Dr. Dre’s ‘The Chronic’ Returns to Streaming Services Again

Three decades after releasing the monumental album, which has suffered from limited availability since the advent of streaming, Dre has realigned its original distributor to reissue it for hopefully the last time

Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, one of hip-hop’s most influential albums, has spent the past 15 years going in and out of print and on and off streaming services. Today, a couple of months after its official 30th anniversary, it’s back. “I am thrilled to bring The Chronic home to its original distribution partner, Interscope Records,” Dr. Dre said in a statement. “Working alongside my longtime colleagues, [Interscope execs] Steve Berman and John Janick, to re-release the album and make it available to fans all over the world is a full circle moment for me.” The album originally came out on Dec. 15, 1992 and ultimately spent 97 weeks on Billboard’s chart thanks to gritty, funky, cutting singles like “Nothin’ but a ‘G Thang’,” “Fuck Wit Dre Day (and Everybody’s Celebratin’),” and “Let Me Ride.” “Cops and other folks get wasted … in a sometimes frightening amalgam of inner-city street games that includes misogynist sexual politics and violent revenge scenarios,” original review of The Chronic asserted before adding, “Throughout, The Chronic drops raw realism and pays tribute to hip-hop virtuosity.”