and addictive at once.” BL On this album, we experience “Dre’s invention, not quite from scratch, of a sound that defined early ‘90s urban L.A. in the same way that Motown defined ‘60s Detroit…Dre delivers his verses with hypnotically intimidating ease,” TL “sampling everyone from Led Zeppelin to Jewel to Parliament-Funkadelic to Ohio Players and Gil Scott-Heron.” PM We also get “soulful backing vocals, and live instruments in the rolling basslines and whiny synths.” SH “Dr. Dre perfectly bridges the gap between old school and hip-hop, as one of the first artists to fully realize the commercial potential of rap.” RV “What’s impressive is that Dre crafts tighter singles than his inspiration George Clinton – he’s just as effortlessly funky, and he has a better feel for a hook, a knack that improbably landed gangsta rap on the pop charts” SH with hits like “Let Me Ride and Nuthin’ But a G Thang [which] feel like dusk on a wide-open L.A. boulevard, full of possibility and menace.” TL The latter is “one of the greatest, most infectious jams in hip-hop history. RV “But none of The Chronic’s legions of imitators were as rich in personality, and that’s due in large part to Dre's monumental discovery, Snoop Doggy Dogg” SH “as his vocal foil.” BL “While it's debatable whether this was a net positive for the world, Snoop’s drawled-out Mississippi-ness (he was rap’s first country cousin) was just one more original element.” TL “Snoop livens up every track he touches, sometimes just by joining in the chorus – and if The Chronic has a flaw, it’s that his relative absence from the second half slows the momentum. There was nothing in rap quite like Snoop’s singsong, lazy drawl (as it’s invariably described), and since Dre’s true forte is the producer’s chair, Snoop is the signature voice. He sounds utterly unaffected by anything, no matter how extreme, which sets the tone for the album’s misogyny, homophobia, and violence. The Rodney King riots are unequivocally celebrated, but the war wasn’t just on the streets; Dre enlists his numerous guests in feuds with rivals and ex-bandmates.” SH “Yet The Chronic is first and foremost a party album, rooted…in ‘70s funk and soul.” SH “Its comic song intros and skits became prerequisites for rap albums seeking to duplicate its cinematic flow; plus, Snoop and Dre’s terrific chemistry ensures that even their foulest insults are cleverly turned.” SH “That framework makes The Chronic both unreal and all too real, a cartoon and a snapshot. No matter how controversial, it remains one of the greatest and most influential hip-hop albums of all time.” SH

Resources and Related Links: BL Blender (10/08). “100 Greatest American Albums” SH Steve Huey, All Music Guide PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher TL Time Magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light VB Vibe (Dec. 1999). “100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century,” pages 154-164. Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/20/2010; last updated 6/7/2024.