Reader Review: Tha Eastsidaz - Snoop Dogg Presents Tha Eastsidaz (February 1, 2000)

(For today’s Reader Review, we return to the West Coast with BrianL, who gives his thoughts (and uses all of the words) on the first album from Snoop Dogg’s group Tha Eastsidaz, the creatively-titled Snoop Dogg Presents Tha Eastsidaz. This also happened to be the first project released by Snoop’s own label, which was called Dogghouse Records at the time. Leave your thoughts for BrianL below.)

My Gut Reaction / Something (Sort Of) Different: Snoop Dogg - Bush (May 12, 2015)

At the age of forty-three, Calvin "Snoop Dogg" Broadus, who will most likely outlive hip hop in general, if not us all, has gotten to the point in his career where he simply doesn't give a fuck and will release whatever the hell he wants, work with whoever the hell he wants, and hell whatever the hell he hells.  He's always kind of been this way: even way back when he was an up-and-coming superstar on Death Row Records in the early 1990s, he wasn't exactly a fan of inertia.  He's always traveled his own path, daring his fans to follow, and for the most part, they've always been pleasantly surprised.  

Right now, he appears to be bored with rap music, which is fine: I'm right there with him.  But while he'll gladly give a guest verse or a hook to other artists, when it comes to his own shit, he's clearly only trying to amuse himself, and he's open to experimentation: his last two projects were a collaboration with Stones Throw Records' master of funk, Dam-Funk, and a reggae album recorded under the alias Snoop Lion, after all.  Snoop hasn't really done a full-on rap album in four years, and with Bush, his thirteenth solo record, he still hasn't.

Snoop Dogg - Paid Tha Cost To Be Da Bo$$ (November 26. 2002)

Long Beach, California ambassador Calvin "Snoop Dogg" Broadus would like to remind you two that he's still around, and having clocked approximately twenty-three years in the rap game, he's probably not going anywhere anytime soon.  That's an impressive tenure in any career field, let alone one as fickle as hip hop, where youthful exuberance is highly favored over elder wisdom and crankiness, and Snoop himself had a hand in ensuring that the music industry didn't lose his number.

My Gut Reaction: Snoop Dogg - Tha Last Meal (December 19, 2000)

Calvin “Snoop Dogg” Broadus is one of the most popular rap artists in the entire goddamn galaxy. It's arguable that he's even all that known for his actual music these days: the man has permeated pop culture to such a degree that it's grown exceedingly difficult to imagine a world without him in it. Snoop has successfully embraced so many diverse business ventures that he could never pick up the microphone again and still can leave behind a legacy, plus his massive wealth, for his great-great-great grandchildren, which is quite a feat for a guy who grew up struggling in Long Beach, California and could have easily had it all taken away from him very early in his career, had that whole “on trial for murder” thing not worked out in his favor.

My Gut Reaction: Snoop Dogg - No Limit Top Dogg (May 11, 1999)

Like most hip hop heads who grew up with The Chronic and Doggystyle, Snoop Doggy Dogg was once one of my favorite artists. The combination of Snoop's laid-back flow with Dr. Dre's G-Funk-tinged beats was a potent one, forever changing the course of gangsta rap by adding melody and swagger into the mix. Unfortunately, Snoop's fabled career handicapped him with a disadvantage right from the start: once Dre flew the Death Row Records coop, he was left to his own devices, and he was never given a proper opportunity to introduce himself to the masses without the good Doctor's aid, so he was forced to establish his own identity merely because not doing so would have meant the instant need for him to find another line of work.

Snoop's sophomore album Tha Doggfather was a step in the right direction: the production wasn't as good as I would have hoped, but at least he proved to everybody that he was, in fact, capable of working outside of the Andre Young Experience: some of that project was even entertaining. But Tha Doggfather was released while Snoop Doggy Dogg was under the jealous, watchful eye of Marion “Suge” Knight, so the true test of his mettle came when he escaped from Death Row, defecting to Master P's New Orleans-based No Limit Records and releasing his third effort, Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told, a bloated effort almost wholly manufactured in-house by P's Beats By The Pound production team, with almost every single guest star slot filled by his new coworkers at the label. Although that project sold a ton of copies, it also added a humanizing element to the story of Calvin Broadus, mainly because it sucked so fucking much that it proved that he was capable of failing spectacularly when given half a chance.

In the fickle musical genre known as hip hop, the tanking of Snoop's third album (pun intended) should have spelled the end of his commercial career: he should have been resigned to spending the remaining years of his tenure squandering his talents in underground indie-label purgatory, releasing free mixtapes to Interweb blogs that nobody downloads while occasionally performing in small club venues for crowds who revel in nostalgia whenever “Gin & Juice” plays on the radio. Or, at the very least, people should have stopped giving a fuck about him: if his signing with Master P was the receipt for his coffin, the fact that he essentially signed away his soul just to get away from Suge Knight, consenting to the every whim of his new boss, was the final nail hammered into it.

Right?

Apparently Snoop Dogg has more lives than most cats. It turns out that Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told, ridiculous title and all, was done more as a favor to Master P than as any sort of real creative effort: Snoop's interpretation of your average overstuffed No Limit Records effort ended up being one of the label's biggest sellers, and his actual signing to the label brought far more media attention Master P's way than any of the sixteen other albums that dropped in that same month. So when it came time for Snoop to record his follow-up, No Limit Top Dogg (the title was a sly potshot at the rapper Top Dogg, a Death Row refugee who was retained by Suge Knight solely because his voice sounded an awful lot like Snoop's), Master P gave him full creative control, thereby allowing the project to become the first album distributed by the label that sounded nothing like the rest of the No Limit catalog.

No Limit Top Dogg reunited Snoop Dogg with his West Coast home (which, admittedly, he never really left in the first place, but there wasn't much of a trace of California on his previous effort), putting him back in play with producers such as DJ Quik, Meech Wells, Jelly Roll, and, most excitingly, Dr. Dre himself, who gave his former rhyme partner three beats to work with, one of which he even elected to rhyme over. The reunion between Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg was all that was needed for most people to start looking in Snoop's direction again, which was a much better marketing plan than what anyone at No Limit could come up with: with only a handful of beats crafted in-house and only three tracks featuring any of his coworkers, Calvin didn't leave his label home much to work with.

These days, Snoop Dogg is so overexposed that it's impossible to not know who he is: the man is an overbearing media presence who also occasionally writes songs. His career has lasted much longer than it has had any right to, thanks to our host's ability to recreate himself at the drop of a hat without changing a single thing about himself: the man somehow discovered the Fountain of Relevancy early on. Back in 1999, though, I couldn't be bothered with him: although he was once one of my favorite rappers, after the Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told debacle, I found other artists to throw my money at, so I didn't actually buy No Limit Top Dogg until very recently. I'm already familiar with the three Dr. Dre-produced tracks (thanks to the Interweb, I first heard them when this album dropped, but aside from the first single “Bitch Please”, I maybe listened to them about two or three times before moving on), but everything else on No Limit Top Dogg (which I just realized came out almost twelve years ago – fuck, I feel old) should be a surprise.

Should be.

1. DOLOMITE (INTRO) (FEAT. RUDY RAY MOORE)

Groan...

2. BUCK 'EM (FEAT. STICKY FINGAZ)

Kicking off No Limit Top Dogg with a Dr. Dre-produced instrumental (one with an Old West feel, at that) is a good sign that Snoop's third album has been lost in the rearview mirror. Unfortunately, Calvin flushes the prescription down the toilet, spouting generic gangsta threats that share no bloodline with the previous bar, while Onyx's Sticky Fingaz is wasted on the hook. Snoop has obviously grown up since Doggystyle, but while that album sounded playful, our host just sounds bitter on “Buck 'Em”, and that's an outfit that doesn't hang on him well. I assume, given Sticky's random cameo, that this was recorded at the same time as Eminem's Sticky-fingered “Remember Me?”, which was originally set for a previous incarnation of Dr. Dre's 2001 (back when he was still calling it Chronic 2000).

3. TRUST ME (FEAT. SUGA FREE & SYLK-E. FYNE)

Snoop graciously steps to the rear in favor of his invited guests Sylk-E. Fyne (best known for 1998's “Romeo & Juliet”, a hip hop travesty) and West Coast blogger favorite (and friend of DJ Quik) Suga Free, but his action has the adverse result of sounding like Snoop himself is making the cameo. Suga Free's bullshit contribution at the beginning is exactly what it sounds like, and Sylk will never find herself among the top female rappers, as she proves that she is unable to spit a verse that fits within the constraints of the beat. Oh well, I guess the comparisons to Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told were inevitable: I was just hoping that I would get a bit further into the tracklisting before succumbing to the drama.

4. MY HEAT GOES BOOM

Meech Wells's beat sounds almost exactly like “Still A G Thing” from Snoop's last album (which makes sense, as he also produced that particular song). Calvin seemed to think so, anyway, with his early callback to that previous song. The overly violent chorus clashes with the smoothed-out instrumental in a humorous fashion, if by “humorous” I actually mean “really fucking stupid”. To his credit, Snoop sounds alright enough when he's back on his gangsta rap shit, but the hook (which reminded me of the ending of Mack 10's “Only In California”, which featured Ice Cube and (a-ha!) Snoop Dogg) causes this milk to turn sour relatively quickly.

5. DOLOMITE (INTERLUDE) (FEAT. RUDY RAY MOORE)

Grumble grumble...

6. SNOOPAFELLA

Calvin continues his tradition of paying homage to his hip hop elders by remaking Dana Dane's “Cinderfella Dana Dane”. Was this truly necessary? Not really, but Snoop's appreciation of the old school is always a nice character trait, and this Ant Banks-produced track probably kept Dana Dane swimming in royalty checks for at least a week, so that's good. Also, Snoop sounds far more invested in his own rhymes when he's paying his respects, from “Lodi Dodi” to “Vapors” on down to this track. Does anybody else feel that way, or is it just me?

7. IN LOVE WITH A THUG

From the Nicolas Cage movie of the same name.

8. G BEDTIME STORIES

Although the song tricks you into thinking otherwise, this is not a true homage to Slick Rick's “Children's Story”. Instead, what we receive as a highly inappropriate bedtime story read to an anonymous child, with its violent content existing solely because Snoop is, ostensibly, a gangsta rapper (although it's pretty hard to tell these days). At least the Meech Wells instrumental helps rush this track through its slightly-over-two-minute routine.

9. DOWN 4 MY N----Z (FEAT. C-MURDER & MAGIC)

One of only three songs on No Limit Top Dogg that reminds listeners that Snoop Dogg was indeed still signed to No Limit Records at this point in his career. KLC's beat is actually really fucking catchy, even if C-Murder and Magic are outclassed; this track is one of the better trunk rattlers I've heard from Master Percy's camp. This is one of those instrumentals that a more capable rapper can easily turn into something memorable. (I'm not trying to say that The Game is better behind the mic than Snoop, but Jayceon's freestyle over this beat is one of my favorite mixtape throwaways of his.) The radio edit for this was entitled “Down 4 My Killaz”, which is somehow even more offensive to me.

10. BETTA DAYS

Makes “Down 4 My N----z” sound like fucking “Criminal Minded”. Calvin has put some obvious effort into his lyrics (relatively speaking), but he recites them poorly, and Meech Wells (and Def Jeff) provide a happy-go-lucky beat that winks at the audience too often to ever be taken seriously.

11. SOMETHING BOUT YO BIDNESS (FEAT. RAPHAEL SAADIQ)

Snoop revives his fictitious WBALLS radio station to present a boring-as-shit R&B number with Raphael Saadiq, an artist whom I normally enjoy listening to. Just not on here. (During his Death Row days, Snoop and Saadiq collaborated on a far-superior track called “Midnight Love”, so it isn't as though this pairing came out of left field.) Am I the only guy that thinks Snoop Dogg fucked up by not starting up a satellite radio station called WBALLS? I mean, seriously, Eminem has his own channel. Someone needs to get on that shit.

12. BITCH PLEASE (FEAT. XZIBIT & NATE DOGG)

The centerpiece of No Limit Top Dogg is also its biggest single and its best song, as Snoop, Xzibit (performing for the first time over a Dr. Dre beat), and Nate Dogg (R.I.P.) flow effortlessly over the dark melody. This track proved that Snoop could still rock a Dre beat with ease, and the reunion (after Dr. Dre's original version of “Zoom” featuring Calvin was aborted) was exactly what hip hop needed to hear back in 1999 (and served as a brilliant commercial for Dre's comeback album 2001, released later that year). Thankfully, “Bitch Please” (or, as it's known on the radio, “B Please”) still sounds damn near flawless today, and it resulted in more hip hop heads paying attention to Xzibit, which is usually a good thing.

13. DOIN' TOO MUCH

With 21 tracks on No Limit Top Dogg, it can be successfully argued that Snoop took the title of this song a little bit too literally, tacking on this DJ Quik-produced number that isn't memorable enough for me to actually write anything about it. Although most No Limit releases are stuffed to the gills, so...

14. GANGSTA RIDE (FEAT. SILKK THE SHOCKER)

Unlike on his last project, Snoop has largely ignored the pleas of his coworkers to please please please can they make a cameo appearance, choosing instead to collaborate with artists that fans of the genre actively give a fuck about. However, Calvin is still a loyal friend, and he really wanted to win that $25 gift card to Hot Topic that Master Percy promised to the Employee of the Month, so Snoop allows Percy's little brother Silkk The Shocker to contribute some forgettable vocals over this plain Meech Wells instrumental. Snoop cryptically tells the gangstas listening that “Y'all need to aim those guns in the right direction”; that was overly confusing and dark for an otherwise bleh track.

15. GHETTO SYMPHONY (FEAT. MIA X., FIEND, C-MURDER, SILKK THE SHOCKER, MYSTIKAL, & GOLDIE LOC)

This would be laughably forgettable if the artists involved weren't so goddamn earnest in their intentions. Yes, older readers, the presence of the word “symphony” in the title does imply that these No Limit Soldiers (along with Snoop's weed carrier Goldie Loc, for some odd reason) try their hardest to bastardize the Juice Crew classic. Producer KLC left his harder drum samples at home, though, and without any semblance of rhythm to follow, this nearly six-minute track feels three times as long. There is no need for any of you two to ever listen to this shit, but at least the artists take their work seriously enough, even if they all suck.

16. PARTY WITH A D.P.G.

Jelly Roll's instrumental sounds minimal at first, but it grows into something that envelops your subconscious so gradually that you don't even notice it until you catch yourself trying to buy a one-way plane ticket to Long Beach. The decision to ape Earth, Wind & Fire's “Shining Star” on the chorus was questionable, since Wu-affiliates Sunz Of Man did a much better job (not only did they go straight to the source, they also called upon Wyclef Jean and Ol' Dirty Bastard for assists) one year prior, but this song was still pretty entertaining, especially when Snoop offers up this choice line: “'Why you acting bad?' / Probably 'cuz I'm known as a bad actor”. Hi-larious!

17. BUSS'N ROCKS

Kind of corny, but I'd be lying if I said that this goofy DJ Quik-handled track (rendered goofy because of the chorus, which Snoop sings himself) was completely awful. I won't ever feel the need to listen to it again, but it does the job, I suppose.

18. JUST DIPPIN' (FEAT. DR. DRE & JEWELL)

“Just Dippin'” fits onto No Limit Top Dogg much better than one would expect a Dr. Dre performance to sound while gracing the House That Master P Built with his presence. True, neither Snoop's nor Dre's verses make much sense, especially as Andre only spits, like, four bars and negates his entire cameo with inane rhymes, but the musical experience was still very pleasant. Former Death Row Records songstress Jewell completes the time travel effect by providing vocals, as well: she should only sing over Dr. Dre-produced beats. I wonder whatever happened to her.

19. DON'T TELL (FEAT. WARREN G., MAUSBERG, & NATE DOGG)

Seriously? Snoop couldn't find a better DJ Quik beat for his former 213 bandmates Warren G. and the late Nate Dogg (with Quik's deceased homey Mausberg tagging along for good measure) to collaborate on? Oh well. Rhyming about pussy happens to be Snoop's forte, so he at least sounds pretty decent over this quiet storm of an instrumental, and the rest of the invited guests...well, they made it to the studio on time, so that should be rewarded somehow. I'm just more disturbed by the mortality rate this song promotes.

20. 20 MINUTES (FEAT. GOLDIE LOC)

Well, at least this track doesn't actually last for twenty minutes. Because that would make for a level in my personal hell, you see.

21. I LOVE MY MOMMA

Snoop caps off the overly-long No Limit Top Dogg with an ode to his mother, and it doesn't sound nearly as bad as it does on this virtual paper. The Meech Wells instrumental keeps things moving, and Snoop keeps his rhymes to a minimum, so as to not sound so cheesy when compared to the singing. This was one of the more interesting ways Calvin Broadus has ended an evening, but it still wasn't bad.

THE LAST WORD: Proving that even Snoop Dogg actually listened to his last album, No Limit Top Dogg is, sonically, the polar opposite of Da Game Is To be Sold, Not To be Told. And to be fair, there are some very good songs on here. The problem is that those very good songs are hidden underneath piles of stupidity. Master P allowed Snoop to have complete creative control, which can only be a good thing, but Snoop has problems finding something worthwhile to talk about half of the time, resorting to ridiculous gangsta tropes that were old when Doggystyle first hit store shelves. No Limit Top Dogg isn't worth a purchase, but at least Snoop Dogg proves that he is still worth paying attention to, as he could have easily melted into the background with his fellow No Limit soldiers after how well his last album performed. Also, “Bitch Please” is an awesome return to form, so there's that.

-Max

RELATED POSTS:

More Snoop Dogg, please.

My Gut Reaction: Snoop Dogg - Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told (August 4, 1998)

The short version of the story goes like this: Calvin Broadus, better known as Snoop Doggy Dogg, was lonely at his Death Row Records label home. His mentor and friend Dr. Dre jumped ship after getting fucked over for his hard-earned money (similar to what happened to him with the whole N.W.A./Ruthless Records situation), and his peer Tupac Shakur had been murdered on the Las Vegas Strip. Snoop, being as paranoid as most of the popular rap artists are these days, was convinced that his label boss, Suge Knight, was directly responsible for Pac's shooting and reportedly feared for his life. So he convinced his new best friend, No Limit Records label head Percy Miller (better known as Master P of Dancing With The Stars fame), to hash out a deal with his Suge. This resulted in Snoop getting out of his contract, dropping the “Doggy” portion of his rap name (as a concession to Death Row, perhaps?) and setting up shop in the New Orleans headquarters of No Limit, all while Suge muttered incomprehensibly to himself about losing lone cash cow, even though he did actually agree to it.


The long version of the story isn't that much longer, but it does contain a lot more dialogue.


After Snoop proved that he was capable of crafting an entire album without any input from Andre Young with Tha Doggfather, which didn't sell as well as Doggystyle but did okay enough, all eyes and ears were turned to Louisiana for Snoop's third full-length effort, Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told. When Master P came to his rescue, Snoop was happy to compromise, taking on the role of a simpleminded label employee (or “soldiers”, as No Limit referred to them as), and he allowed the direction of Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told to be influenced heavily by his new boss. This essentially means that Snoop's album ended up looking and sounding like everyone else's album that was ever released at that factory: the beats were almost exclusively provided by the in-house team Beats By The Pound (made up of KLC, O'Dell, Mo B. Dick, Carlos Stephens, and Percy himself), although P was nice enough to allow some outsiders into the studio to appease Snoop's Left Coast fanbase; the album was stuffed so full of songs (and only one interlude, which I'm actually thankful for) that the listener truly felt they got their ten dollars worth; some of the R&B samples used can only be categorized as “ridiculous”, but they resulted in quick, cheesy, instantly recognizable radio hits, not unlike what Puffy Combs managed in the 1990s; and finally, the album featured no less than nine hundred and seventy-two guest appearances, all but one handled by Snoop's new coworkers, including such highly-regarded names such as Mystikal, Silkk The Shocker (who I will always remember as climbing out of your grandmother's television set in those old ads from The Source), C-Murder, and, um, Fiend.


Not surprisingly, I never bought this album. I'm not a fan of No Limit's paint-by-numbers gangsta rap and their marketing technique, which was to flood the market with albums from every single artist they have ever signed, at least one per week for a couple of years (I'm surprised the EPA hasn't filed a lawsuit against Percy for destroying the environment with all of the fucking plastic that has to be sitting in landfills right now, as I don't know anybody who even considered thinking about buying the Lil' Soldiers album or the Mercedes one, of which all I remember from the label's ads in The Source is the female artist bent over the hood of a car). All of the Pen & Pixel album covers looked ridiculous as well, especially Snoop's, which you can see above, as all they accomplished was diluting New Orleans gangsta rap into specific key elements, such as diamonds, bitches, cars, and diamond bitches made out of the spare parts of vehicles. Everything about the No Limit outfit screamed “generic”, but I have to admit that they had their finger on the pulse of the market: apparently, the market liked being able to purchase a brand new album every week, albeit one that sounded exactly like the one released last week, but with all of the guest appearances shifted around a tad.


Anyway. Snoop Dogg's Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told was sold out around my way, so I couldn't have picked one up back in 1998 even if I really wanted to (and when I finally got my hands on a copy, the blue plastic CD case felt so cheap that I couldn't work up the nerve to actually walk up to the register: as such, right now I'm relying on a library copy). This was the case in most of the country: it was actually pretty successful, proving that Snoop Dogg had a rabid fanbase that would follow him anywhere, even if he sacrificed his sound and most of his ideals simply to get the fuck away from a bad situation at Death Row Records, where his old boss Suge Knight vented his frustration by hiring no-name rappers (such as the sound-alike Top Dogg, 2Pac vocal clone Tha Realest, and, um, Crooked I) to take potshots at his former employees on compilation records; apparently, Suge forgot that he signed off on the Snoop Dogg deal. (Two side notes: (1) I'm not positive that Crooked I had much of a hand in the constant barrage of Death Row disses toward Snoop, as I stopped giving a fuck about Death Row Records after Pac was “killed”, but he was featured on many albums where shouting “Fuck Snoop and Dre” was a predominant theme; and (2) Suge's anger and jealousy actually went further than this, a topic which I'll address the deeper we get into Snoop's catalog.)


Based on my limited knowledge of other No Limit albums, I'm not looking forward to Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told. The back cover credits also aren't helping, with its ginormous No Limit medallion taking up half of the space. Does the world really want to hear Snoop constantly flanked by inferior artists?


Well, they did at one point.


1. SNOOP WORLD (FEAT MASTER P)
After a brief intro from Percy welcoming our host into the fold, Snoop Dogg takes control of an overly perky KLC concoction, and to his credit, he doesn't sound awful: his calm, collected flow appears to have survived the label switch unscathed. But as a reintroduction to the man (or even to the new persona “Snoop Dogg”), this track is fairly weak: Snoop coasts on his lyrical charm without saying anything substantial, and Master P inserts himself into the third verse, leaving with a bad taste in their mouths. I suppose I've officially been warned. Shit.


2. I CAN'T TAKE THE HEAT (FEAT MIA X, O'DELL, & ANITA THOMAS)
So much for those lowered expectations: after the overt horribleness of “Snoop World”, our host (with assists from producer O'Dell and guest star Mia X) throws listeners a bone (ha!) with this track, which could have fit seamlessly onto Tha Doggfather. Well, maybe without Mia X, but still. Snoop rides the quiet storm beat like a pro, while the hook manages to not overstay its welcome. Speaking of Mia X, she may only have had a career in rap because of Master P (I understand that she was rapping prior to signing with No Limit, but how many of those songs were ever heard outside of New Orleans?), but on here, she gives us a convincing impersonation of a female rapper that actually sounds decent. Okay, that was too mean and vague: she actually sounds pretty good on here. Maybe Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told won't be so bad after all. (Oooh, foreshadowing!)


3. WOOF! (FEAT FIEND & MYSTIKAL)
Yep, spoke too soon, you know the drill. This may have been one of the singles, because any song that obviously appropriates Snoop's rap star identity as a “dogg” would be far too clever to keep bottled up as an album track. Fiend sounds about as inconsequential to the track as I believed he would, given his generic rap name, and Mystikal, the only other rapper on No Limit Records that actually had a career (of sorts) prior to signing to the cash machine, continues in his tradition of fitting more syllables than humanly possible into a single bar: as expected, his contribution comes across as fucking gibberish. Snoop wrongly refers to himself as “the godfather of G-Funk” (the hell?) as he speed-raps himself into virtual irrelevancy. Yeah, as you could probably guess, this was fairly awful.


4. GIN AND JUICE PART II
I kind of figured that I wouldn't like this song once I read the title, but I couldn't fathom just how much the song would suck. Sounding absolutely nothing like his signature track, this sequel in name only explores a much darker terrain while Snoop only fleetingly discusses the merits of gin, juice, and sequels. This would have actually been more successful without that title: this song shouldn't have ever had any preconceived notions tacked on. It would have still sounded bad, but on its own demerits, as opposed to being inevitably compared to the classic original track, an action that will just piss you off. What the fuck?


5. SHOW ME LOVE (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON)
Well, it wouldn't be a post-Dr. Dre Snoop Dogg album without an appearance by The Gap Band's “Uncle” Charlie Wilson (who is not actually related to our host). Unfortunately, I can't remember a wakaflockin' thing about this track. It slows the tempo of Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told considerably, and Calvin simply mumbles a bunch of random “romantic” phrases to an audience of nobody, as most women would have skipped to the next track by now. A blatant misfire, but most rappers are afforded a few: there's still some hope for me here.


6. HUSTLE AND BALL
Calvin clearly has some identity issues, or maybe he's just suffering from soap opera-grade amnesia: he constantly asks listeners “What's my name?” throughout his entire discography. Maybe he should simply tattoo it onto his forearm like Guy Pearce in Memento. Anyway, it's a good thing that Snoop came into the game with an assist from Dr. Andre Young, because if this was his actual debut album, with its preset drum loops without any depth and its vapid lyrics delivered with the conviction of an apathetic housecat, the man's career would have ended before the album even finished playing. Nothing on this song will encourage you to hustle and/or ball.


7. DON'T LET GO
Snoop Dogg has spent all of Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told thus far dropping so many names of his new coworkers that he sounds like The Game, except with horrible taste in rap music. The beat is too simple, as if it were crafted in a minute and a half and then looped the fuck up (I'm probably not that far off), while Snoop tries his best to sound menacing (he even threatens to sic the late Soulja Slim on listeners at one point – yes, the man was still alive at this point: there aren't many gangsta rap albums that would offer to send a zombie to your crib to fuck you up) without ever implying the he would handle any of the dirty work personally (spoken like the label boss he would soon become). His lyrics have absolutely no concept of how the beat is sounding, so this track ultimately didn't work.


8. TRU TANK DOGS (FEAT MYSTIKAL)
It's kind of funny that a song named “TRU Tank Dogs” fails to include any of the actual members of Tha Real Untouchables. KLC's beat swipes some keyboard inspiration from N.W.A.'s “Prelude”, but neither Snoop nor his invited guests are up to the challenge: Mystikal sticks with his modus operandi of playing hip hop's Tasmanian Devil, while Snoop obliterates any memory of the man ever being anywhere near impressive behind the mic. Judging by his later work, it's obvious that the man still had it in him: it's just too bad he felt the need to dumb himself down for the No Limit audience.


9. WHATCHA GON DO? (FEAT MASTER P)
Master P advising Snoop at the very beginning that “the dogcatcher” has been spotted in the general vicinity comes across as an empty threat, as though Percy is warning snoop that, should he fail to move any units of his No Limit debut, he's going to be sent back into Suge Knight's hell. Appropriately, Calvin sounds freaked out and unfocused on here, second-guessing his own boasts while, apparently, fearing for his very sanity. Master P's hook is useless, and he throws in one of his trademarked grunts because, well, that's his biggest contribution to our chosen genre, and the Percy Miller beat sounds like generic West Coast piffle. While it is interesting that the instrumental at least tries to acknowledge Snoop's Cali roots, you should still pass on this song.


10. STILL A G THANG
For the second time on Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told, Snoop crafts a sequel to a song that a lot of his fans hold dear, this time running with Calvin's mainstream debut on Dr. Dre's “Nuthin' But A G Thing”. (“Deep Cover” was technically Snoop's actual first appearance, but that was more of a street single than a radio hit.) I believe this was the first single, and it was actually a pretty good choice: while it cannot in any way compare to the original track, at least this Meech Wells-handled production could survive on its own, as Snoop sounds the most confident on here than he has for the entire project thus far. Confident enough to try to connect with Dr. Dre again, anyway, as our hosts attempts to reach out to his former mentor on here. Now if only that title were different...


11. 20 DOLLARS TO MY NAME (FEAT FIEND, SILKK THE SHOCKER, & SOULJA SLIM)
An interesting take on what is essentially the same concept as Ma$e's “24 Hours To Live”; Snoop and his newly adopted crew all wax not-so-poetically about how they will handle life when they're broke and struggling (hint: it appears as though each participant on this track is willing to brutally attack you for the cash in your wallet). While it is impossible to picture Snoop in this financial position now, back in 1998 it was wholly possible that Calvin Broadus was fucking broke: why else would he have to turn to Master P for help with breaking his Death Row contract when he could have, I don't know, hired a lawyer? Paid off Suge? Anyway, as high-concept songs go, I've heard worse, but I will say this: Silkk The Shocker has (“had” is probably more accurate today) the most annoying flow on all of No Limit Records, and I say that even though there's another guy (Mystikal) that basically performs the exact same way.


12. D.O.G.'S GET LONELY 2 (FEAT JON B.)
Of all the R&B songs to steal from when you write your mandatory love rap, Jon B.'s “They Don't Know” wouldn't be my first choice. Odds are, it wasn't Snoop's first choice, either: he was just being the good soldier, a new recruit who did anything that was asked of him by his superior officers, including singing over looped R&B interpolations that set the man up for an epic failure.


13. AIN'T NUT'IN PERSONAL (FEAT C-MURDER & SILKK THE SHOCKER)
Finally, Snoop's background as a gangsta rapper (as he is still classified today) shows its face, over this oddly great Craig B instrumental. The sinister bass and admittedly out-of-place drum machine lend authenticity to C-Murder and Snoop's thinly veiled threats against anybody who even breathes in their general direction. Silkk fucks everything up with his closing verse (you're not an underground artist anymore: fucking adapt your bars to the goddamn beat!), but at least the rest of the song was entertaining enough. (Side note: the Interweb indicates that a young upstart named “Crooked Eye” makes an appearance on this track; yes, that would be the same guy that is now one of the best two parts of Slaughterhouse, but my library copy is missing the liner notes, so I cannot confirm this.)


14. DP GANGSTA (FEAT C-MURDER & EDDIE GRIFFIN)
The title (shortened from “Dogg Pound”, possibly as another legal tactic to avoid Suge Knight's wrath) lends itself better to a reunion track between Snoop and the tandem of Daz Dillinger and Kurupt, but alas, it wasn't meant to be at this time. Instead, Snoop pimps out his old crew's name for a remake (because Snoop realized that his cover songs were among his most popular) of N.W.A.'s “Gangsta Gangsta”, which would have sounded better has Craig B given him something tighter to work with. At least Calvin still has the lackadaisical flow that made him famous intact. I certainly hope that Dr. Dre made at least twelve bucks off of this cover. C-Murder, the No Limit soldier most likely to fuck you up (if his boasts are to be believed), makes his entrance over a quick reinterpretation of the “Deep Cover” beat (man, I really hope Dr. Dre made some money off of this track), while comedian Eddie Griffin provides the outro. I'm guessing that this guest spot eventually led to his cameo on Dre's 2001, because it sure as hell doesn't lend itself well to Undercover Brother (which is good, cheesy fun, by the way).


15. GAME OF LIFE (FEAT STEADY MOBB'N)
I was just telling a friend of mine that I hadn't heard a rap song jack Whodini's “Five Minutes of Funk” in a long while. This track also doubles as the theme song for a direct-to-video No Limit film by the same name: Master P was a horrific rap artist, but that motherfucker was good at getting people to separate the cash from their bank accounts. Snoop sounded okay, but the inclusion of Steady Mobb'n trumps any good that could have possibly resulted from this shit.


16. SEE YA WHEN I GET THERE (FEAT C-MURDER & MYSTIKAL)
For a song about honoring those that we have lost, there are only two available speeds: slow and mournful, or high-energy, celebration of life-type shit. “See Ya When I Get There” manages neither, rendering the entire track insincere. But to be fair, it's the music that causes this ill will: at least the rappers were all trying. And herein lies the problem with No Limit's distribution schedule: with their focus on sheer quantity, there was no time to focus on any sort of quality control. Seriously, was there a real need for Da Game To Be Sold, Not To Be Told to be twenty-one tracks long?


17. PAY FOR PUSSY (FEAT BIG PIMPIN' DELEMOND)
Strangely, the only player from Snoop's Death Row days to make a vocal appearance on this project is Big Pimpin' Delemond, who provided spoken word interludes for a couple of Dogg Pound songs. On here, he does the exact same thing, except for when he moves out of the way for an Auto-Tuned Snoop to sing (pre-”Sexual Eruption”) the title. What a strange and unmoving interlude.


18. PICTURE THIS (FEAT MIA X)
How's this for an awkward pairing: Snoop Dogg pretends that he and Mia X (who is uncredited) have been partners in crime for the past twenty years, riding like Bonnie and Clyde throughout the countryside, when listeners know damn well that these two don't really know each other that well. Snoop plays with revisionist history on here, trying to implant false memories into the minds of his fans, not unlike when the character of Dawn was introduced as the title character's never-before-mentioned younger sister on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Also, all of his shout-outs to his new friends reminded me of when Mobb Deep immediately obtained G-Unit tattoos after signing with Curtis Jackson. Thankfully, this song ended well before I started questioning just how stupid Calvin Broadus seemed to think his fans were at the time.


19. DOGGZ GONNA GET YA (FEAT MAC)
Snoop's lyrical flow on this retread of KRS-One's “Love's Gonna Get Ya” is the most concise it has been on this entire fucking excursion. Proof positive that Snoop can sound pretty good when he's honing his storytelling skills, even if on here he's simply paying homage to another old-school classic. The beat was fairly plain, and the cameo by Mac was jarring as shit, but this could have been a lot worse.


20. HOES, MONEY, & CLOUT
This appears to be the only song on Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told that has any actual ties to Snoop's Death Row days (because “Pay For Pussy” was just an interlude, and the DJ Pooh-produced “Show Me Love” is too awful to earn this distinction): Dat N---a Daz provides scratches, longtime comrade Priest “Soopafly” Brooks handles the beat, and, um, well, Snoop speaks fondly of Kurupt during the first verse. (Regardless of what our host actually says on the song, though, Daz did not produce this record.) Curiosity factor aside, it's easy to see why Snoop's only real trip back into the land that G-Funk forgot was pushed to the end of the album: there is no reason for anybody to ever listen to this track, as it sucks balls. The West Coast-sounding beat (by way of a George Clinton impersonator performing at a child's fifth birthday party while trying to avoid the swift kicks of a pony rented for the day's festivities) sounds paint-by-numbers, and as a result, so does Snoop Dogg.


21. GET BOUT IT AND ROWDY (FEAT MASTER P)
As we close out Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told, KLC reproduces the melody from TRU's biggest hit, “I'm Bout It”, hence the titular reference. He forgets to steal some harder drums, though: the melody isn't enough to make Snoop's fans rowdy, as they also require some fucking rhythm. As an outro, this is pretty weak, and while Calvin does sound genuinely grateful that his new BFF Percy Miller got him out of a fucked-up situation, he appears to have left his inspiration back home in Long Beach. Bleh.


THE LAST WORD: I hate it when my preconceived notions end up being correct, because I'm left questioning why I just spent the last hour listening to something that I already knew sucked. Snoop Dogg's Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told finds him simply acting grateful for his new label home, playing the role of a model employee who has all but abandoned the habits he had fostered at his old workplace in favor of a clean slate. While there is the tiniest of G-Funk spark to be found on here, Snoop is primarily in New Orleans transplant mode, and he has crafted what is basically a shitty interchangeable No Limit Records project, stuffed to the gills with incomplete instrumentals, trite gangsta tales (which, admittedly, have always been Snoop's bread and butter), and far more guest appearances than can legally appear in the same room without violating fire safety codes. I would say that the rest of the label roster probably just wanted the opportunity to appear on an album alongside one of the biggest names in hip hop history, but no, all of No Limit's albums are crafted in the exact same manner. Snoop is allowed only a handful of songs to tackle on his own, and for the most part, those are the tracks on which our host shines, but Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told is so much of an overt failure that it actually manages to convert Snoop Dogg into a generic no-name artist, Pen & Pixel cover art and all. Wow, this was bad. No wonder he never talks about this project anymore.


-Max


RELATED POSTS:
You can catch up on the other Snoop Dogg releases by clicking here.

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Tha Doggfather (November 12, 1996)

When Dr. Dre defected from the Death Row Records camp for personal and financial reasons, he left behind his protege, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and his merry band of weed carriers. (He also left behind the label's newest signee, 2Pac, who wasn't long for the world, much less the label.) As a result, Snoop was forced to face a harsh reality: his debut disc, Doggystyle, as well as most of the hits he had appeared on to this point, were all produced by Andre Young. Was Snoop simply a good rapper that happened to benefit from the Doctor's orders, or did the instrumentals make Snoop sound like a good rapper?

In 2006, Calvin Broadus tested the waters with Tha Doggfather, his sophomore album for Death Row Records. (In the three years between discs, Snoop had also contributed heavily to Tha Dogg Pound's Dogg Food, which was mixed by Dr. Dre if not produced by him, and the Murder Was The Case soundtrack, which was inspired by a short film starring Snoop himself: he also popped up on the Above The Rim soundtrack.) The new disc boasted absolutely zero Dre involvement: it is theoretically possible that Dre was visiting another fucking planet while Snoop recorded his magnum opus. (Although Snoop was very careful to not fire any shots in the Doctor's general direction, so as not to burn those bridges just in case, he does manage to stubbornly insist that he never needed Dre's help multiple times throughout Tha Doggfather. This was probably done at the insistence of label head Suge Knight, who would later alienate Snoop to such a degree that he would also defect, although much less successfully than Dr. Dre.)

Tha Doggfather's theme is similar to most hip hop sophomore releases: Snoop attempts to further the ideas and tales that pervaded Doggystyle while dealing with his success, which has both positive (money, hoes, weed, stuff) and negative (mo' problems) effects. To aid his cause, Snoop enlisted beats from his cousin Dat N---a Daz (one-half of Tha Dogg Pound and, at this point, Death Row's in-house producer), DJ Pooh, and a host of other West Coast stalwarts. He even commissioned a remix of the title track from little-known Virginia producer Timothy Mosely, who does business as Timbaland: although the outcome sucked monkey balls, it is impressive to see that Snoop was capable of looking outside of the box for help.

Tha Doggfather went on to sell tons of units (although probably not as many as Wikipedia claims), but none of the tracks had the cultural impact that "Gin & Juice" had on the mainstream, and the disc left rabid fans counting down the days until a Dre and Snoop reunion would become possible (read: when Snoop left the label).

Until then...

1. INTRO
While this intro does manage to illustrate how much Snoop's life has changed since Doggystyle, it's still pretty goddamn boring.

2. DOGGFATHER (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON)
There may be no Dr. Dre prescriptions on Tha Doggfather, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Snoop is screwed when it comes to the beats: his cousin's instrumental is actually really fucking good, and if I'm not mistaken, this is among the first of many collaborations between Snoop and Charlie Wilson (from the Gap Band). This is pretty awesome.

3. RIDE 4 ME
A skit so early on in the sequence? Groan...

4. UP JUMP THA BOOGIE (FEAT KURUPT, CHARLIE WILSON, & TEENA MARIE)
This song has "West Coast" stamped all over it, thanks to the Roger Troutman-esque vocoder. Not bad, but nothing special, even with the contribution from Teena "Square Biz" Marie.

5. FREESTYLE CONVERSATIOPN
Snoop sounds more like he's trying to convince himself that he doesn't need Dre's beats, because I don't believe him. The instrumental here is lacking, but in a good way: this is possibly the first time that Snoop has attempted to get what some may refer to as "lyrical", and to be honest, he sounds weird, but not bad.

6. WHEN I GROW UP
Skit...

7. SNOOP BOUNCE (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON)
Sampling "More Bounce To The Ounce" hasn't been considered original ever since Jesus Christ jacked the beat for his disciples to rip shit to, son!

8. GOLD RUSH (FEAT KURUPT, BAD AZZ, & TECHNIEC)
The beat has a very effective take on the Wild West, not that Snoop seemed to notice, since he's not exactly subtle with the metaphors. He's not bad, though, although Kurupt is infinitely better. Hell, the beat is so good that two of the members of Snoop's LBC Crew, a merry band of seat warmers and CD burners, manage to sound decent.

9. (TEAR 'EM OFF) ME & MY DOGGZ
This beat blows. It's so distracting that I can't even recall if Snoop rhymed on here or just simply ad-libbed for three and a half minutes.

10. YOU THOUGHT (FEAT SOOPAFLY & TOO $HORT)
Hey, WBALLS is back! Considering how often Snoop has swiped Too $hort's phrase "beeyotch!", it shouldn't be surprising that $hort himself appears on this album, but it is, because the instrumental (provided by Soopafly) is more high-energy than anything I remember hearing him rhyme to up to this point (this is pre-Lil' Jon collaborations, of course). Misogynistic as fuck, but it's still not bad: I was most impressed with Soopafly, personally.

11. VAPORS (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON & TEENA MARIE)
Snoop both covers and adapts Biz Markie's hit single, thereby continuing his trend of paying homage to old-school artists by simply re-doing songs that he likes. This song actually works, possibly a little bit better than "Lodi Dodi", if only because Snoop now has much more experience behind the mic.

12. GROUPIE (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON, NATE DOGG, THA DOGG POUND, & WARREN G.)
Ostensibly "Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None) Part 2", but, ultimately, this isn't entertainingly misogynistic enough (if there is such a phrase) and, as such, is not an enjoyable listen. It just sounds mean.

13. 2001
Simple, effective, and good. That's all I got.

14. SIXX MINUTES
This song isn't actually six minutes long, so there are already two things wrong with the title. (See if you can guess the other one.)

15. (O.J.) WAKE UP (FEAT TRAY DEEE)
Oddly melodic, but not enough for you to give a crap.

16. SNOOP'S UPSIDE YA HEAD (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON
This was the first single, and it was a poor choice, in my opinion, since it's obvious that this song was trying to go for the "What's My Name (Who Am I)" demographic, and that track wasn't a good choice for the first single from Doggystyle, either. Lyrically, Snoop sounds rather impressive, but I can't recommend this song to anybody.

17. BLUEBERRY (FEAT THA DOGG POUNT, BAD AZZ, & TECHNIEC)
Sounds the closest to an Andre Young prescription as we will get for a while. Unfortunately, Snoop doesn't actually rhyme on the track (he only provides the outro), but luckily for us, everyone picks up the slack over the Sam Sneed beat. (Sam Sneed's "U Betta Recognize" is one of the most underrated gems from the Death Row Records catalog, and I dare anyone to say different.) It's not the most engaging instrumental, but it's not bad.

18. TRAFFIC JAM
Another WBALLS skit. You can skip this one.

19. DOGGYLAND
Meh.

20. DOWNTOWN ASSASSINS (FEAT DAT N---A DAZ & TRAY DEEE)
I've always liked this track. Back in 1996, the beat sounded completely different from anything that Snoop had touched, thanks to its East Coast sensibilities (and immediacy). Today, obviously we've heard Snoop on plenty of other beats, but this song still evokes the nostalgic feelings.

21. OUTRO
A snippet of a live show that almost features 2Pac, but ultimately Pac doesn't appear, as he was beefing with Snoop at the time thanks to Snoop's praising of The Notorious B.I.G. Because of that, this outro is even more useless than most, and yet, I've heard worse.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Tha Doggfather is surprising in that the absence of Dr. Dre behind the boards doesn't make the disc any less viable. The production ranges from decent to great, with the needle pointing in the upper ranges for most of the time. The reasons why Tha Doggfather wasn't more of a success lie with Snoop himself: while a handful of songs prove that Snoop can fucking spit when he puts the bong down, we find him coasting on the majority of the disc, which is frustrating as hell.

BUY OR BURN? I can't recommend that anybody actually buy this, thanks to what I just wrote, but if you've ever been curious as to what Snoop can sound like without the good Doctor in his back pocket, give it a burn. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

BEST TRACKS: "Doggfather"; "Downtown Assassins"; "Gold Rush"

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle (November 23, 1993)

The more I stare at the album cover for Snoop Doggy Dogg's Doggystyle, his debut disc on Death Row Records, the more that one thought starts to stand out: That cover sucks. It's terrible. It really has nothing to do with the content of the album, and yet, it has everything to do with the content of the album. Confused yet? You must not have ever heard Doggystyle.

Looking to build off of the buzz that Calvin Broadus sparked with his multiple guest appearances on Dr. Dre's solo debut The Chronic, Death Row Records rushed Snoop's debut to stores in 1994. (Okay, rushed isn't the right word: it was more than a year after The Chronic hit the shelves, but please remember that this was the early 1990's.) It was decided that Dr. Dre would produce what would eventually become Doggystyle in its entirety, so as to blend seamlessly with the previous album in the hearts and minds of the gangbangers and the stoners that would inevitably pick this album up. (Although there seems to be some conflicting reports as to the identity of the actual producer of Doggystyle: Snoop's cousin Dat N---a Daz, better known today as Daz Dillinger, has always claimed credit for producing some of the album's key cuts, but for all intents and purposes, Dr. Dre is the only credited producer, so we'll run with that for now.)

According to Dr. Dre's biography, though, the recording sessions for Doggystyle were disastrous. Unlike The Chronic, Doggystyle was not a Dr. Dre solo album, so Dre was forced to wait for the star attraction to come to the studio and rhyme. Snoop, playing the role of the next big thing, wrote lazy rhymes that were apropos to nothing while toking it up, fucking random groupies and seeing how many of his weed carriers would fit in a telephone booth. It's actually a shock that the album got recorded in the first place.

Doggystyle ended up selling tens of billions of copies in the United States alone, no mean feat for a product that was rushed through the manufacturing process: the back of the CD case only lists thirteen (or fourteen, depending on when you bought it) tracks, and there aren't really any sort of album credits on the cassette tape version (the first one that I picked up): instead, the liner notes are monopolized by an inane comic strip that introduces Snoop as a cartoon character of a gangsta that looks much to friendly to be any sort of threat.

Not unlike Snoop himself, I suppose.

1. BATHTUB
This intro, which attempts to sound cinematic, would have been more effective had Doggystyle retained this theme throughout the course of the album. As such, this intro is pretty useless.

2. G FUNK INTRO (FEAT THE LADY OF RAGE)
An intro after the intro? Do you really want to make Max angry? At least this one features some actual verses, courtesy of The Lady Of Rage.

3. GIN AND JUICE (FEAT DAT N---A DAZ)
This is the song that Snoop will always be remembered for, and it still sounds fantastic today. I remember wearing out my cassette tape copy of Doggystyle by rewinding this one song over and over, and this was before "Gin and Juice" even became the second single, it was that good. It always pissed me off that Dre and Snoop decided to lead into this track with the sound of somebody taking a piss, making for some awkward transitions on my homemade mix tapes. Also recommended: the "G-Funk Remix" of this track, which sounds equally as good, if not better.

4. W BALLS
This recurring theme throughout Snoop's future projects popped up on Doggystyle for the first time.

5. THA SHIZNIT
Sure, some of the melody sounds like it was brought to you by an eight-year-old on a recorder, but I always loved this track. It's probably the only one on Doggystyle that proves that Snoop could spit as needed.

6. INTERLUDE
The infamous skit in which Dr. Dre talks smack and Daz, Snoop's cousin, calls Eazy-E a "buster-ass HIV-pussy having motherfucker", years before Eazy announced he had contracted the AIDS virus. Creepy.

7. LODI DODI
Snoop covers Doug E Fresh and MC Ricky D (also known as Slick Rick), with an end result that is pretty good, but then you realize that most of the fans that picked up Doggystyle had absolutely no idea who Slick Rick was, and had no intention of picking up any of his older CDs, and then it makes you want to cry. My two readers, do yourself a favor and listen to the fucking original!

8. MURDER WAS THE CASE (FEAT DAT N---A DAZ)
I always preferred this version to the remixed one that was included on the soundtrack to that 18-minute music video that somehow passed as a feature film that needed a soundtrack. This original take on the material is just bleak as fuck, and the fact that one of the shooters at the beginning says "One less n---a" after completing the hit is incredibly disturbing, as if Snoop was capped by the African-American chapter of the KKK. The only element of this album version that doesn't ring true is the fact that the killers are listening to Mista Grimm's "Indo Smoke" (produced by Warren G) when they roll up on Snoop. Then again, Cube's gangbangers were bumping "Bust A Move", so who am I to judge?

9. SERIAL KILLA (FEAT THE D.O.C., THA DOGG POUND, & RBX)
I used to love this song back in the day, because the beat fucking knocked. It still does, but being older and/or wiser has taught me that most rap songs can be improved upon when the artists involved actually have something to say. Kurupt rules this roost, followed closely by Snoop and Daz (The D.O.C. handles chorus duties), but RBX's nonsensical ramblings about "pic-a-nic caskets" will bring to mind an image of Yogi Bear working at Fisher & Sons.

10. WHO AM I (WHAT'S MY NAME)? (FEAT DR. DRE & JEWELL)
The first single, which simultaneously sounds both interesting and boring as shit, is only really memorable because of its video, which depicted Snoop morphing into (gasp!) an actual dog, in order to escape from a bedroom after banging its inhabitant. In a way, I suppose the video was kind of a sequel to Dr. Dre's "Nuthin' But A G Thing", except that it was fucking terrible. The song is also longer than it has any right to be.

11. FOR ALL MY N----Z & MY BITCHES (THA DOGG POUND FEAT. THE LADY OF RAGE)
As you can probably tell by the credits, this isn't even really a Snoop song: he just pops up toward the end, as if he completely forgot that he received that album advance for a fucking reason.

12. AIN'T NO FUN (IF THE HOMIES CAN'T HAVE NONE) (FEAT KURUPT, WARREN G, & NATE DOGG)
For a moment, let's forget about the fact that this is the song where Warren G voluntarily altered his verse so as not to piss off his Blood boss, Suge Knight. Look at the song (which is still hilariously misogynistic and wrong today, especially Nate Dogg's unnecessarily graphic opening verse) in this context instead: it's one of Mariah Carey's favorite songs. She even used the beat for a remix to her song "Heartbreaker", and even re-sings some of the lyrics in the style of Nate Dogg. Now that's some gangsta shit!

13. INTERLUDE
Another lonely stand-up routine, although this one fares much better than Ice Cube's "JD's Gaffilin'" in that one of the lines here is actually funny. I'll leave it to my two readers to figure out which one it is.

14. DOGGY DOGG WORLD (FEAT THA DOGG POUND & THE DRAMATICS)
This third single is just entertaining. The video is even better. Sorry, but that's all I got.

15. INTERLUDE
This is just stupid.

16. G'Z AND HUSTLAS
I always hated this song, and the passage of time hasn't harshed my mellow any.

17. INTERLUDE
...

18. PUMP PUMP (FEAT LIL MALIK)
Kinda sounds like "Serial Killa", a fact that I had never picked up on before. Snoop ends his debut album with some banging Dre instrumental and an inferior guest artist, included for the sole purpose of making Snoop sound great. Remember the days when Snoop was considered one of the best rappers in the game? Yeah, neither do I. Are you sure that was true at some point?

The first pressings of Doggystyle include an extra song prior to "Pump Pump" that was deleted from the album due to sample clearance issues:

G'Z UP, HOES DOWN
This song takes me back, since it was included on the version that I have, but it's really only halfway decent. Still, I would have included this one instead of "G'z And Hustlas" any day of the week.

The back of the cassette tape version also promises a song called "The Next Episode", which never materialized (a song with a similar title appeared on Dr. Dre's 2001). Also, an unreleased title track, featuring George Clinton, never made the disc: supposedly, it can be found on the Interweb, but I have yet to hear it (and I'm not going out of my way, either).

FINAL THOUGHTS: Doggystyle doesn't sound anywhere as good as it used to, back when I was younger. Sure, some of the songs still bang today, and those tracks are listed below, but as a whole, Doggystyle just doesn't work. The skits are more useless than the average rap album filler, and the songs that I didn't care much for back then sound completely awful now. Lyrically, Snoop has never been anything special: he was always about the delivery rather than the content, but that delivery doesn't really hold up over eighteen (or nineteen) tracks. Still, the songs that work rock harder than most of the shit that both Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg have released recently, so at least it's not a total loss.

BUY OR BURN? Truthfully, you probably already have this one, but if you somehow missed that train, a burn is sufficient. This isn't a straightforward listen: you'll find yourself skipping a lot of crap on here. You can thank me later.

BEST TRACKS: "Gin and Juice"; "Serial Killa"; "Murder Was The Case"; "Tha Shiznit"

-Max