Snoop Dogg - BODR (2022)

Snoop Dogg released his first 2 albums on Death Row records. The last thing he recorded before leaving the label was "Fuck Death Row" which gives an idea of what the situation was when he left the label. It would be an understatement thank Snoop Dogg and label owner Suge Knight didn't see eye to eye in the years that followed.

The label went bankrupt in 2006 thus ending Suge Knights involvement with the label. The rights of the label went through a number of ownerships and then in 2022 Snoop Dogg acquired Death Row records. The following day he released "BODR" which stood for Back On Death Row.

One notable difference between this album and the previous one is that we have 18 tracks instead of 10 which implies this could be a long album. However just 10 minutes into the album we're already onto track 5. None of the tracks are more than 4 minutes long and we're finished within the hour.

The short attention span of the modern era is something Snoop Dogg is catering for here. Another thing is that it's not available on CD and all the tracks have a video on YouTube. OK all the videos look pretty low budget, but I often thought the multi million dollar videos of yesteryear weren't really worth it.

How about the most important thing though, the music? Well he's gone for more commercial appeal on this than his previous effort. It's still a worthy listen though and some of the music is a nod back to the original Death Row days which is want the fans want really.

Snoop Dogg - From Tha Streets 2 Tha Suites (2021)

When I read the blurb about this album prior to listening it struck me as the most promising modern Snoop Dogg album. This was mainly because it's collaborators included Devin the Dude, Kokane and Tha Eastsidaz who are names I only really know from their collaborations with Snoop Dogg around the turn of the century. This was when I was first properly getting into rap music.

The album doesn't disappoint, it's one for the rap fans as opposed to one for commercial appeal which is perhaps evident by the lack of household names collaborating. 

It's also a short album, just 10 tracks and a total of 36 minutes long. That means if you have an hour to spare you can listen to this album in full and have time to do other things too.

At the same time in typical Snoop fashion it doesn't take itself too seriously. After just 1 listen I can't say any of the tracks stand out but I reached the end thinking that was a good listen. If I had to pick one modern Snoop Dogg album to listen to again this would probably be it.

I say probably because I'm yet to listen to his newest album which is up next.

Snoop Dogg - I Wanna Thank Me (2019)

In 2019 I bought tickets to go and see Snoop Dogg in concert in April 2020. As a result I thought I should give "I Wanna Thank Me" which was his latest album a listen so I could get an idea of what to expect at the concert.

In hindsight this turned out to be pointless, in April 2020 no concerts were happening and after numerous postponements the concert finally happened in 2023. By this point he'd since released 2 further albums and not a single track from this album was played at the concert.

It wasn't all a waste of time though because out of his more modern albums this is the best one I've listened to so far. It's Snoop Dogg being Snoop Dogg which is exactly what you want to hear.

As the album starts it goes back to the 90s G-Funk sound we had from him in the early days. We'd have more of that as the album goes on, but overall it's a journey through the various sounds we had from him previously such as the R&G era.

There is also a posthumous appearance from Nate Dogg on "Wintertime In July" who is certainly a very welcome guest vocalist. Some very dodgy guest do appear particularly towards the end such as Annita on "Little Square UBitchU" and Azjah on "Ventalation". 

Shit guest vocalists are nothing new though and I'm not letting this get in the way of what is overall a good album.

Snoop Dogg - Bible Of Love (2018)

The albums keep coming thick and fast for Snoop Dogg with this being his 4th album in as many years. To recap there was "Bush" which was rubbish, "Coolaid" which has potential and "Neva Left" which was much more like it. Did he keep up that momentum with this next release?

We no, quite the opposite in fact. Snoop Dogg is someone who can get away with a lot of things, the 80s electro style music he was doing on "Sexual Eruption", a reggae album under the name Snoop Lion or in more recent times doing the advert jingle for a takeaway company. This album was a gospel album which is too much really.

I can't say I'm a big fan of gospel music, it can perhaps be entertaining in small doses. This however is a double album that lasts for around 2 and a quarter hours in total which proved to be quite painful.

Aside from it seeming to go on forever, Snoop Dogg himself seems to feature very little on the album. Just one track on each disc doesn't have any featured artists and it's these featured artists who do the bulk of the vocals.

Throughout listening to this album I kept having to remind myself that it was a Snoop Dogg album I was listening to such was his absence for periods of time. Maybe if he was more actively involved in the vocals and the album wasn't so long then it may not have been so bad. That is like saying I could be a good singer if I had somebody else's voice though.

Snoop Dogg - Neva Left (2017)

For most music acts who have long careers they typically release an album a year in the beginning but then reach a point where they start releasing albums more sporadically. Snoop Dogg has more or less done the opposite with there being a 3 year gap between his first two albums but has never had a gap that long between albums since.

Then 25 years into his career he releases his 3rd album in as many years with "Neva Left". This was the first time he'd had such a streak.

On the cover is a photo of him from 1992 which sets the tone for the album i.e. make an album that sounds like it could have been made in 1992. With the title he's probably anticipating that people will be saying he's back, but he's saying he never left.

Whilst "Bush" was terrible and "Coolaid" is yet to grow on me, "Neva Left" is an album that sounds like classic Snoop. One notable difference though is the absence of Dr Dre.

Back when he made a point of not having any Dr Dre productions on his "Paid Tha Cost To Be Da Bo$$" album to show he didn't need Dr Dre in order to make a decent record, he did cheat a little by having just about the biggest producers at the time in The Neptunes do a number of tracks.

On this album though I wouldn't call any of the producers "big name" as such with a possible exception of Rick Rock on a couple of tracks. I would say this album is the one that proves Snoop Dogg can make a decent record without big name producers. 

Snoop Dogg - Coolaid (2016)

After listening to previous album "Bush" it seemed that maybe I'd made the right call stopping buying the latest Snoop Dogg. It wasn't a conscious decision, more the fact I wasn't really following modern music anymore and not wanting to buy an album I don't know a single track from.

The Neptunes were nowhere to be seen on this album having produced every track on its predecessor. As such it's a different and a much improved album. Most notable producer was Swizz Beatz who's done some decent tunes over the years, but there's a variety of other producers too.

The problem with this album though is I listened to it and completely forgot what I'd just listened to. Not the first time this has happened and an obvious problem when you're hearing something completely new to you the first time.

I see potential though so will give it a few more listens in the future to see if it grows on me.

Snoop Dogg - Bush (2015)

 

The Snoop Dogg album I picked as one of my favourites was his debut "Doggystyle". Of all the artists I picked, Snoop Dogg was by far the most prolific album wise. There was also I time when I had every Snoop Dogg album but that ended in 2009 with "Malice N Wonderland". 

One main criticism of Snoop Doggs follow up albums to his debut in the 90s was that he didn't have the best producers behind him. His career picked up again when he reunited with Dr Dre but then when he released 2002s "Paid That Cost To Be Da Bo$$" he made a point of not having Dr Dre produce any tracks to show he was just as capable of making a good record without him.

Enter The Neptunes who produced several tracks on that album. They were just about the hottest producers at the time so it was almost inevitably a success.

On his "Bush" album he's reunited with The Neptunes who this time have produced every track. You may therefore be thinking it must be a good album then. I on the other hand am thinking no, bad album.

Back in 2002 we had Nerd, essentially The Neptunes as a band, who were pushing music boundaries and Pharrell was the face of this as well as being known to pop up on various Neptunes productions with the odd noise or throwaway line. By 2015 Pharrell had become best known for the god awful "Happy". I recall listening to his follow up singles at the time, all I really remember are pointless appearances from the likes of Kelly Osbourne and Miley Cyrus on them as well as the fact they were fuckin awful.

This serious downfall in terms of quality for Pharrell is reflected on this album. I did think maybe Chad Hugo was the talented one and that Pharrell couldn't make a decent record without him. The presence of Chad does little to enhance the quality, but given the success of the shit music Pharrell was making maybe this was intentional.

Of course Snoop Dogg isn't a rapper you're supposed to take too seriously. He can get away with things other rappers can't because it's just Snoop being Snoop. This album is poor though and I don't think I'll be listening again.

Last 10 Years

Yesterdays post about Fenech-Soler brought back memories of other music I was listening to when I first discovered them. Basically I didn't think I was old enough to reach the 'better in the old days' stage of my life and made an effort to keep my music tastes current.

One thing I did was pick my 25 favourite albums. It was a very biased list favouring the more recent albums though, 17 of them were from the 21st century and the other 8 were from the 90s. It also included an album which had only just come out at the time.

Nowadays I'm at a point where I'm not even up to date with a lot of artists I've liked in years gone by. Some went to to make some truly dreadful music and others I just forgot about. I do sometimes seek out new music from an artist if I'm going to see them in concert, but many don't really bother making new music anymore and stick to the classics.

It got me thinking, what albums have the 25 artists of those albums I picked released in the last 10 years. Well here's the answer:

2 Many DJs - No albums

Norman Jay - 2 albums: Skank & Boogie (2015), Mister Good Times (2017)

Portishead - No albums

Massive Attack - No albums

High Contrast - 2 albums: Night Gallery (2017), Notes from the Underground (2020)

Plump DJs - No albums

Jacques Lu Cont - No albums

Erol Alkan - 1 album: Fabriclive 77 (2014)

Spiritcatcher - No albums

Various Artists - N/A

DJ Shadow - 2 albums: The Mountain Will Fall (2016), Our Pathetic Age (2019)

Tiga - 1 album: No Fantasy Required  (2016)

Air - No albums

Fatboy Slim - No albums

Sander Kleinenberg - No albums

Snoop Dogg - 6 albums: Bush (2015), Coolaid (2016), Neva Left (2017), Bible of Love (2018), I Wanna Thank Me (2019), From tha Streets 2 tha Suites (2021), BODR (2022)

Jurassic 5 - No albums

Kruder & Dorfmeister - 1 album: Johnson (2022)

Zero 7 - No albums

Mylo - No albums

Digitalism - 2 albums: Mirage (2016), JPEG (2019)

Underworld - 2 albums: Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future (2016), Drift Series 1 (2019)

LCD Soundsystem - 1 album: American Dream (2017)

London Elektricity - 2 albums: Are We There Yet? (2015), Building Better Worlds (2019)

Propellerheads - No albums

Just 11 of the artists have released an album in the last 10 years and only 3 of them have released one in the decade so far. Only Snoop Dogg has been prolific with none of the others managing more than 2 albums in a decade.

This leads to another question, are these albums any good?

Just one way to find out. I'm going to give each of those albums a listen and post what I think of them here.

Snoop Dogg @ The O2 21/03/2023

The last time I'd bought tickets to see Snoop Dogg in concert it ended up being cancelled after he was banned from the country. Then in 2019 I bought tickets to see him at The O2 with the concert taking place in April 2020 and we all know what happened then. More postponements happened and I started doubting it would ever happen, but it finally did this week.

I'll start with my obligatory rant about The O2. They no longer do paper tickets or even pdf tickets you can print out. Instead you have to use an app which is fuckin annoying. It took me ages to figure out how to get to the tickets. Have the app by all means, but give people the option of paper tickets. You are able to take your credit card and ID to the box office on the night, but the credit card I bought it with in 2019 has long since expired. The queue at the box office on the night was also huge which goes to show people don't want these sodding apps.

I opted not to drink beer on the night but I went to the bar just to see how much of a rip off their beer is these days. It was £8.50 a pint, absolutely disgusting that they charge these prices. I think you have to buy it on an app too so I think it's safe to say I've already had my final pint at The O2.

Onto the gig then and we had a DJ warming up to start off with. He played some classics by a lot of the big name rappers from the 90s and early 00s as well as some shit by the likes of Rihanna and Beyonce. Given Snoop Dogg himself has collaborated with some pretty abysmal artists in more recent years I guess that was to be expected.

Then up came Versatile, an Irish rap duo I'd never heard of. They were funny but I won't be in a hurry to go out and buy their music. They'd done a collaboration with Coolio and paid tribute to him by covering  "Gangsta's Paradise" and I found it funny hearing them rap it in an Irish accent.

Next up was D12, well 2 members of D12 anyway. I'd not heard anything of theirs since the "D12 World" album but it would seem they've not really done anything since. They fitted in a lot of tunes from their 2 albums and I enjoyed it.

Then it was time for Snoop Dogg himself which began a video of him backstage asking if we're ready for him to rock this motherfucker. He arrived on stage to "The Next Episode".

There was a time when I owned all his albums and I have his first 10. He'd released a further 9 albums since including 2 since the gig was originally going to take place. I'd listened to said albums back in 2019 to get myself up to date but have long forgotten anything on them.

I had no such thing to worry about though, he was mostly doing the classics with plenty from his debut album "Doggystyle", just the way I wanted it.

He also did some of his more questionable modern collaborations with Katy Perry, Jason Derulo and David Guetta, but you can't have it all. The lack of Katy Perry and Jason Derulo actually being there meant those performances were short and more tolerable.

One of his earlier collaborators who is sadly no longer with us was Nate Dogg. We had "Aint No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)" with the recording of Nate Dogg's vocals which was good to hear. It's possibly my favourite Snoop Dogg tune.

There was also a tribute to 2Pac via their collaboration "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted" and he also covered "California Love" but only did the Dr Dre verse. He also paid tribute to Notorious BIG by covering "Hypnotize".

Perhaps the most bizarre cover of the night was "Too Close" by Next. This was followed by a screening of his "Just Eat" advert before he came back out and covered "Jump Around" by House Of Pain.

It was then another video which this time had Pharrell Williams telling us to sing "Minnie the Moocher" but change the lyrics to "Snoop Doggy Doggy Dogg". Snoop Dogg then came out one last time to do "Drop it Like it's Hot" and "Who Am I (What's My Name)" followed by a couple of more modern records.

It's quite odd really that a man with so many albums performed so many covers or tracks that don't even appear on his albums. At the same time though that's what I'd want from a Snoop Dogg gig if I'm honest. It was the "I Wanna Thank Me" tour but he did nothing from that album. I recall it being one of his better modern albums, but had he mostly done tunes from that album it wouldn't have been as good.

Overall it was a great night and worth the wait.

My 25 Favourite Albums: Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle

Like with several of the albums that feature in the series, this is an album I bought quite some time after it was released. In 1993 when this album came out I was into grunge, then in the mid to late 90s I was into rave. Throughout this time I did like the odd rap record, but it wasn't a genre I really played close attention to.

In the year 2000 that all changed. I was one of many people jumping on the Eminem bandwagon. This lead me on to listening to other rappers, and Snoop Dogg was one of these.

The first Snoop Dogg album I bought was "Tha Last Meal" which was his latest album at the time. When playing it in my car, a mate asked if I owned "Doggystyle", which I didn't, so he gave me a copy of it. I eventually bought the CD when I got a CD player in my car.

It's actually a pretty close call as to whether I prefer "Doggystyle" to "Tha Last Meal", but "Doggystyle" just about pips it.

The best way to listen to the album is to skip the intros and got straight onto track 3 which is "Gin & Juice". The other hits from the album are "Doggy Dogg World" and the one everyone knows, "Who Am I".

The non singles though are probably better. You have "Lodi Dodi" which is essentially a cover of "La Di Da Di" by Doug E Fresh. There's also "Gz and Hustlas" which is preceded by a skit of a teacher asking kids what they want to be when they grow up, when he asks a young Snoop he say's "I wanna be a motherfuckin hustla, ya betta ask somebody". The voice of young Snoop was a then unknown rapper Bow Wow.

The highlight of the album though has to be "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)". This is the first I remember Nate Dogg singing on a verse as well as the chorus. It also features Kurupt and Warren G. It's one of the only rap tunes where I know all the lyrics and have rapped it many times, but am yet to find it on a karaoke playlist.