One of the sole perks of going a week on 2-3 hours of sleep a night thanks to my bodywide conflagration (aside from posting some more here) is catching up on some shows, albeit through the bleary eyed fog of 3am. Thanks to last night’s episode I polished off the 4-part HBO documentary, The Defiant Ones, which details the multi-decade partnership between famed producers Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovene.
Iovene of course is the old school, big label name known for his work in the 70s/80s w/ artists like John Lennon, Stevie Nicks, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and U2 who subsequently teams up w/ Dre in the 90s as the latter king of gangsta rap was departing the seminal NWA. From that point the pair go on an unparalleled blitz, collaborating and breaking such monster acts as Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Eminem, NIN, and Marilyn Manson, among others. It’s an interesting watch — it meanders a bit too much at times into the business side of things (I could give a shit about contract negotiations and label swaps and selling headphones — it’s the music that matters to me), but does a good job giving insight into the creation of some of the biggest albums/acts in recent history.
Episode 3 in particular is the one to watch if you’re short on time — it does a good job reminding you of the tremendous amount of quality music coming out in the early 90s and the excitement surrounding so many of those acts. From the enormous debut of The Chronic (which I still remember hearing for the first time, having found a scratched up copy of it on the side of the road while on a jog and then obsessively listening to the skipping tracks in my room until I could get a new copy) to the thrill of discovering guys like Snoop and Tupac shortly thereafter and similarly having my head wrecked. Or remembering how much flack there was for acts like NIN and Manson and how intense (and ultimately deadly) the East Coast/West Coast beef was. (I actually wish they’d focused a little more on the former duo, since Manson in particular gets relative short shrift here and those two were equally enormous parts of the early 90s.)
For all of the noise and nonsense, though, there was some truly tremendous music being made — thanks in no small part to these two gentlemen. It’s part heartening, part dispiriting to hear how frustrated and unhappy both of them were for so long in their careers, despite having tremendous impact and success professionally — nice to know I’m not a whackadoo for feeling the same way in my world, bad to know I could be making millions of dollars and incredible music w/ an army of legends and still feel the same way. If nothing else it’s interesting to hear others talk of that frustration and unhappiness and how they try to manage it in similar ways, too. No easy fixes, but nice to know I’m not alone/off track…
So check it out if you have a chance — the trailer’s below to whet the appetite more if you’d like. Until next time, amici…