Death Row

[Cavvy]

New to the group, longtime reader. This has probably been done to death but Id like your guys opinion on the Death Row era and what could have/should have been acheived given the roster they had over the years.
Put aside the Chronic,Doggystyle and All eyez on me these are classics, you can argue about Dogg Food being a classic but I remember when it dropped a lot of people were disappointed with it. Now personally I feel apart from those records the company completly dropped the ball. Dr Dre  leaving was a massive blow of course, imagine if him and Cube had put out Helter skelter on Death Row or if he had a hand in snoops second album. Another mistake? not signing Warren and Nate up to a full album on the back of the Aint no fun record
Other letdowns? waiting too long to drop Rages solo.
They had a second shot at redemption with the second wave of artists but again pushing Crooked I back for a poorly executed Kurupt album probably sunk them we can put that down to Suges fixation on humiliating Snoop, by the way has anyone really forgiven Kurupt for that move? that whole situation and the subsequent beef really shifted my perception on the pound.
But yeah i kinda get upset thinking of how many great projects should have come out in that era but for one reason or another didnt.
Its not easy i guess running a label hell look at what Snoop went through with his own label
peace

[Hack Wilson - real]

makaveli was also classic

[Cavvy]

I guess personally I never saw that album as a classic, the mixing levels are all over the show and a couple of the tracks are just filler imo, it does include some of his best material however.
Maybe the course of time and the fate of its author has helped ease it into classic territory?

[Hack Wilson - real]

I guess personally I never saw that album as a classic, the mixing levels are all over the show and a couple of the tracks are just filler imo, it does include some of his best material however.
Maybe the course of time and the fate of its author has helped ease it into classic territory?

naw

perfect from 1-12

[Triple OG Rapsodie]

 

[Jimmy H.]

They didn't push Crooked back for a Kurupt album. Death Row wasn't putting out new artists. Crook saw the writing on the wall and left. Kurupt's album only came out because he left too.

[dexter]

I guess personally I never saw that album as a classic, the mixing levels are all over the show and a couple of the tracks are just filler imo, it does include some of his best material however.
Maybe the course of time and the fate of its author has helped ease it into classic territory?

naw

perfect from 1-12

[HighEyeCue]

maybe could have put out a few more albums from 92-96, but they had a great run

[Cavvy]

maybe could have put out a few more albums from 92-96, but they had a great run

Damn it was a trip, but I just think considering the emerging talent on the coast at the time it could have been so much greater.

[Triple OG Rapsodie]

Meh what would happen to Young Money if Drake and Nicki Minaj jumped ship and Lil Wayne was murdered? Same thing. It's very hard for a label to recover from losing its only 3 big artists. Crooked I, Rage and Kurupt were never going to be Snoop status. I don't look at it as a case of dropping the ball with Crooked I but more of cutting their losses.

[Cavvy]

thats part of my point though look at a label like cash money and how successful theyve been even in the mid to late 90s with their original roster they were pumping out multiple albums from multiple high profile artists. They endured artists/producers leaving and rebuilt into an even stronger label. Of course they obviously had  smarter brains running things

[UCC]

In my opinion, this is what should have come out on DR:

The Chronic
Doggystyle
Dogg Food, but with more Dre production, trim away some of the weaker tracks, more of Snoop at his peak
Lady of Rage solo, all Dre produced, Snoop, Pound, RBX, etc. guesting pretty heavily, like on Doggystyle
RBX solo album, again, all Dre produced, DR inmates featured heavily
Helter Skelter with Ice Cube, and all Dre production, DR inmates featured heavily
Chronic 2... maybe would have ended up being like 2001, but with inmates all involved
Tha Doggfather, Dre produced, like Doggystyle, but perhaps less funk and more Godfather strings and violin sounds, etc.


I don't think they should have had the soundtracks Murder Was the Case or Above the Rim...
Afro Puffs should have been first single from Rage's album, and Natural Born Killaz should have been on Helter Skelter.
I felt like the soundtracks slowed them down during their peak... at the time people were happy to have a couple more classic tracks, but they didn't seem like "real" albums.

I think Pac could have made just as good an album as All Eyez on me somewhere else... it'd be different, but still great,
and then California Love and Can't C Me could have been on Chronic 2, or Heltah Skeltah or Dogg Food or wherever.

I don't think Pac needed the Death Row guys to make a proper 2Pac album, and I think it just kind of interrupted what Death Row was doing
even more so than the soundtracks. If you really have to have Pac on DR, then I'd say it would have fit more if it was just one disc,
Dre produced, with more features from inmates, or maybe like a Pac/Snoop collab album, all Dre beats


Basically, I think they were a lot stronger with sticking with their core rappers and having Dre produce with Daz, Warren, Sam, etc. co-producing...
I think it fell apart starting with the soundtracks as it took away the focus and then it just unraveled.

The way I see it, they should have had like 6 or so albums all with a classic Dre sound and with just the main crew...

You know how with the Wu, RZA produced 36 Chambers, then ODB's album, Method Man's, GZA's, Rae's, and Ghostface's and
those are all classics and sound kinda related to each other and have the rest of the Wu as the main features?
I'd have liked to see DR like that..

[PhunkyDoob]

In my opinion, this is what should have come out on DR:

The Chronic
Doggystyle
Dogg Food, but with more Dre production, trim away some of the weaker tracks, more of Snoop at his peak
Lady of Rage solo, all Dre produced, Snoop, Pound, RBX, etc. guesting pretty heavily, like on Doggystyle
RBX solo album, again, all Dre produced, DR inmates featured heavily
Helter Skelter with Ice Cube, and all Dre production, DR inmates featured heavily
Chronic 2... maybe would have ended up being like 2001, but with inmates all involved
Tha Doggfather, Dre produced, like Doggystyle, but perhaps less funk and more Godfather strings and violin sounds, etc.


I don't think they should have had the soundtracks Murder Was the Case or Above the Rim...
Afro Puffs should have been first single from Rage's album, and Natural Born Killaz should have been on Helter Skelter.
I felt like the soundtracks slowed them down during their peak... at the time people were happy to have a couple more classic tracks, but they didn't seem like "real" albums.

I think Pac could have made just as good an album as All Eyez on me somewhere else... it'd be different, but still great,
and then California Love and Can't C Me could have been on Chronic 2, or Heltah Skeltah or Dogg Food or wherever.

I don't think Pac needed the Death Row guys to make a proper 2Pac album, and I think it just kind of interrupted what Death Row was doing
even more so than the soundtracks. If you really have to have Pac on DR, then I'd say it would have fit more if it was just one disc,
Dre produced, with more features from inmates, or maybe like a Pac/Snoop collab album, all Dre beats


Basically, I think they were a lot stronger with sticking with their core rappers and having Dre produce with Daz, Warren, Sam, etc. co-producing...
I think it fell apart starting with the soundtracks as it took away the focus and then it just unraveled.

The way I see it, they should have had like 6 or so albums all with a classic Dre sound and with just the main crew...

You know how with the Wu, RZA produced 36 Chambers, then ODB's album, Method Man's, GZA's, Rae's, and Ghostface's and
those are all classics and sound kinda related to each other and have the rest of the Wu as the main features?
I'd have liked to see DR like that..

I agree 100%. I've always felt the same thing about those soundtracks slowing them down a bit. I mean yeah those soundtracks were succesfull and classic but i think Suge had alot to do with those decisions, especially after him allegedly not being satisfied with some of the tracks Lady Of Rage had recoreded. I think that Suge pretty much wanted to launch and/or present those artists on the soundtrack to the world before his main artists, which was a mistake. I also agree about those songs being singles.

IMO it should've went something like this..and im not counting RBX since he left.

1994 - Lady Of Rage & Dogg Pound - Considering the fact that they had already semi-established themselves and really stood out on both The Chronic and Doggystyle (aside from Dre/Snoop themselves).
1995 - Helter Skelter joint, Sam Sneed album and then next Snoop album.
1996 - The Chronic 2 and those 2pac albums that eventually came out.

[UCC]

I've always felt the same thing about those soundtracks slowing them down a bit. I mean yeah those soundtracks were succesfull and classic but i think Suge had alot to do with those decisions, especially after him allegedly not being satisfied with some of the tracks Lady Of Rage had recoreded. I think that Suge pretty much wanted to launch and/or present those artists on the soundtrack to the world before his main artists, which was a mistake.

Word, to me a lot of the problems were because of Suge, because --

a) he didn't make music and didn't really know what he was doing as an exec... the only thing he could occupy himself with was finding and signing more artists and doing more deals which is what he did to fill his time... so you got soundtrack deals and signing Pac, Hammer, trying to sign Wu-Tang, etc. when ironically it would have better if they had fewer deals and also fewer artists on the roster

b) he wanted input on the music side of things, but didn't have a great taste or ear for music, so it watered down the quality control, and again ironically, that was the time when Dre had really good quality control and didn't allow any wackness on The Chronic or Doggystyle, so if Suge had just let Dre get on with it, it would have most likely turned out great...

c) Suge was one of those guys like Master P who just wanted to push loads of product onto the market to make as much money as possible as soon as possible, and thought that the hits would never ever dry up or stop coming and didn't realize that they had to trim all the wackness to get the albums to sound really good

[Cavvy]

Signing Pac was essentially the end of Death Row, Suge seemed hell bent on blowing up the West/East friction and through Pac they went to war. Dre obviously saw the writing on the wall and left, like someone said earlier the role Dre could have played was as a RZA like control production freak ensuring quality releases were dropping on the regular. Cant C me and even California Love with Kurupt and Daz on a verse each would have really built DoggFood into a classic, also like UCC was saying Dre building up a team of second tier producers like Warren G would have been great
If it had gone down like that I could have seen the Row signing Bone Thugs after Eazys death, maybe even Ren (potentially leading to some kind of fully fledged NWA release) possibly even Hutch could have bee bought in to bolster production. Not sure how far Danny Boy and Jewell should have been pushed, I couldnt really see either blowing up enough to warrant a full scale release, but I thought B Rezell had promise