After subjecting his fans to what has been an album-release gap that is beginning to rival that of the still-upcoming Guns N’ Roses album, rapper/producer Dr. Dre has announced that he’s finally done tinkering with his first new album in almost a decade, and will be ready to release it by the end of the year.
Dre started working on Detox (as it’s reportedly still going to be titled) back in 2004, though after several studio sessions, he decided to temporarily shelf it in order to focus more on producing material for other artists, including Eminem, 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes and The Game. The album’s release was intended to be delayed only until the end of 2005, but that’s when the shenanigans began…
In February of 2007, Dre told radio hosts on L.A.’s Power 106 that had completed more than an album’s worth of songs, though no release date was given. Later on in the year, while presenting an award at MTV’s Video Music Awards, he again said that the album would be released soon, but did not give any release date. Suffice it to say that Mathan Erhardt and all the rest of Dre’s fans were really starting to get antsy at this point. Shortly after the MTV appearance, Dre told the Los Angeles Times that the album would definitely be released after Eminem’s sixth album (slated for the fourth quarter of this year), and then told Billboard that Detox would be released in 2008, and would be his final studio album.
Fast-forward to this summer, as Snoop Dogg told reporters last month that the album was completed, and Dre himself finally broke the silence the USA Today this week, saying, “I’m just now—over the last couple of months—starting to feel that it’s going to be right and it’s something I can be proud of, and everybody is going to love it. … In a perfect world, I’m shooting for a November or December release.” One would be remiss not to point out that this is not a perfect world, and that you might be acting a bit hastily by adding Detox to your early Christmas wish list.
Regarding the length of time that has elapsed since 1999’s 2001, Dre insists, “[I had] never set out to [release the albums so far apart]. I just make the music feel the way I want it to feel and I don’t put it out until I’m totally happy with it. Then it does what it does.”
If you think that this sounds a bit like Axl Rose, you’re not the only one. More power to Dr. Dre if he can finally hand his master tapes over to the folks at Interscope, but methinks we’ll see yet another posthumous Tupac release and five more Lil Wayne albums before Detox hits the shelves. As far as Chinese Democracy is concerned, it’ll be out by 2045. Your grandchildren will love it.
(WENN.com)
