Game albums often come with as much tabloid distraction as intrigue - between his latest contrived Jay-Z diss ("Uncle Otis") and lame Twitter pranks (like telling his followers to flood the LAPD internship requests), the Compton MC doesn't seem to have given his long-delayed fourth album top priority. Next-gen West Coast-er Kendrick Lamar upstages his elder's flow on "The City," and R&B cuts featuring Lloyd, Mario, Wale and Chris Brown are tepid throwaways. He does give a riveting account of his daughter's birth on "California Dream" and seethes, "We ain't got no options/Wanted to be a boxer, but I was boxed in," on the soul-baring "Ricky." It's proof that, just when you least expect it, he can still rage compellingly.

Listen to "California Dream":

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.