Compton (album)

Background

Following 11 years of unsuccessful work on his infamous Detox album, Dre officially cancelled the project on August 1, 2015 during an episode of his Beats 1 radio show, The Pharmacy with Dr. Dre. He stated that the album did not meet his standards and had decided to scrap the project as a result. During the same episode, Dre announced that he would be releasing a brand-new album, entitled Compton, on August 7 on iTunes and Apple Music, with a physical release following on August 21. Earlier the same day in an interview with Power 99FM, Ice Cube had preemptively announced the album, which may have been part of the reason for officially announcing it soon after. The album was inspired by the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton and features a number of collaborators from various points in his career, including Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Xzibit, Cold187um and The Game, among others.

"During principal photography of Straight Outta Compton, I felt myself going to the studio and being so inspired by the movie that I started recording an album," Dre said on his radio show. "I kept it under wraps, and now the album is finished. It's bananas. It's an 'inspired by' album. It's inspired by Straight Outta Compton. We're gonna call the album Compton: The Soundtrack. I'm really proud of this." Dre also described the upcoming release as being his 'grand finale.'

Release and reception

Compton was released by Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records on August 7, 2015, to widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, it received an average score of 82, based on 36 reviews. Following two weeks of Apple exclusivity, the album was released for other streaming services as well as music stores on August 21. Rolling Stone critic Jonah Weiner deemed the album "by turns confounding and enthralling" while writing that it "contains some of his most ambitious, idea-stuffed production ever" and that "Dre's rhyming (aided as always by co-writers) is impressive". Robert Christgau from Vice was somewhat less enthusiastic, naming "Genocide" and "Animals" as highlights while writing that the record benefitted significantly from Dre's absence from half the songs because of so many guest artists. At the end of the year, Compton was named the 32nd best album of 2015 by Pitchfork, while The Guardian ranked it 35th.

Commercial performance

Prior to its release, there was heavy anticipation on whether Compton or Luke Bryan's Kill the Lights would debut at the top of the US Billboard 200 chart. Ultimately, Compton debuted at number 2 with 295,000 equivalent album units; it sold 278,558 copies in its first week, with the remainder of its unit total reflecting the album's streaming activity and track sales. Compton is Dr Dre's third solo album to debut at number one on the Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. The album remained in the chart's top ten for the next several weeks, and, as of June 2016, the album has sold over 600,000 copies in the United States. Compton has been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Compton debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart after selling 45,721 copies (including 2,079 streaming sales), becoming Dr. Dre's first number-one album in the UK. It outsold its nearest competitor, Frank Turner's Positive Songs for Negative People, by over 28,000 combined chart sales. Additionally, as the physical version of the album was not released until two weeks later, Dr. Dre became the first artist in history to top the UK Albums Chart with a non-physical release. Compton has been certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

Track listing