John
Hip-hop for your hi-fi? One album that couldn’t be burglarised for our recent ‘classic hip-hop’ playlist was Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. Why? It wasn’t available on streaming services.
All that changes on Monday 20th April (4.20) when The Chronic will be made available to stream for the first time across all popular services.
Tidal gets The Chronic a day early (Sunday 19th) where it will stream the album in lossy, lossless CD-quality and MQA hi-res audio formats. From this, we can deduce that Qobuz will (more than likely) offer The Chronic in hi-res PCM from Monday.
First released in 1992, Dr. Dre’s debut was one of the most important and influential rap albums of the nineties. It made its author a star, launched the career of Snoop Dog and – our focus here – marked a high point for rap music’s sound.
Pitchfork’s recent retrospective review gave it a perfect 10:
“The Chronic lives on as a timeless show of strength when the stakes couldn’t have been higher, and as the herald of a tectonic shift in rap. Without it, or Dre, there is no Game, no YG, no Kendrick Lamar or To Pimp a Butterfly, no Nipsey Hussle.”
What’s the significance of 4.20? Click here to find out.
Further information: Tidal
