... any album has exceeded Doggystyle in terms of anticipation.

I see you mentioned Illmatic below but I couldn't disagree more. I mean Illmatic definitely had a lot of hype but Doggystyle was just on another level IMO. The entire country was waiting in line at their local record store days before it dropped to get their hands on it. I vividly remember MTV coverage of its pending release and that shit was unprecedented.

It's actually kind of mind blowing to think about, in hindsight. This 19 year old kid has the entire country's ears to impress ... and he absolutely NAILED it. Dre too, of course. But Snoop was something else in those early years.