‘The Chronic’ Will Now Reach a Whole New Audience

When I woke up today, I listened to a podcast on The Ringer that dealt with the rebirth of Molly’s Game. The ho-hum 2017 film is getting a ton of new eyeballs, and it’s exclusively because of its recent inclusion on Netflix.

While Molly’s Game isn’t a classic, The Chronic by Dr. Dre — an absolute classic — is about to have a similar renaissance. On Monday, The Chronic hit all major streaming platforms, including Netflix’s musical equal, Spotify. Tidal, it should be noted, had it up a day earlier, but the 4/20 thing was a nice wink to the album’s aesthetic. An entire generation of hip-hop fans will now be exposed to the LP that launched Snoop Dogg’s career, put Death Row Records on the map, and makes me look at Zig-Zags totally different now.

“[Dre] is conducting a hip-hop orchestra,” Havelock Nelson wrote in his Rolling Stone review. “Snoop Doggy Dogg is the star, but newcomers Kurupt, Rage, RBX and That Nigga Daz also explode in fury alongside Dre.”

The album opened in the No.3 spot on the Billboard charts and has sold over 5 million copies since. More importantly, it acted as a shepherd for the West Coast sound we still hear today and reinforced the fact that real rap records could sell. The Chronic was gimmick-free, but up to that point, it was mostly gimmicky hip-hop that sold.

“The Chronic,” Kanye West said in 2005, “is the benchmark you measure your album against if you’re serious.”

If you’re not familiar, get familiar. Not just by listening to the album, but by watching HBO’s The Defiant Ones and hearing the entire story from the folks on the inside. Listen to The Chronic on Spotify here.