Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' to making streaming debut with Tuesday's Apple Music launch
One of the most famous rap albums of all time -- Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" -- will reportedly make its premiere on streaming services with this week's launch of Apple Music.
The album will be available with tomorrow's launch of the service, a source told Rolling Stone. Currently The Chronic is not available to stream on any platform -- Spotify, for instance, only offers the follow-up album 2001, in original and instrumental versions.
Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, was one of the co-founders of Beats, which Apple acquired in May 2014. Despite this Beats Music -- the service on which Apple Music is based -- has also lacked The Chronic, and the album is not available for sale through iTunes.
The widespread absence may be attributable in part to Dre's legal dispute with Death Row Records, which only allowed the rapper to reclaim digital rights to the album in 2011. Dre was awarded all proceeds of The Chronic's digital sales, while Death Row kept the rights for physical sales.
Apple may be hoping to use the album as another exclusive to lure people away from services like Spotify and Rdio. The company has already managed to secure Taylor Swift's 1989, as well as Pharrell Williams' new single "Freedom."
Dr. Dre has been working on a new album for many years, and given his employment at Apple, it could conceivably become another Apple Music exclusive. The album, once known as Detox, was originally expected back in 2003.
The album will be available with tomorrow's launch of the service, a source told Rolling Stone. Currently The Chronic is not available to stream on any platform -- Spotify, for instance, only offers the follow-up album 2001, in original and instrumental versions.
Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, was one of the co-founders of Beats, which Apple acquired in May 2014. Despite this Beats Music -- the service on which Apple Music is based -- has also lacked The Chronic, and the album is not available for sale through iTunes.
The widespread absence may be attributable in part to Dre's legal dispute with Death Row Records, which only allowed the rapper to reclaim digital rights to the album in 2011. Dre was awarded all proceeds of The Chronic's digital sales, while Death Row kept the rights for physical sales.
Apple may be hoping to use the album as another exclusive to lure people away from services like Spotify and Rdio. The company has already managed to secure Taylor Swift's 1989, as well as Pharrell Williams' new single "Freedom."
Dr. Dre has been working on a new album for many years, and given his employment at Apple, it could conceivably become another Apple Music exclusive. The album, once known as Detox, was originally expected back in 2003.
Comments
I'm irked they've torpedoed all the iTunes Radio stations early. I liked my Electronic Chill and Classical Chill playlists. I had to stick to Claude Debussy Radio yesterday.
If the new ones showing now are the standard we can expect under Apple Music I am not impressed. Names like "The Mixtape", "Sound System" and "All-City" are all completely meaningless and the music seems to largely be crap.
The album's lyrics caused some controversy, as the subject matter included homophobia and violent representations. It was noted that the album was a "frightening amalgam of inner-city street gangs that includes misogynist sexual politics and violent revenge scenarios".[16] Dr. Dre's dissing of former band-mate, Eazy-E, resulted in vicious lyrics, which were mainly aimed at offending his enemy with homosexual implications, although it was noted to have "a spirited cleverness in the phrasing and rhymes; in other words, the song is offensive, but it's creatively offensive".[17]
Is Dre limiting this to Apple Music? If so, is that collusion since he’s an Apple employee? The DOJ will probably jump on this quickly.
And no I’m not being sarcastic. This could actually happen since it’s Apple you know and there’s a big bullseye painted on their back.
"The album's lyrics caused some controversy, as the subject matter included homophobia and violent representations. It was noted that the album was a 'frightening amalgam of inner-city street gangs that includes misogynist sexual politics and violent revenge scenarios'. Dr. Dre's dissing of former band-mate, Eazy-E, resulted in vicious lyrics, which were mainly aimed at offending his enemy with homosexual implications, although it was noted to have 'a spirited cleverness in the phrasing and rhymes; in other words, the song is offensive, but it's creatively offensive'."
Ben Folds does a tongue-in-cheek easy-listening cover of "Bitches Ain't Shit", but Dre's original version is just... offensive.
Then no eyelashes were batted for over 20 yrs.
Strong opening few posts to this thread - paranoid delusions about the DoJ and bigots whining that they're not allowed to be as bigoted as a 20-year old gangster rap album.
Apple certainly treats movies, books and music differently than apps that's for sure.
But that's ok because he was/is a liberal bigot. it's only the nasty "right wing bigots" that need to be silenced.
This is pretty amazing (in a bad way), given Apple's progressive stance, Tim's orientation, and the following album description from Wikipedia:
"The album's lyrics caused some controversy, as the subject matter included homophobia and violent representations. It was noted that the album was a 'frightening amalgam of inner-city street gangs that includes misogynist sexual politics and violent revenge scenarios'. Dr. Dre's dissing of former band-mate, Eazy-E, resulted in vicious lyrics, which were mainly aimed at offending his enemy with homosexual implications, although it was noted to have 'a spirited cleverness in the phrasing and rhymes; in other words, the song is offensive, but it's creatively offensive'."
Ben Folds does a tongue-in-cheek easy-listening cover of "Bitches Ain't Shit", but Dre's original version is just... offensive.
There is no problem here, but like you many people will most certainly find a problem and ignite it. The end result will be an explosive amount of digital listens to the album and sales of the digital album.
Is Dre limiting this to Apple Music? If so, is that collusion since he’s an Apple employee? The DOJ will probably jump on this quickly.
And no I’m not being sarcastic. This could actually happen since it’s Apple you know and there’s a big bullseye painted on their back.
It is a sad fact, but the DOJ probably will jump on this and classify it as collusion or monopolistic if Dr. Dre decides to not ever release the album on any other streaming service.
The bullseye is not painted on Apple's back. The bullseye with Apple's name on it is painted on the back of the eye lids of the DOJ and the NY and CT State AGs. (And, Judge Cote).
Hi. I'm not a lawyer or anything. I'm just asking a question here.
If you own your digital rights and you only want to put your album on your company service can you be sued for that? Can some other company who wants your album have a court force you to make available to them? Could Apple have forced Taylor Swift to give them access to her album she was withholding?
I agree with you though. It is Apple and just because they have so much money in the bank they would be a very likely and easy target.
It would have easily gained 3 Million users day one. It's the most anticipated Hip Hop album in history and people been waiting since 2003.
Massive PR would have been made around music and celebrity sites.
Presumably an album recorded more than ten years ago would completely lack relevance and sound and feel dated.
Presumably an album recorded more than ten years ago would completely lack relevance and sound and feel dated.
You massively underestimate just how important Detox is in the hip hop community. It's the rap equivalent of the unreleased Michael Jackson songs.
It's the music equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever.
I'll bet there will be a lot of highly offensive language in this...yet no one will bat an eyelash. /s (?)
No one will bat an eye unless it's a white person saying or doing something wrong.