- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Aug 10, 2015Compton crackles with life and spirit.
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Aug 10, 2015Despite its numerous flaws, Compton is still one of the most engaging listening experiences of the year.
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Aug 13, 2015It may spend a lot of its time reflecting on the past. But as an argument for that now famous district in South Los Angeles and its continued importance and centrality to hip-hop, it’s forceful and convincing, and one that ensures those Hollywood-style ‘COMPTON’ letters will continue to loom large--not just over L.A., but over this genre as a whole.
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Aug 7, 2015Compton is his third-best album, but that's hardly an insult. His skills have always been about immediacy, the grandiose, a sixth sense for the universal. On Compton, that's still intact.
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Aug 14, 2015Compton’s 16 tracks ebb into each other cohesively.
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Aug 7, 2015It’s ambitious, it’s diverse, it’s exciting and when you hear you hear what made Dre a legend in the first place. No matter what the era, stream, CD or vinyl, Dr. Dre is just on another level.
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Sep 9, 2015There are innovative and fresh beats and voices, and the record rarely falters.
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Aug 12, 2015While Detox seemed poised to erode Dre's sonic reputation, Compton, reputedly his last record, instead solidifies Dre's already ironclad claims to all-time status. Not only does Compton make you forget about Detox, it also makes sure you won't ever forget about Dre.
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Aug 10, 2015Each of Compton’s 16 tracks feel like individual set pieces bound together perfectly.
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Aug 10, 2015Like Lamar’s grandstanding To Pimp A Butterfly, the numerous strands of Compton: A Soundtrack take time and effort to fully unravel, but the rewards are manifold.
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Aug 10, 2015Eminem’s cameo on ‘Medicine Man’ is technically superb, but the content somehow comes over both hateful and boring.... But it's hard to deny Compton is brilliantly constructed, a masterclass in 21st century hip-hop.
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Aug 7, 2015Dre might have sounded fat and smug at this point. The good news is that, instead, he sounds hungry.
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Aug 11, 2015Compton is easily his most introspective album.
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Sep 1, 2015The listenability and creativity of Dre’s grand scheme almost save Compton from itself, but it’s the final song of the album that brings down the house.
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Aug 11, 2015Knowing that this is Dre's finale, there's a pleasant melancholy that frames Compton, and with the music in our ears, acknowledging that maybe that's for the best.
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Aug 19, 2015In total Compton is nonetheless a flawed masterpiece, an album of broad shoulders that manages to carry hip-hop into the latter half of the 2010s.
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Aug 17, 2015The beats sound like what you should expect from Dr. Dre operating in 2015.
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Aug 18, 2015Compton is an exceptional, big-budget rap album up-and-down.... Although fat definitely needed to be trimmed from this animal, it’s humbling to know Dre hasn’t let his ego get the best of him musically.
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Sep 8, 2015Despite its vocal flaws, if anything, there is a great amount of care in Compton.
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Q MagazineAug 25, 2015It's a rap record for rap people. [Oct 2015, p.106]
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Aug 11, 2015After three decades in the music business, it's inspiring to see him deliver an excellent album: overseeing it, driving his guests/writers/producers onto greater things and delivering it in an interesting way is no mean feat. His voice has matured.
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Aug 6, 2015It adds up to an album by turns confounding and enthralling. It's no Detox. It's something realer, and better.
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Aug 11, 2015Compton doesn’t need to exist, but it does, and that it’s actually pretty good and fresh in a year brimming with vibrant, relevant young voices, says something.
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Aug 10, 2015Compton exists now as a reminder to the current oversaturated pit of modern rap that legends aren't born overnight and there will never be another Dr. Dre. Hip-hop's first billionaire hasn't forgotten where he comes from so let's not forget what he's done to get here.
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Aug 10, 2015Compton successfully crams the magnitude of his origin story into ambitious, densely packed sonics.
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Aug 10, 2015Nowhere is Dre’s boldness and confidence more apparent than in Compton’s music.
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Aug 14, 2015The album slips into a febrile combination of reminiscences, boasts and complaints that manages to keep an eye firmly on the present whilst gazing fondly back on former tribulations.
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Aug 7, 2015Musically, it’s ornate and grand-scaled, and somehow also deft.
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Aug 17, 2015Compton has replaced the abandoned Detox project with a surprisingly vivid soundtrack of frustration inspired by the forthcoming NWA biopic.
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The SourceOct 20, 2015Compton gives every indication that Dr. Dre is as potent now as he was in the 20th century's final decade. [#267, p.91]
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Aug 7, 2015He seems to have found a new and more sincere voice, less bullish than we have heard him before, whilst using a fantastic roster of contributors to push the mood and narrative.
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UncutSep 28, 2015Compton is a solid reminder of both Dre's skills and the depth of his contacts book. [Nov 2015, p.75]
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Aug 10, 2015Regardless of whether or not the album will spawn a generation of imitators like his previous releases, Compton is a proper capstone to Dre’s legendary career.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 237 out of 275
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Mixed: 21 out of 275
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Negative: 17 out of 275
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Aug 7, 2015
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Aug 8, 2015
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Aug 8, 2015