Dr. Dre's Hip Hop Classic Gets a Well-Deserved "One Step" Release From Tape

hey boomer! You might actually like this! you'll love the sound for sure

In the audiophile ghettos otherwise known as "hi-fi shows" Hip Hop music rarely if ever gets played. Blues? Yes. A lot of blues. Jazz? Yes a lot of jazz. Some classical too, but Hip Hop? Not that I can recall. Some say it's the coarse language. Around the time this now classic Hip Hop album was released late 1992, a Howard Stern Show character named "Stuttering John" (Melendez) stuck a microphone in Walter Cronkite's face at a press event and attempted a Q&A. During the questioning he slipped in the word "friggin'" and that set off the then retired CBS News anchor, who excoriated Melendez for his foul language.

33 years later "friggin"? It's in TV commercials and sitcoms. No big deal. Our public language has gotten a great deal coarser. We have a President who regularly throws "F-bombs", uses phrases like "shithole countries", and spouts vulgarities that, coming from a President's mouth in public once would have been considered scandalous. Most of them spewed their expletives in private.

There's very little said on The Chronic (slang for the highest quality weed, if you didn't know) that most people reading this haven't said (usually with far less humorous intent) or at least heard in private and maybe in public depending upon where you hang and with whom, though in my family growing up if you ever used the N word you got your mouth washed out with soap.

The Chronic quickly reached number 3 on the Billboard 200 charts and spent 8 months in the Top 10, eventually being certified triple platinum (3 million copies sold) and all of that were before these coarse public language times. It was a mainstream album. The Library of effing Congress selected The Chronic for preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2019 as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant"!

Yet you won't hear The Chronic in the hi-fi show ghetto—at least I've not—or any other Hip Hop or rap music. Maybe Rap and Hip Hop are out at hifi shows because many (but not all) Hip Hop records are filled with smashed, lo-rez samples, highly processed vocals and synthetic beats that result in recordings not fit to show off high performance audio gear.

Nonetheless, one musical step away from The Chronic, and so close, the names Bernie Worrell and George Clinton and groups like Parliament/Funkadelic and War are very familiar to many audiophiles, and their music, often very well recorded, is well appreciated! Go-Go music Chuck Brown's 70's era Washington D.C. party/dance funk variant definitely got plenty of "airplay" at hi-fi shows because I brought Go-Go Crankin' Paint The White House Black to many of them and everyone partied!

Now finally, onto this AAA The Chronic "One Step" reissue spread onto two 180g slabs. You are advised on side 3 that "This should be played at high volume preferably in a residential area!" . And you can because it's a flat out audiophile quality G-funk production, more live in the studio music, than sample derived (fewer than a dozen samples, more than a few Funkadelic derived). The funk beats are slow, fat and hypnotic the bass lines sexy and languid and Dre leaves wide open spaces that help produce huge, three-dimensional soundstages. There's a live flute played by Katisse Buckingham that magically floats in space between the channels. Most of the live instruments are equally well recorded and presented. Not sure if Dre used Neumann U-47s but the vocals are so ridiculously well recorded and left to hang unmolested by effects you can almost smell the blunt breath.

Now, regarding the lyrics and the emotional residue, Dre addresses his former bandmates and airs his grievances, sometimes viciously, Snoop Dogg raps all over the record about his rough time growing up but even then he provided almost a balm and today he's a benign mainstream caricature of his former self. People who whined then about the glorification of "gangsta violence" are the same folks who loved The Untouchables and later The Sopranos so take it for what it is, often sketch comedy funny, more like Firesign Theater, and filled with cartoon sex. Making this record must have been a collective blast.

Still there's enough of a dangerous undercurrent to make it vital and sometimes scary because it reflects how life was and probably still is for many in the real ghetto. 30 years down the road, though it goes down surprisingly mellow yet there's enough sketch comedy fun, funk and danger to keep listeners fully engaged, especially since it sounds so fucking great! The One Step costs $124.98. I reviewed a test pressing but based on the other One Steps in this series the packaging should be deluxe.

Finally, Bernie Grundman originally mastered this in 1992 and according to Wikipedia some recording was also done at Bernie's. I just wish I'd been a fly on the wall watching all of this go down with mild-mannered Bernie! Needless to say, this edition was plated by Dorin Sauerbier at RTI and pressed there on Neotech VR900-D2 180g High Performance Vinyl.