Hmmmm….influential album…how about influential albums where you don’t like the influence they’ve had?

I’ll start by nominating an album I actually really like and that was hugely influential, but that has had negative effects, in my estimation, on music in its wake.

I’m talking about Dr. Dre’s classic gangsta rap album, The Chronic.

This slice of P-Funk samples took gangsta mainstream and introduced the whole country to Dre and Snoop. Sure, some were already into Dre from NWA, but really it was the Chronic that got the whole country into the act. You couldn’t avoid this album if you wanted to, and personally I didn’t want to.

But, when the dust cleared what happened? Rap music turned from a genre with variety and fun, where it was OK to do songs about a wide range of topics and where individuality was prized into a genre dominated by a singular style and persona. The gangsta wave had swept through the music industry and labels didn’t want nothin’ top do with nothin’ that wasn’t about thugs and hos.

The influence of this album continues today. Rarely does a rap album come out that isn’t required to have at least a few songs documenting the MCs ability to shoot ‘em up with the best of ‘em. What happened to the social conscience of Public Enemy as a way of being hard? What happened to Grandmaster Flash? What happened to the party records? I even think early gangsta rap played a vital role in publicizing the desperation of poverty in many communities. But, now, it’s just played out grandstanding. Nothing new about talking about your gat and your pimp ride and all the rest of the crap that’s become so formulaic that I can’t imagine having to tell one MC from the other based on lyrics alone.

Oh…and the skits. Could we please get a rap album without half a dozen or more lame skits tossed into the mix? Yeah, yeah Snoop had a couple funny jokes on there. That game show bit about the dime bag was funny. But, that doesn’t mean every album has to be 30 tacks with 12 of them 30 second sound bites.

OK…there’s mine. It was huge, it changed the world of music, I loved it. But, damn, now, I wish it had never happened.

Anybody else got something like that?