Thematically, he resurrected his Slim Shady character and tried to imitate the darker content that had launched his career. If it had been a true encore, it would have been a terrible way to end his career.Įminem may have never been subtle, but it was a little on-the-nose to call a record Relapse while as in rehab. Most of this was down to his increasing pill addiction which meant he was barely getting two hours sleep a night. His usually dexterous, quick-witting flow sounded stumbling and amateurish. His lead singles still had a juvenile sense of humour but no meaning or purpose. The highlights were his reflective songs – Like Toy Soldiers and Mockingbird – and his anti-Bush rant also deserves a few listens, but everything else verges on terrible. Perhaps based on expectations, Encore received rave reviews as usual when it was released, yet listening to it today, it’s hard not to wonder what went wrong. For most fans, it’s his most personal and powerful album, even if a few weaker songs kept it off the top spot. He even confronted his troubled relationship with his mother and how rap music can save troubled kids. He was always a joker, and like Batman’s nemesis, he was skilled at holding up a mirror to society and saying: “You think I’m crazy? You made me this way!” There were still zany moments like Without Me, but the tone on a whole was more mature. That’s not to say it had no sense of humour – far from it – but Eminem was keener than ever to satirise the world at large. The Eminem Show (2002) – The Political OneĪfter the madness of his last album, Eminem decided he had some growing up to do. Nevertheless, it remains the best album of his career. His incredible wordplay and rhyming abilities were almost a footnote after his song topics. Whenever critics were prepare to write him off after his harrowing song about murdering his wife, he would release something like Stan, a touching and tragic tale of a deranged fan. However, he proved impossible to pin down. Even on his poppier tracks, he set out to offend as many celebrities as possible for the enjoyment of his listeners. He was accused of homophobia and misogyny, and did little to convince people otherwise. With a front cover of him huddled near the fireplace of his abandoned home, it dealt with subjects like his many family problems, drug use and his ‘corruption’ of teenage youth. This is without a doubt his darkest album. ![]() The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) – The Masterpiece In the final verse, Em manages to provoke Dre – the former bad boy of rap – into losing his cool, effectively passing the torch onto his protégée. Nowhere is his dark persona better show than on Guilty Conscience, where Eminem and Dre trade verses as a devil and angel respectively. It’s difficult to know what are scarier – the over-the-top gruesome fantasies, or vivid descriptions of being down and out. While playing Slim Shady, Eminem wasn’t afraid to get cynical, provocative and very, very violent. However if the Slim Shady LP is any genre, it’s a horror. The story behind Eminem’s first album reads like a movie script: an unknown Detroit rapper gets his break by getting producer Dr Dre to hear his tape, and in a matter of months becomes a superstar. ![]() When his music first came out, they began describing him as one of the greatest white rappers ever. Casually dropping multi-syllable rhymes into the middle of lines were nothing to him. Marshall Mathers also had another trick up his sleeve so not to alienate more hardcore listeners: his ferocious wordplay and rhyming. He baited politicians, outraged parents, made kids laugh and brought in a whole new demographic to rap music. The twisted alter ego of his stage name Eminem, Slim Shady said and did everything controversial you ever thought about. Instead, he was forced to invent new ways to shock and outrage middle America. He couldn’t even drop the ‘n word’ which most rappers throw around like sweets. His skin colour locked him out of the profitable gangsta rap market, and rapping about crime or drug dealing would have caused many listeners to accuse him of being inauthentic. If you’d rather read more about more obscure records next time, let me know in the comments.ĭebate has raged for years over Eminem (real name Marshall Mathers): was he successful mainly because he was white? The answer’s yes – but not for the reason you think. Note – due to space, I’m sticking to his ‘official’ studio albums and missing out his demo album, Infinity, as well as side projects like 8 Mile and Bad Meets Evil. Today it’s the turn of one of the most widely sold and critically acclaimed artists of all time – Marshall Mathers, better known as Slim Shady or Eminem. In this column, we continue looking at established artists by going through their career, album by album.
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