This is Dr. Dre’s classic follow-up to The Chronic. Its title caused confusion, as it was released in 1999 and went through several working titles.

Via MTV:

The album was originally supposed to be called ‘Chronic 2000,’ but Dre switched the title because his former label, Death Row Records, released a compilation album by the same name earlier this year.

The same article mentions “Chronic 2001,” “Dr. Dre” and “Dr. Dre 2001” as other names that were considered.

On the album’s content, Dr. Dre told The New York Times:

Everything you hear is planned. It’s a movie, with different varieties of situations. So you’ve got buildups, touching moments, aggressive moments. You’ve even got a ‘Pause for Porno.’ It’s got everything that a movie needs.

The following songs from 2001 were released as singles: “Still D.R.E.,” “Forgot About Dre,” “The Next Episode” and “The Watcher.”

This album was going to be called Chronic 2000 until Priority Records (who had become Death Row’s new distributor) decided in cohesiveness with Suge to call their Deathrow Compilation album Chronic 2000. Deathrow owned the trademark for The Chronic, as did Interscope Records, who previously distributed Death Row Records. Shortly after Death Row’s Chronic 2000 release, Dr. Dre changed the name of this album to Chronic 2001 and a big budget promotional campaign began. Suge was tipped off about the name of Dr. Dre’s album since notification of the trademark use was required by Aftermath Records. When Aftermath found out that Priority and Death Row planned to use the same name for the album, according to Dr. Dre’s lawyer: “Both sides agreed that we’d allow the other to use the title, and then let the public decide which one they preferred.”

After the Release of Death Row’s Chronic 2000, they were notified that Dr. Dre’s album would be named Chronic 2001. Priority Records at this point decided not to honor the original agreement and threated to sue if the Chronic trademark were to be used in any capacity by Dr. Dre. This led to the album eventually being released simply as 2001.