Christmas in the Dogghouse, by Snoop Dogg
Suggested by Saint Nicky Nick
I’ve had fun with my Snoop Dogg reviews.
I’ve written two so far, and there are no more Snoop Dogg albums on the Masterlist. Full disclosure: I think I’ve probably got one more Snoop review in me after today, so if someone were to suggest one when the Masterlist reopens I wouldn’t be upset.
When I first saw Snoop Dogg’s Christmas album, I had a cool idea for a review hook. “I know,” I said to myself, “I can write a review in the style of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and fill it with rhymes and jokes and hip hop cliches! That’ll be great fun!”
Of course, I should have realised that Snoop Dogg does exactly that on this album, in the form of my runaway standout track, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas by Damani Nkosi (Ft. Nate Dogg and Snoop Dogg). It’s exactly what you expect: laid-back and ludicrous loungecore rap bravura couched in a standard hip hop backbeat. With lyrics such as:
The stocking was hung on my big fat dick
We was hoping to get some of that good sh*t from old jolly Saint Nick
… or the wonderful:
When outside my crib there rolled such a clatter
I stuck my head out and yelled “What tha f**k is the matter?!”
… how can you not be charmed?
There are some other fun Christmas Rapping songs here, as you’d expect from the title. Personal favourites include The Grinch and Landy in My Egg Nog, although why Snoop didn’t use the second as an opportunity to sing “Snoop Eggy Nogg” I’ve no idea. For the unaware, which included me until five minutes ago, Landy is a branded cognac that Snoop Dogg endorses.
As a comedy pairing goes, sticking Snoop in a red suit and white beard is a good one, but it does wear thin a little quickly. And if I’m honest, like a lot of other thinly-themed Christmas tat, the festive veneer isn’t as precisely polished as it should be. The relentless and combative nature of the musical genre is at odds with the message of Good Will to All Men, and I feel as though some darker and less slapstick nuance would have leant the album more beef. It’s almost a necessity that the album can’t go Full Gangsta, and thus sprinkles some more beige and banal R&B Soul breaks onto the sherry trifle.
One final thought is that this Snoop Dogg album isn’t quite, well, Snoop Doggy enough. For example, there’s little of his customary self-referential schtick, although there is some. I also feel it’s all toned down a touch, likely as a consequence of the genre mashup and the desire to conjure the charm of the season. Whatever the reason, it’s a disappointment.
On any other day, this album would get a 5/10 score, because the humour wears thin rather quickly and the whole conceit is jarring. But this is not any other day… while you may have given your heart to George last Christmas, this Christmas it’s all about the Dee-Oh-Double-Gee. So if you ding dong, be sure to ding dong merrily, folks, as Christmas in the Dogghouse gets 8/10.
Happy holidays, everyone!