Dr. Dre – The Chronic (2LP, Album, Reissue, Repress, Vinyl) 255196

The Chronic is the debut studio album by the American hip hop producer and rapper Dr. Dre. It was released on December 15, 1992, by his own record label Death Row Records and distributed by Interscope Records. Recording sessions took place in June 1992 at Death Row Studios in Los Angeles and at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood.

The Chronic was Dr. Dre's first solo album after he departed the West Coast hip hop group N.W.A and its label Ruthless Records over a financial dispute. It includes insults towards Ruthless and its owner, former N.W.A member and assembler Eazy-E. It features many appearances by then-emerging American rapper Snoop Dogg, who used the album as a launch pad for boosting his own solo career. The title derives from a slang term for high-grade cannabis, and its cover is an homage to Zig-Zag rolling papers.

The Chronic reached number three on the Billboard 200 and has been certified triple platinum with sales of three million copies in the United States, making Dre one of the top ten best-selling American performing artists of 1993. The Chronic spent eight months in the Billboard Top 10. The album's three singles became top ten Billboard singles. "Nuthin' but a ‘G’ Thang" reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot Rap Singles and Hot R&B Singles charts.

Dr. Dre's production popularized the G-funk subgenre within gangsta rap. The Chronic has been widely regarded as one of the most important and influential albums of the 1990s and one of the best-produced hip hop albums. In 2019, the album was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".