Snoop Dogg - Tha Blue Carpet Treatment

The album's strongest argument is its production, and the strongest thing about the production is range held inside one mood. Dr. Dre is credited on “Boss’ Life” and “Round Here”, and his drums bring the dry, heavy bounce that made the early Snoop records feel unhurried even at speed. The Neptunes, on “Vato” and “10 Lil’ Crips”, supply the opposite flavor: sparse, percussive, slightly sinister, with room around every sound. Battlecat's work on “L.A.X.” is the most traditional G-funk on the record, built on a Zapp sample Snoop had already used once in the mid-nineties, and it is comfortable rather than surprising. Rick Rock's “Candy (Drippin’ Like Water)” is the outlier, a sugary beat with a jazz-rap sample underneath that Rolling Stone fairly called singular.

What holds these producers together is a refusal to chase the moment. Apart from a few R&B-leaning cuts the sound stays Californian: live-feeling bass, whining synth leads, low-mixed backing vocals. That is an earned position rather than a borrowed one, because the album sounds like a man returning to his own tradition instead of imitating it. The sampling is smart in the same way. Digable Planets, Nile Rodgers, Roy Ayers and Stevie Wonder are not obvious West Coast sources, and they widen the palette without leaving the neighborhood.

Snoop's voice is the other constant. His power has always come from understatement, the half-sung drawl, the late landing on the beat, the way a threat sounds like a joke until the second listen. On his best verses here he tightens that style, compressing syllables and hitting the downbeat harder than he had in years. Guests are mostly well chosen. Ice Cube brings gravity on a Long Beach anthem, The Game plays the eager younger man, and Nate Dogg's hooks supply the sweetness Snoop's own choruses lack.

The writing is where the record is thinnest. The fact sheet credits ghostwriters Stat Quo and The D.O.C. with the lyrics on “That’s That Shit”, “Boss’ Life” and “Imagine”, and the results are professional, but the verses recycle gang loyalty, cars and women in images that a hundred West Coast albums have already used. Compare the narrative detail of Doggystyle, which gave the swagger weight; here the swagger is the content. The hooks are the second weakness. Too many choruses are left to the guest, and Snoop, who has written some of the most singable hooks in rap, too often hands them off.

The third problem is tone. A record that announces a return to the 'hood sits oddly beside a pop-leaning Akon cut and a handful of mid-tempo songs that could have appeared on any 2006 album. They are not bad, but they dilute the thing that makes the best tracks feel purposeful. When the brief holds, this is a convincing record; when it loosens, it is just a pleasant one.

The sequencing is front-loaded in a way that flatters the album on a first listen. After a short George Clinton intro, tracks two through six run through the whole thesis in twenty minutes: the clipped rapping, the Nate Dogg hook, the Neptunes menace, the radio single and the posse cut. A listener who stopped at track six would call this one of the best West Coast records of its decade. The problem is that the remaining fifteen tracks cannot keep that pace.

The soft spot begins around the middle, where a reggae-tinged guest feature, a second Neptunes beat and a string of mid-tempo songs arrive without much to separate them. Dre's two production credits and the Ice Cube cut provide lift, but the momentum drains through the stretch of tracks thirteen to eighteen. That section has the weakest hooks, the most interchangeable beats and the least memorable verses, and it is where the album's twenty-one-track length stops feeling generous and starts feeling like inventory. The fact sheet notes that cut songs were moved to a separate mixtape and a bonus disc; a few more of these could have followed them.

The finish is better than the middle. “Imagine” restores some of the early-album purpose with a Dre verse and an old-school feel, and “Conversations” closes with a Stevie Wonder sample and a gentler mood. Neither is a great song, but both give the record a shape, a late loosening that feels like a deliberate exhale rather than a trail-off.

The length is partly earned and partly not. The album's pleasures are variety and generosity, and a double-digit number of tracks carry genuine ideas. But a Snoop album has always been a vibe, and vibes are hurt by repetition. Fourteen tracks, cut from the middle and the R&B detours, would have given a tighter and more impressive record, one that kept the best of the guests and none of the filler.

In Snoop Dogg's rated catalog this sits clearly second. It is a long way below Doggystyle (8.7), which has a narrative eye, a production identity and a cohesion that this record only borrows, and it is far above BODR (5.3), which has neither the guests nor the discipline. The 6.8 here reflects an album with an 8-level production side and a 6-level writing side, plus a sequence that wastes some of its own good ideas. Fans who treat it as a Doggystyle sequel will be disappointed; fans who treat it as the best Snoop album of the decade after that debut will not be.

It is for listeners who want modern-sounding West Coast gangsta rap with real drums and bass, for anyone curious about the Dre-and-Snoop reunion, and for people who like a guest-heavy posse record done with taste. It is less suited to listeners who want sharp writing, narrative or any attempt at depth, since the ghostwritten verses and the hook-handing habit keep it on the surface. Anyone who only wants the highlights should build a playlist.

After two decades the high points have aged better than the filler. The Neptunes and Rick Rock tracks still sound distinct, the Dre production is still heavy, and the best verses still land. The R&B cuts and the middle stretch sound more like 2006 than the rest.

Start with “Think About It” for the rapping, “Vato” for the beat and “Candy (Drippin’ Like Water)” for the guest list and the hook. For what to hear next, go to Tha Last Meal, an earlier Snoop album from the Dre era that makes a useful comparison for how much tighter the rapping is here, or back to Doggystyle for what all of this is reaching toward. The best argument for this album is still the sound of Snoop sharpening his voice for a son who wasn't sure he was worth the trouble.