Sunday, September 25, 2011

Great Songs of the '90s: Dre's The Day the Niggaz Took Over


The angriest, most potent, most downright frightening track on Dre's monumental The Chronic (1992).
One thing that feels quite distinctive about the early-mid '90s period: there were lots of different music scenes, all of which were worth exploring, and the key works in each new area were genuinely astounding. The effect was that if you only bought one grunge album in 1994 it was probably Superunknown, and that was a great choice! If you only bought one rap album in 1992-1994 it was probably The Chronic, and that was a great choice! If you bought one ambient/IDM album it was probably Aphex Twin... And so on. The good and the popular and well-known were highly in-synch, so if you explored in any direction the rewards were immediate. Relatively self-contained near-masterpieces that taught you how to speak a new musical language were obvious everywhere....

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