Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' to making streaming debut with Tuesday's Apple Music launch

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited August 2015
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.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 46
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    I'll bet there will be a lot of highly offensive language in this...yet no one will bat an eyelash. /s (?)
  • Reply 2 of 46

    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.

  • Reply 3 of 46
    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".[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]
  • Reply 4 of 46
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member

    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.

  • Reply 5 of 46
    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.
  • Reply 6 of 46
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    I'll bet there will be a lot of highly offensive language in this...yet no one will bat an eyelash. /s (?)

    Then no eyelashes were batted for over 20 yrs.
  • Reply 7 of 46
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member

    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.

  • Reply 8 of 46
    Here we go again.
  • Reply 9 of 46
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    I'll bet there will be a lot of highly offensive language in this...yet no one will bat an eyelash. /s (?)

    Apple certainly treats movies, books and music differently than apps that's for sure.
  • Reply 10 of 46
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    slprescott wrote: »
    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.

    But that's ok because he was/is a liberal bigot. it's only the nasty "right wing bigots" that need to be silenced.
  • Reply 11 of 46
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Slprescott View Post



    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. 

  • Reply 12 of 46
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post

     

    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).

  • Reply 13 of 46
    This is the real reason Kaite Cotton left Apple. /s
  • Reply 14 of 46
    pujones1pujones1 Posts: 222member
    lkrupp wrote: »
    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.

    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.
  • Reply 15 of 46
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    ^^^ No, you could limit your music sales to any particular vendor.
  • Reply 16 of 46
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    Why not release Dr. Dre Detox on launch day?

    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.
  • Reply 17 of 46
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    cali wrote: »
    Why not release Dr. Dre Detox on launch day?

    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.
  • Reply 18 of 46
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post



    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.

  • Reply 19 of 46
    bobjohnson wrote: »
    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.
  • Reply 20 of 46
    boltsfan17boltsfan17 Posts: 2,294member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post



    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. 

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