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+{
+ "interaction_id": "87c13c64-56cb-4285-8ca3-8b2624565315",
+ "search_results": [
+ {
+ "page_name": "Eminem\u2019s \u2018The Marshall Mathers LP\u2019: Hear What Came Before ...",
+ "page_url": "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/18/arts/music/eminem-marshall-mathers-lp.html",
+ "page_snippet": "These days, a rapper\u2019s rhymes are rarely more than a Twitter trending topic. But in 2000, multitudes were engrossed: a United States Senate committee about entertainment and violence (where vice-presidential wife Lynne Cheney said Eminem \u201cadvocates murder and rape\u201d); feminist and gay activists; parents groups and religious activists. In the often very catchy pop songs of \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP...These days, a rapper\u2019s rhymes are rarely more than a Twitter trending topic. But in 2000, multitudes were engrossed: a United States Senate committee about entertainment and violence (where vice-presidential wife Lynne Cheney said Eminem \u201cadvocates murder and rape\u201d); feminist and gay activists; parents groups and religious activists. In the often very catchy pop songs of \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d Eminem got into it with all these people, plus his family, other musicians (famous or obscure), celebrities and the media. On his second major-label album, the Detroit rapper provoked, joked, threatened and emoted. Twenty years later, listen to the songs that came first, and the ones he inspired. With his troika of identities \u2014 Marshall Mathers, Eminem, Slim Shady \u2014 appearing together for the first time, multisyllabic mockery, metrical slaloms of disdain and lots of funny voices, he exorcised trauma like a street magician flourishing cards, lyrics whirring around your ears. In 2020, having gone platinum 10 times, \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP\u201d hits differently. But it\u2019s still a vivid snapshot of the late culture wars, when a foul-mouthed white rapper was our worst public health scare. In response to Eminem\u2019s use of homophobic slurs on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d the Pet Shop Boys\u2019 Neil Tennant (with Johnny Marr on guitar) imagines a lovely one-nighter between the rapper and a schoolboy fan: \u201cHe said we could be secret lovers just him and me/Then he joked, \u2018Hey, man!/Your name isn\u2019t Stan, is it?\u2019\u201d ... Tyler Joseph is a pop empath by trade, embracing those who have suffered because of society\u2019s strictures as fellow \u201cheathens.\u201d Here, he also earnestly sing-raps on a \u201cSuicide Squad\u201d soundtrack song co-produced by Mike Elizondo, who co-wrote three songs on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP.\u201d",
+ "page_result": "\n\n \n \n Eminem\u2019s \u2018The Marshall Mathers LP\u2019: Hear What Came Before and After - The New York Times\n \n \n \n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n
Before & After \u2018The Marshall Mathers LP\u2019
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By Charles Aaron Produced by Aliza Aufrichtig
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May 18, 2020
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Eminem\u2019s second major-label album was a compelling but lurid whodunit. \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP\u201d wasn\u2019t a murder mystery, per se, though plenty of characters met their demise. It was a mystery of realness.
This remained a hip-hop conundrum 20 years ago \u2014 especially after the still-unsolved deaths of the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Were rappers real or fake? If you claimed to be a product of the drug trade, had you actually moved weight? After Eminem\u2019s unprecedented success for a white rapper, via \u201cThe Slim Shady LP\u201d in 1999 and its follow-up, questions abounded. Was he a prankster, an industry plant, a generational voice? (The last was asserted in 2003 by the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney.) Were his lyrics truth or fantasy? Was he a public danger?
These days, a rapper\u2019s rhymes are rarely more than a Twitter trending topic. But in 2000, multitudes were engrossed: a United States Senate committee about entertainment and violence (where vice-presidential wife Lynne Cheney said Eminem \u201cadvocates murder and rape\u201d); feminist and gay activists; parents groups and religious activists.
In the often very catchy pop songs of \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d Eminem got into it with all these people, plus his family, other musicians (famous or obscure), celebrities and the media. As a result, virtually every bystander had an opinion cocked, locked and ready to rock, to quote another Motor City madman, Ted Nugent. Eminem was a one-man internet before the internet really became the internet.
With his troika of identities \u2014 Marshall Mathers, Eminem, Slim Shady \u2014 appearing together for the first time, multisyllabic mockery, metrical slaloms of disdain and lots of funny voices, he exorcised trauma like a street magician flourishing cards, lyrics whirring around your ears. In 2020, having gone platinum 10 times, \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP\u201d hits differently. But it\u2019s still a vivid snapshot of the late culture wars, when a foul-mouthed white rapper was our worst public health scare.
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All music previews and full tracks provided by Spotify. Warning: Many tracks contain strong language.
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1. Public Service Announcement
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Public Service Announcement
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Track 1
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Before \u2018Public Service Announcement\u2019\n (1992)
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The Chronic Intro
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Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg
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An outlandish two-minute Gangsta Rap Manifesto that trumpets Dr. Dre\u2019s re-emergence as the master of hip-hop\u2019s sonic universe.
On \u201cThe Slim Shady LP,\u201d Eminem announced his fiendish alter ego by denying all responsibility for his listeners\u2019 \u201cactions.\u201d After still being scapegoated, he doubled down. Here, he whispers direction to the \u201cannouncer\u201d \u2014 the producer Jeff Bass \u2014 who intones, \u201cSlim Shady is fed up with your [expletive] and he\u2019s going to kill you.\u201d Eminem adds: \u201cYeah, sue me.\u201d
After \u2018Public Service Announcement\u2019\n (2001)
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Greatest Hits
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Ludacris
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Challenging Eminem for hip-hop\u2019s King of Comic Interludes, the rapper and actor Christopher \u201cLudacris\u201d Bridges gathers his Disturbing Tha Peace players for a tongue-in-cheek salute to \u201cRandom White People.\u201d
After \u2018Public Service Announcement\u2019\n (2003)
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Public Service Announcement (Interlude)
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Jay-Z
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Upping the ante on grandiosity, Jay-Z and the producerJust Blaze elevated the P.S.A. to a coronation anthem, stitching together samples of a Chicago garage band (Little Boy Blues), the comic Dick Gregory and a Dr. Dre production (D.O.C.\u2019s \u201cNo One Can Do It Better\u201d).
A beguiling stroll through a wife\u2019s mariticidal spree, composed by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart for a 1943 revival of \u201cA Connecticut Yankee,\u201d their musical adaptation of Mark Twain\u2019s novel. Fitzgerald quips: \u201cI tossed him off my balcony/To see if he could fly,\u201d while also adeptly rhyming \u201cpatricide\u201d with \u201cmattress side.\u201d
Punk\u2019s hardcore absurdists goof on the Doors\u2019 Oedipal hippie head trip \u201cThe End,\u201d while wrestling the riff from Black Sabbath\u2019s \u201cSweet Leaf.\u201d It\u2019s a Satanic-panic spoof of golly-gee family values that goes from childlike wonder to a vile din.
Eminem\u2019s Anger Management Tour, which included Korn in a later iteration, capitalized on a kinship between nu metal and rap fan bases, plus the performers\u2019 common subject matter. Like Eminem, the Korn singer Jonathan Davis endured childhood abuse; on \u201cDaddy,\u201d he plays a growling predator and his frantic, girl victim. Davis broke down sobbing in the studio while recording and you can hear him screaming through tears.
\u201cKill You\u201d has, perhaps, the album\u2019s quintessential chorus \u2014 whimsical, sarcastically violent and so catchy that arenas full of fans would scream its singsong threat in unison. But in trying to prove that he hadn\u2019t gone soft, Eminem unloaded one of his most misogynistic songs ever (this is where he sexually assaults his mother). When, after all the passionately rapped bluster, he says, \u201cI\u2019m just playin\u2019, ladies, you know I love you,\u201d it does not sound very convincing at all.
The Disturbed frontman David Draiman grunts, moans and bark-chants the chorus of this rock-radio hit over a lashing rhythm section and gnashing guitars. But about three minutes in, he begins to speak intently and the music dials back. Lapsing into screams, he threatens revenge on an abusive maternal figure,which he said was not his mother.
Over the plink of \u201cTheme From Love Story,\u201d the Peruvian-born, New York-raised rapper weaves a detailed but familiar hard-luck story of a poor kid who had a \u201cScarface fantasy stuck in his brain.\u201d But as the story goes on, the drama gradually heightens. By the brutal conclusion, \u201cKill You\u201d seems like a goofball lark by comparison.
Earlier, the Detroit/Brooklyn rapper poured out her agonizing experience of sexual abuse over the beat from Eminem\u2019s \u201cCleaning Out My Closet.\u201d On \u201cBattle Cry,\u201d she faces down her trauma and spits with a hard-earned, triumphant grit.
This affectionate, imagistic Paul McCartney sketch with radiant steel guitar was likely inspired by the Beatles\u2019 London superfans, a.k.a., the \u201cRegulars,\u201d who hung around Abbey Road studios and the group\u2019s Apple Corps office. Later, they split into the genially devoted \u201cApple Scruffs\u201d and reckless \u201cBaddies,\u201d but it\u2019s unclear if either group was responsible for the actual break-in through a window of McCartney\u2019s townhouse.
Selena Quintanilla P\u00e9rez, the Mexican-American \u201cQueen of Tejano,\u201d was working on her superstar-making, first English-language album when she was fatally shot by her former fan club president in 1995. This yearning pop ballad helped Selena\u2019s posthumous album of the same name become her most commercially successful, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.
A sludge-thrash maelstrom in which the singer Maynard James Keenan ferociously excoriates a fan who accused Tool of \u201cselling out.\u201d Yes, things get graphic.
Rapped as a series of letters from a distraught, obsessive fan, \u201cStan\u201d was the album\u2019s keystone and a pivotal moment in Eminem\u2019s career. In an unexpected misdirection, he plays a perfectly reasonable, empathetic version of himself. Acknowledging some fans\u2019 attachment disorders, he concedes that troubled kids could take his hyperbole for truth (\u201cSee, everything you say is real/And I respect you \u2019cause you tell it,\u201d he raps as Stan). He implies that fame can create a distance between artists and fans that\u2019s disturbing for both. On the final verse, he replies, barely rapping, sounding more Marshall Mathers than Eminem, offering Stan sensible, mature advice. But it\u2019s too late.
In response to Eminem\u2019s use of homophobic slurs on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d the Pet Shop Boys\u2019 Neil Tennant (with Johnny Marr on guitar) imagines a lovely one-nighter between the rapper and a schoolboy fan: \u201cHe said we could be secret lovers just him and me/Then he joked, \u2018Hey, man!/Your name isn\u2019t Stan, is it?\u2019\u201d
Tyler Joseph is a pop empath by trade, embracing those who have suffered because of society\u2019s strictures as fellow \u201cheathens.\u201d Here, he also earnestly sing-raps on a \u201cSuicide Squad\u201d soundtrack song co-produced by Mike Elizondo, who co-wrote three songs on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP.\u201d
An intern at a hip-hop blog heard this song, in which Nicki Minaj dissed copycat MCs, and tweeted a wish that the rapper would embrace more mature themes. Within hours, the \u201cBarbz\u201d (Minaj\u2019s stans) had crashed the young woman\u2019s phone with threats.
R.A. the Rugged Man, a.k.a. Crustified Dibbs, was a frightfully talented, unhinged New Yorker signed at age 17 to Jive. The label wouldn\u2019t release his records or free him from his contract, hence this song. An underground mainstay since the early 2000s, he rivaled Eminem in both mic skills and misogynistic outbursts.
Part two of a continuing, multi-album skit with Paul Rosenberg, Eminem\u2019s long-suffering manager-lawyer, who always fails to get the rapper to soften his subject matter.
Meet \u201cMizzle,\u201d a delusional white crackhead and unlikely Dipset affiliate, who appeared throughout Cam\u2019ron\u2019s \u201cPurple Haze\u201d album, seemingly just to annoy critics.
A gorgeously mordant, spectral lament that emerged in 1933 in either Paris or Budapest by one or two Hungarian Jews, \u201cGloomy Sunday\u201d became an omnipresent rain cloud drifting across Europe. No evidence exists that the song inspired a spate of suicides \u2014 widely rumored at the time \u2014 but Holiday\u2019s earnest version of a Tin Pan Alley translation was banned by the BBC in the early 1940s because it was deemed too somber for wartime. The song\u2019s primary writer, Rezso Seress, committed suicide in 1968.
Charles Manson claimed that songs on the Beatles\u2019 White Album (most notably, \u201cHelter Skelter\u201d) subliminally told him to go on a killing spree and start a race war.
This surprisingly bouncy track from the masters of horrorcore rap \u2014 concocted by Prince Paul from samples of Iron Butterfly and Booker T. & the M.G.\u2019s \u2014 shows what might happen if a suicide hotline was manned by three irreverent MCs.
A cheeky satire rife with degrading lyrics, \u201cWho Knew\u201d crackles with negative energy and theatrical yet exacting flows. It\u2019s still a jolt to hear Eminem rap a string of expletives, linking his rhymes to George Carlin\u2019s seven dirty words and the racist hysteria around jazz.
Titled after a quote from Mark David Chapman \u2014 the obsessive fan who killed John Lennon \u2014 this terse rallying cry was recorded after Manson\u2019s music was widely blamed for the mass shooting at Colorado\u2019s Columbine High School. Manson\u2019s band suspended touring, and a group of U.S. senators requested that his label (Interscope) halt production of \u201cmusic that glorifies violence.\u201d As label mates, Eminem and Manson became allies under siege, collaborating on a rock remix of \u201cThe Way I Am.\u201d
One of the songs of the summer in 2011, the deceptively breezy \u201cPumped Up Kicks\u201d is sung from the point of view of a \u201cpsychotic kid\u201d carrying his daddy\u2019s gun. The singer-songwriter Mark Foster said he wanted to address the rampant gun violence among isolated, alienated American kids; in fact, the cousin of the band\u2019s bassist was a Columbine survivor.
Rap artists have frequently battled the idea that their lyrics are autobiographical. Last February, the Florida dynamo YNW Melly was indicted on two first-degree murder charges and police seized on the lyrics and video of his hit \u201cMurder on My Mind.\u201d The song\u2019s video, which has almost 350 million views, showed Melly playing with a boa constrictor, waving automatic weapons and rapping, \u201cBitch, I\u2019m a murderer.\u201d
An insider\u2019s mockumentary of the music business, Brooks\u2019s album \u201cA Star Is Bought\u201d follows the comedian\u2019s obsession with scoring a Top 40 hit that would appeal to every radio demographic.
The first of another ongoing series of clashes between Eminem and an exasperated music-business foil \u2014 here, it\u2019s Steve Berman, the real-life Interscope vice chairman.
The rare white rapper to achieve post-Eminem pop success, Macklemore rhymed about being so desperate to get signed that he broke into the office of the Interscope co-founder Jimmy Iovine (who signed Eminem). But the song\u2019s \u201cIovine\u201d turned out to be a scammer: \u201cYou\u2019re one hell of a band, we think you\u2019re destined for greatness \u2026 Now, I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019ve had a long day, remind me now what your name is?\u201d
Under pressure for a follow-up album to the blockbuster \u201cDark Side of the Moon,\u201d the Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters wrote this epic record-company diatribe. A lumbering synth dirge leads into a series of creepy, corporate clich\u00e9s, voiced with a pained earthiness by the guest vocalist Roy Harper.
Ditching Ruthless Records and N.W.A. (including Dr. Dre), Ice Cube dialed up Public Enemy\u2019s Bomb Squad for his solo debut, \u201cAmeriKKKa\u2019s Most Wanted,\u201d an act of war fueled by righteous testosterone. Here, he snarls like Eminem\u2019s big brother.
Even on his debut single \u2014 a full-blown dismantling of his peers who sacrificed their truth for fame \u2014 this Detroit-born, West Coast-bred rapper and longtime Eminem collaborator has the raspy authority of a guy giving you advice while holding a grenade.
Like \u201cThe Real Slim Shady,\u201d \u201cThe Way I Am\u201d was written after Iovine said he didn\u2019t hear a hit on the initial version of the album. Exasperated and restless, Eminem has claimed that he started writing on the plane home from Los Angeles to Detroit. His anger became a sonic presence \u2014 bells toll as a thick, minor-key fog rolls in. (This is Eminem\u2019s first production credit.)
Korn\u2019s label expressed its desire for a single toward the end of the recording process, and the band reacted poorly. The howled chorus was its blunt reply.
Eminem\u2019s scrappy, never-quit attitude appealed to artists across genres. Taylor Swift once covered \u201cLose Yourself\u201d in concert and so did Colt Ford, a burly hick-hop songwriter who helped write Jason Aldean\u2019s smash \u201cDirt Road Anthem.\u201d Here, Ford promises not to sell his soul to be a star.
Once testifying that \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP\u201d changed his life, Lamar cited Eminem\u2019s clarity, timing, wordplay and technical facility. But by this track from \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly,\u201d the student had become the teacher. Reflecting his internal dialogue \u2014 with and about \u201cLucy,\u201d a.k.a. Lucifer, a.k.a. the temptations of success \u2014 he changes his voice from verse to chorus, switching from rapping to speaking, all while weaving and skipping through flows and cadences to convey his shifting, conflicted moods.
Signed when he was a teenager living in New Jersey by Rick Rubin, this Puerto Rican battle-rap prodigy rolled out of bed spouting outrageously sinister punch lines. His unrelenting style was dense with brain-melting references and verbal acrobatics, delivered in a laser-precise, high-pitched sneer. Sound familiar?
A response to the Notorious B.I.G.\u2019s \u201cWho Shot Ya?,\u201d which was perceived as a 2Pac diss, \u201cHit \u2019Em Up\u201d was a bombshell in the East Coast/West Coast hostilities that ended in the deaths of those two rappers. Naming names and threatening to end careers and lives, it\u2019s a lyrical blood bath. One can imagine a young Eminem studying it like a sacred text.
An even cheekier introduction than \u201cMy Name Is,\u201d \u201cHow to Rob\u201d was 50\u2019s major-label debut single, before he was shot nine times and joined forces with Eminem and Dr. Dre. The furor over the song\u2019s slander of countless rap and R&B acts emboldened him to start beefs repeatedly to extend his relevance throughout a long career.
Stressed about whether he could write another \u201cMy Name Is,\u201d i.e., a punchline-packed, pop culture-puncturing, million-selling hit that broadened his appeal to white teens and beyond, Eminem somehow did just that and more for \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP.\u201d Not only did \u201cThe Real Slim Shady\u201d fire off impudently nutty gibes, it boasted a gooey, bass-driven beat by Dre, Mel-Man and Mike Elizondo that even had a club-friendly swing.
After Eminem and Mariah Carey discussed a collaboration in 2001, Eminem implied that they had been in a relationship (which the singer denied). They continued exchanging sporadic barbs, with Eminem the aggressor, until \u201cObsessed.\u201d It was a killshot, an airy R&B hair flip about a stan (Eminem), played in the video by a hoodie-wearing, goateed Carey.
Tyler called himself \u201cthe reincarnation of \u201998 Eminem\u201d on his solo debut mixtape, and he basically proved it with the lead single from his first studio album. On the very Eminem-esque \u201cYonkers,\u201d he disses rock stars, rappers, therapists and Jesus, before referencing school shootings, firing off homophobic slurs and claiming he isn\u2019t gay.
\u201cRemember Me?\u201d channeled the cartoonishly evil attitude of metal-influenced horrorcore rap and these maniacally Satan-hailing English guitar grinders laid the groundwork.
Eminem was protested as if he were the first MC to release indiscriminately grisly rap music. But there were plenty of \u201990s rappers paving the way, most visibly the Rick Rubin-championed Geto Boys, whose 1991 \u201cMind Playing Tricks on Me\u201d was a haunting asylum of bluesy trauma. Ganksta N-I-P, their Rap-a-Lot label mate, pushed even deeper into the darkness, but always with a flair for the absurd.
A rap virtuoso with an unmistakably searing voice, Harlem\u2019s Big L released his debut album for a seemingly mystified Columbia in 1995. They subsequently dropped him and he never found a label or producer who fully capitalized on his gift before he was fatally shot in \u201999. You can hear his furiously blinding bars on freestyles and compilations, but this track, a macabre dream sequence, singes the mic.
After an abusive upbringing, the white New York rapper Cage became an addict and was sent to a psychiatric hospital. He briefly signed with Columbia, then recorded the astonishing indie 12-inch \u201cRadiohead\u201d backed with \u201cAgent Orange,\u201d a witty yet terrifying depiction of his roiling mental state, inspired by both \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d and his father\u2019s exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. When Cage first heard the \u201cSlim Shady EP,\u201d he believed Eminem had stolen his entire identity.
With a rattling spray can, swirly sci-fi echo, train whoosh and a methodical bass line that subtly pins back your ears, this minimal Dre and Mel-Man production is as tastefully ominous as the lyrics are tastelessly bugged out. Onyx\u2019s Sticky Fingaz splatters his deranged, rapid-fire rhymes with a vengeance, as if to secure his place in the Eminem lineage.
Brooklyn\u2019s Necro, who produced Cage\u2019s \u201cAgent Orange,\u201d has been a white-rap nexus for 20-plus years. His brother was Ill Bill, whose group Non Phixion were formed by Third Bass\u2019 MC Serch and were later courted by Paul Rosenberg. Meanwhile, Necro created his own horrorcore subgenre, \u201cdeath rap.\u201d
The spookhouse emo version of horrorcore propagated by two Louisiana survivors of the SoundCloud wars. Here, Ruby Da Cherry is suicidally depressed because of a breakup with his girlfriend, Scrim is suicidally depressed because of his addiction to opiates and they\u2019re both mad that people think they use suicide as a gimmick.
Lucille Bogan, a.k.a. Bessie Jackson, took this song, most notably recorded by the blues boss Ma Rainey, and cut two versions with the guitarist Josh White. The second, far more explicit, would make even Eminem blush.
Guthrie channeled an itinerant, God-hating, union-scab narrator who wished everybody the worst \u2014 trainwrecks, famine, tight shoes, disease, tarantulas, teeth falling out and brains boiled in turpentine. In short, he was a criminal, as Eminem would say of himself at the album's end.
One of Eminem\u2019s most persuasive expressions of the album\u2019s theme, as well as the \u201cSlim Shady\u201d persona. He builds motivation for his antics; his rat-a-tat wordplay is mind-boggling; his teen-pop jabs aren\u2019t gratuitous in context; he freely admits his white privilege; the funny-voiced ad-libs rib all sides; and the grotesquely sexist Jennifer Lopez bit is so ludicrous that it\u2019s fairly clear what it\u2019s trying to be \u2014 a maze of celebrity-thirsting nonsense.
Before Run the Jewels, Killer Mike opened up this earth-scorching blast furnace of righteous plain speak (with Sinatra on the chorus), by calling out a stretch Hummer full of celebrity hypocrites, their enablers and President George W. Bush.
Wired, agitated, worried about money, haunted by death, cranking 2Pac, spilling his guts and alcohol on the pavement, lashing out at women, YG finally cries, \u201cOh Lord, where is the world today?!\u201d Lamar is in a spiral of his own, having flashbacks about being on welfare, anxious to get paid and devastated by mourning so many friends. Much like Eminem\u2019s rhymes on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d the duo\u2019s flows are precisely attuned to the tenor of their moods.
No two avowedly straight male entertainers have been more obsessed with other men eyeballing their buttocks than Eddie Murphy and Eminem. The first track on Murphy\u2019s debut album is about how it would be embarrassing if a homosexual man beat you up for catcalling him a homophobic slur. That\u2019s it, that\u2019s the joke.
The Beastie Boys, Eminem\u2019s biggest inspiration, had their own early problems with homophobia. On \u201cGirls\u201d from \u201cLicensed to Ill,\u201d Ad-Rock rapped, \u201cI asked her out, she said, \u2018No way!\u2019/I should\u2019ve probably guessed her gay.\u201d
It\u2019s curious that the song bearing Eminem\u2019s real (or given) name is overstocked with homophobic slurs. Then again, he hurls daggers at a whole assortment of subjects \u2014 the state of hip-hop, teen pop, scrounging family members, his mother\u2019s lawsuit and his Detroit-area nemesis Insane Clown Posse.
An iconoclastic Brooklyn rapper/producer, Le1f (who uses gender-neutral pronouns) showcases their slinky charisma and brash wordplay on this breakout single that percolated with percussive finger snaps and honking synth bursts.
Opening his second studio album, J. Cole plunges back into his ongoing inner conflict about selling out, but in the first verse, he also tries to address homophobia by toying with both sides. He spits a few hateful bars, crudely admits that someone else\u2019s sexuality isn\u2019t his business, then exits, saying, \u201cJust a little joke to show how homophobic you are,\u201d which is too cute by half, as well as incoherent.
In this short film, Mykki Blanco gives a moving, violently theatrical performance that explores the dangers of same-sex love across jagged cultural and political divides.
Pryor played the disheveled, foul-mouthed officiant of a man\u2019s funeral in this brief comic gem. The rough language was intended to heighten the chaos of the unruly characters and less-than-blessed situation.
Another continuing skit from \u201cThe Slim Shady LP,\u201d this one involves a ridiculously pushy gay fan who was originally voiced by the Detroit underground rapper Aristotle. But after a dispute, Eminem stepped in to play \u201cKen\u201d in a scenario involving Insane Clown Posse and audible oral sex. It\u2019s not one of the album\u2019s highlights.
A fast-rapping Eminem acolyte, Joyner Lucas joined his mentor to record an ill-conceived track called \u201cWhat If I Was Gay?\u201d which leaked but was never released. Here, Lucas joins Chris Brown for a fragile masculinity summit.
Spivey, a blues singer-songwriter and label owner, moans for a sniff, brags about her money bags, her plane and how the president and the Prince of Wales were barking around her trail. The guitar virtuoso Lonnie Johnson provides accompaniment.
Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy\u2019s Ovaltine?
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Harry \u201cThe Hipster\u201d Gibson
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A twitchy, jive-talking, white pre-rock \u2019n\u2019 roll raconteur, Gibson had a knack for writing offbeat songs, often about drugs, chased by his revved-up boogie-woogie piano. This one, made semifamous by Dr. Demento in the 1970s, was rejected by radio stations at the time.
Taking bits from a Philly Soul record, Rev. Gary Davis\u2019 \u201cCocaine Blues\u201d and a children\u2019s mnemonic, the Jamaican toaster/proto-rapper Dillinger scored an international hit with his brooding, jittery, reggae-funk echo of a brain-burning cocaine comedown.
A cleverly levelheaded song, considering Eminem has implied that he consumed a small pharmacy of substances while writing large parts of the album. Quickly locking into the Bass Brothers\u2019 taut, rhythmic boost, his verses escalate at a dizzying clip, like drugs flooding your bloodstream \u2014 for instance, \u201cAnd everything\u2019s spinnin\u2019, you\u2019re beginnin\u2019 to think women/Are swimmin\u2019 in pink linen again in the sink, then in/A couple of minute that bottle of Guinness is finished.\u201d Reflecting on the distorted emotions and aftereffects, as well as the ecstatic highs, he ultimately imagines himself sitting on a porch, holding his grandchildren, drinking whiskey while his daughter goes out to party. Instead, he got sober in 2008.
With electronic blips stippling an 808 trap beat, Anderson .Paak rapturously raps and sings about a loveless relationship based only on sex, drugs and lots more drugs.
No two rappers seem more dissimilar than Eminem and Future, Atlanta\u2019s zonked trap-rap avatar. But cushioned by the producer Zaytoven\u2019s twinkling low-lit ambience, gradually surging synths and a muted horn fanfare, Future leans into his regret and vulnerability like never before.
After a conversation about mass murderers, particularly Richard Speck, the country great Leon Payne sat down and wrote \u201cPsycho\u201d from the point of view of a man calmly revealing his madness to his mother. The honky-tonk singer Noack\u2019s calm, genial voice only added to the creepy chill.
Eminem thinks highly of Redman\u2019s rapping (he ranked him No. 1, above Jay-Z, 2Pac and Biggie, on the 2002 track \u201cTill I Collapse.\u201d) And though the Newark MC has his share of colorful nicknames \u2014 Funk Doctor Spock, the Funkadelic Devil \u2014 he\u2019s mostly just a grimy dude riffing wildly on horror movies and nodding darkly to his childhood.
Like Cypress Hill holed up in hell, the Detroit hip-hop lifer Esham outlined Eminem\u2019s act, but as a black underground rapper, 10 years earlier. Here, he stomps through a lo-fi wasteland littered with Dr. Dre\u2019s spare parts, blustering matter-of-factly about burning down churches and looking for cops and Klan members to shoot.
Detroit is the \u201cAmityville\u201d of the title, meaning a haunted shooting range that would make anyone mentally unstable \u2014 enter Eminem and Bizarre from his crew D12. Over a Bass Brothers track that\u2019s more jaunty than spooky, Eminem phones in a verse and Bizarre blankly recites some disgusting garbage that sounds like it bores even him.
Like Eminem, Lil B is never afraid to say anything, but he allows more light into the darkness. Encased in a rainbow cloud of angelic swoons (from the producer Clams Casino), Lil B first proclaims himself the \u201cBased God\u201d and free-associates his prophecy.
\u201cAmityville\u201d wants to convey Detroit\u2019s deadly chaos to the point that Eminem screams it was also like \u201cHamburger Hill.\u201d \u201cFaneto,\u201d released just before Chicago\u2019s Chief Keef split with Interscope, feels like watching a video on your iPhone of a sketchy car pulling up to your house.
The story goes that Eminem, 15, met his wife Kim, 13, as he was rapping this alpha-male masterpiece of lyrical potency, shirtless, standing on a table. It\u2019s also reminiscent of the time when he first got into hip-hop via his Uncle Ronnie (who committed suicide four years after \u201cI\u2019m Bad\u201d was released).
Eminem featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit and Nate Dogg
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A freshly minted restoration of Snoop Dogg\u2019s 1999 track \u201cBitch Please,\u201d reuniting the same cast, with Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo creating another gangsta-funk Shangri-La, but with less sexism and more self-pity. Eminem again flays media and activist haters, adding the sarcastic rejoinder: \u201cI just want you all to notice me and people to see/That somewhere deep down there\u2019s a decent human being in me.\u201d
Mickey Avalon featuring Andre Legacy and Dirt Nasty
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A sex worker, drug dealer and addict, Avalon joined with the MTV V.J. Simon Rex, a.k.a. Dirt Nasty, and childhood friend Andre Legacy to try and make music. Like a crew of lobotomized Eminems, these white Hollywood fiends were very 2006.
The Atlanta-based bluesman Blind Willie McTell recorded this unspeakably violent song \u2014 reportedly first performed in the 1920s by the black vaudeville act Butterbeans and Susie \u2014 with his own rewritten lyrics. After a woman badly mistreats the narrator, he decides to carve the entire alphabet into her body with a razor.
When discussing violence in rap lyrics and the difference between art and reality, people have often cited the Johnny Cash lyric \u201cshot a man in Reno, just to watch him die,\u201d in the song \u201cFolsom Prison Blues.\u201d But it\u2019s rarely mentioned that in \u201cCocaine Blues\u201d (also recorded at California\u2019s Folsom Prison), he sang that he shot a \u201cbad bitch\u201d down while high on coke.
Buoyed by a bright, vibrant soul sample, the Geto Boys\u2019 Bushwick Bill tells this gruesome, mesmerizing story \u2014 from birth to being shunned over his dwarfism to success to the night he was shot in the eye. Rushed to the hospital, he survives surgery and has his picture taken for a Geto Boys album cover.
Against Swizz Beatz\u2019s acoustic guitar-tinged backdrop, Eve calls out a friend\u2019s abuser, but the victim still ends up in a hospital bed taking her last breath. In response, Eve barks, \u201cI don\u2019t even know you and I want you dead.\u201d Then she gets her gun.
Six-plus achingly visceral minutes of psychotic jealous rage, with the rapper berating, threatening and victim-blaming the titular spouse, while also cooing sweetly at their baby, before finally dragging them both into the car for an ominous drive, \u201cKim\u201d was the most convincing acting job of Eminem\u2019s career. His anger and delusion surged and receded as the Bass Brothers\u2019 pounding track stormed forward. The song reached its dramatic peak when he howled, \u201cI hate you! I hate you! I swear to God, I hate you!\u201d but then paused, crying, and shouted, \u201cOh my God, I love you!\u201d
There\u2019s never been a more high-spirited murder song than the Dixie Chicks\u2019 banjo-flecked country-rocker about an abusive husband who knocks his wife into the I.C.U. and subsequently pays the ultimate price.
Rihanna is no stranger to revenge songs, and this rumbling dancehall-pop jam decorated with tinkly keyboards opens bluntly: \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to end his life/I know it wasn\u2019t right.\u201d
Posthumously released as an official single, this brief, mid-tempo love lament features the Florida rapper singing over acoustic-guitar strums. In the video, his girlfriend appears naked and drenched in blood, ripping at the flesh of a body lying in a forest. In 2016, she accused XXXTentacion of domestic battery and false imprisonment; the charges were dropped after his death in 2018.
Recorded for a Library of Congress oral history project by Alan Lomax, Morton launches into an assault of invective that only lightens up for the refrain: \u201cYo mammy don\u2019t wear no drawers.\u201d
Calm, cool and exceedingly stoned, Schoolly D narrates this debauched fairy tale about a teenage night on the prowl amid a cacophony of D.J. scratches and breakbeats crashing into drum-machine kicks, snares and cowbell. Schoolly\u2019s off-handed slurs are delivered with a winking sneer.
The pinnacle of \u201990s rave rebellion gone ka-ching. The techno-punk jester Keith Flint growls valiantly, and the D.J./producer Liam Howlett patches together stadium-rock breakbeats, sampling a 1988 Ultramagnetic MCs record for the chorus (and offending title phrase). Banned and protested, the group was accused of promoting violence against women; Howlett shrugged, saying anyone who believed that was \u201cbrainless.\u201d
On the rollicking \u201cBad Influence,\u201d Eminem glories in his role as America\u2019s top hater and poet laureate of parental hysteria, quipping, \u201cI don\u2019t promote violence/I just encourage it.\u201d Inside a fun house of goofy sound effects and ad-libs, he twists and turns phrases inside out until morality and freedom of speech are confetti in a rhetorical Tilt-a-Whirl.
Kanye West featuring Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Jay-Z and Bon Iver
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Mr. West gets in touch with his Slim Shady on this ghoulishly stagy posse cut from \u201cMy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.\u201d He carps about the gossip mill and boorishly rhymes \u201csarcophagus\u201d with \u201cesophagus,\u201d then hands it off to a brilliantly unhinged Nicki Minaj, who raps, \u201cFirst things first/I\u2019ll eat your brains.\u201d West\u2019s parting shot \u2014 \u201cI crossed the line/I let God decide\u201d \u2014 is very Shady.
The rapper-singer Juice WRLD spoke openly about Eminem\u2019s influence on his emo-saturated music, freeing him to rap about his struggles with addiction, women and violence, while drawing in listeners with comically cutting pop-culture allusions. Here, he\u2019s tortured by a codependent, drug-riddled relationship with a girlfriend.
Known for his early rock \u2019n\u2019 roll banger \u201cGood Rockin\u2019 Tonight\u201d \u2014 though Elvis\u2019 version stole his place in history \u2014 Brown also put his stamp on this lunatic yarn. \u201cButcher Pete\u201d has a long, sharp knife and he\u2019s choppin\u2019 up meat for miles around; but it soon becomes clear that ol\u2019 Pete was a lunatic gigolo who\u2019s choppin\u2019 up something else, including a 92-year-old woman and his cellmate in jail.
Axl Rose packs one of Guns N\u2019 Roses\u2019 more memorable melodies with his knee-jerk, teenage reactions to life as a hitchhiker and newcomer to Los Angeles. That means the small-town Indiana white kid takes out his frustrations while slinging racial and homophobic slurs. (He has said he was playing a character.)
An essential horrorcore text, \u201cLive By Yo Rep\u201d takes about 45 seconds to reveal its Slim Shady lineage. After a reporter asks what they would do if somebody tried to copy their style, Lord Infamous raps that he would take thousands of razor blades and press them into the offender\u2019s flesh. It gets more evil from there.
According to Eminem, \u201cCriminal\u201d is the last song on the album because it distills everything he wanted to say about being appointed America\u2019s top fall guy for all that was wrong with the \u201ckids.\u201d As with most satire, it raises and ridicules plenty of questions, but answers few. Eminem is on solid ground when he points out that parents were responsible for their children, not him. That ground shifts when he raps gay slurs, supposedly as a free-speech provocation. He wanted to be treated as an artist, not a political figure. But as a pop star, he was attacked as both. That\u2019s why he got paid the big money.
In the mid- to late \u201990s, as L.G.B.T.Q. life became more a part of mainstream culture, homophobia lashed back, most publicly in the killings of Gianni Versace and the college student Matthew Shepard. In the wake of all that, the emo-screamo pioneers Thursday go all in on \u201cM. Shepard,\u201d a thrashing, moody barrage of guitars with the singer Geoff Rickly shuddering at how frightening and complex it is for young people to come out when so many want them dead.
On this soulful story-song, the Minnesota rapper Brother Ali empathetically connects three struggling characters \u2014 a Somalian refugee, a child of divorce and a boy who is afraid to come out as gay. There\u2019s no resolution, just Brother Ali plainly stating the facts: \u201cIt\u2019s a cold world, y\u2019all, shame on us.\u201d
Facetiously, Gossip\u2019s Beth Ditto might be Eminem\u2019s worst nightmare, a lesbian loudmouth who grew up dirt poor in Arkansas, left home at 13 and became an international star by being herself. \u201cHeavy Cross\u201d is a squalling punk-funk expressway to your heart with Ditto\u2019s bluesy wail teasing and roaring.
\nCorrection: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Woody Guthrie song that was said to be about Fred Trump. It was \u201cOld Man Trump,\u201d not \u201cMean Talking Blues.\u201d\n
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+ "page_last_modified": " Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:04:03 GMT"
+ },
+ {
+ "page_name": "The Marshall Mathers LP - Wikipedia",
+ "page_url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marshall_Mathers_LP",
+ "page_snippet": "Thompson further praised the album's impact on white rappers, saying, "For a snapshot of the album's seismic influence, compare the pre\u2013Marshall Mathers LP decade of White rappers like Everlast and MC Serch with the post-2000 landscape of Action Bronson, G-Eazy, and the late Mac Miller [...] ...Thompson further praised the album's impact on white rappers, saying, \"For a snapshot of the album's seismic influence, compare the pre\u2013Marshall Mathers LP decade of White rappers like Everlast and MC Serch with the post-2000 landscape of Action Bronson, G-Eazy, and the late Mac Miller [...] Eminem homogenized the White rapper.\" Eminem's upending of the mainstream, particularly through the release of The Marshall Mathers LP, earned him countless enemies. Popdose listed The Marshall Mathers LP as the 10th best album of the decade. Spinner ranked the album at 22 on its Best Albums of the 2000s list. In 2010, Rhapsody ranked it at number 1 on their list of \"The 10 Best Albums by White Rappers\". In 2015, the album was ranked number 81 by About.com on their list of 100 Best Hip-Hop Albums of All Time. In 2020, The Marshall Mathers LP was included at the 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century list of Stacker, being ranked at 69. The Marshall Mathers LP was released on May 23, 2000, by Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope Records, in the United States, and on 11 September 2000, by Polydor Records in the United Kingdom. The Marshall Mathers LP was released with two different album covers.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n\nThe Marshall Mathers LP - Wikipedia\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJump to content\n
Like its predecessor, The Marshall Mathers LP was surrounded by significant controversy upon its release, while also propelling Eminem to the forefront of American pop culture. Criticism centered on lyrics that were considered violent, homophobic, and misogynistic, as well as a reference to the Columbine High School massacre. Future second lady Lynne Cheney criticized the lyrics at a United States Senate hearing, while the Canadian government considered refusing Eminem's entry into the country. Despite the controversies, it received acclaim from critics, who praised Eminem's lyrical ability and considered the album to have emotional depth.\n
The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, staying atop for eight consecutive weeks. A significant commercial success compared to the release of The Slim Shady LP just the previous year, the album sold 1.78 million copies in its first week, which made it among the fastest-selling studio albums in the United States. The album produced the singles \"The Real Slim Shady\", \"The Way I Am\", \"Stan\", \"I'm Back\" and \"Bitch Please II\". Among other publications, Rolling Stone named it the best album of 2000.\n
Inspired by the disappointment of his debut album, Infinite (1996), Eminem created the alter ego Slim Shady, whom he introduced on the Slim Shady EP (1997).[2] After placing second in the annual Rap Olympics, Eminem was noticed by the staff at Interscope Records and eventually CEO Jimmy Iovine, who played the Slim Shady EP for hip hop producer Dr. Dre.[2] Eminem and Dr. Dre then met and recorded The Slim Shady LP (1999), which was noted for its over-the-top lyrical depictions of drugs and violence.[2]The Slim Shady LP was a critical and commercial success, debuting at number two on the Billboard 200 chart and selling 283,000 copies in its first week.[3] At the 42nd Grammy Awards in 2000, the record won Best Rap Album, while the album's lead single \"My Name Is\" won Best Rap Solo Performance.[4]\n
The Slim Shady LP turned Eminem from an underground rapper into a high-profile celebrity. The rapper, who had previously struggled to provide for his daughter Hailie, noted a drastic change in his lifestyle.[5] In June 1999, he married his girlfriend Kimberly Ann \"Kim\" Scott, the mother of Hailie, despite the fact that the song \"'97 Bonnie & Clyde\" from The Slim Shady LP contains references to killing her.[6] The rapper became uncomfortable with the level of fame he had achieved, and said, \"I don't trust nobody now because everybody I meet is meeting me as Eminem...I don't know if they are hanging with me 'cause they like me or because I'm a celebrity or because they think they can get something from me.\"[5] Eminem also became a highly controversial figure due to his lyrical content. He was labeled as \"misogynist, a nihilist and an advocate of domestic violence\", and in an editorial, Billboard editor in chief Timothy White accused Eminem of \"making money by exploiting the world's misery\".[2]\n
Eminem considered naming the album Amsterdam after a trip to the city shortly after the release of The Slim Shady LP, in which he and his friends engaged in heavy drug use.[7] The \"free\" use of drugs Eminem observed during his time in Amsterdam greatly influenced his desire to openly discuss drug use in his music and inspired some of the content on the album.[7][8]\n
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Recording
\nEminem (pictured in 1999) wrote the majority of The Marshall Mathers LP while in the studio\n
The Marshall Mathers LP was recorded in a two-month-long \"creative binge\", which often involved 20-hour-long studio sessions.[9] Eminem hoped to keep publicity down during the recording in order to stay focused on working and figuring out how to \"map out\" each song.[9] He described himself as a \"studio rat\" who benefited creatively from the isolated environment of the studio.[10] Much of the album was written spontaneously in the studio; Dr. Dre noted, \"We don't wake up at two in the morning, call each other, and say, 'I have an idea. We gotta get to the studio.' We just wait and see what happens when we get there.\"[11] Eminem observed that much of his favorite material on the album evolved from \"fucking around\" in the studio; \"Marshall Mathers\" developed from the rapper watching Jeff Bass casually strumming a guitar, while \"Criminal\" was based on a piano riff Eminem overheard Bass playing in studio next door.[10] \"Kill You\" was written when Eminem heard the track playing in the background while talking to Dr. Dre on the phone and developed an interest in using it for a song. He then wrote the lyrics at home and met up with Dr. Dre and the two recorded the song together.[11]\n
\"Kim\" was the first song the rapper recorded for the album, shortly after finishing work on The Slim Shady LP.[12] Eminem wrote \"Kim\" at a time in which he and his wife were separated, and he had just watched a romantic movie alone at a theater.[12] Originally intending to write a love song for her while using ecstasy, the rapper hoped to avoid overt sentimentality and thus began writing a song of hate.[13] With the track, the rapper aimed to create a short horror story in the form of a song. Once the couple reconciled, Eminem recalls, \"I asked her to tell me what she thought of it. I remember my dumb ass saying, 'I know this is a fucked-up song, but it shows how much I care about you. To even think about you this much. To even put you on a song like this'.\"[14] The song \"Stan\" was produced by the 45 King. Eminem's manager, Paul Rosenberg, sent Eminem a tape of the producer's beats, and the second track featured a sample of English singer-songwriter Dido's \"Thank You\".[15] Upon hearing the song's lyrics, Eminem felt they described an obsessed fan, which became the inspiration for the song. The writing process for \"Stan\" differed greatly from Eminem's usual strategy, in which song concepts form during the writing: \"'Stan' was one of the few songs that I actually sat down and had everything mapped out for. I knew what it was going to be about.\"[15] Dido later heard \"Stan\" and enjoyed it, and observed, \"I got this letter out of the blue one day. It said, 'We like your album, we've used this track. Hope you don't mind, and hope you like it.' When they sent ['Stan'] to me and I played it in my hotel room, I was like, 'Wow! This track's amazing.'\"[16]\n
The record label speculated that Eminem would be the first artist to sell one million copies in an album's first week of release. These expectations placed a large burden on Eminem, who recalled, \"I was scared to death. I wanted to be successful, but before anything, I want respect.\"[15] After the album was finished, the record label felt that there were no songs that had potential to be a lead single.[15] Feeling pressured, Eminem returned to the studio and wrote \"The Way I Am\" as his way of saying, \"Look, this is the best I can do. I can't give you another 'My Name Is.' I can't just sit in there and make that magic happen.\"[15] However, after the song was added to the album, Eminem felt the urge to write another song, and gave a hook to Dr. Dre for him to create a beat, and went home to write new lyrics; the song eventually became \"The Real Slim Shady\".[15] The song also discusses Eminem killing Dr. Dre. The producer stated, \"It was funny to me. As long as it's hot, let's roll with it ... in my opinion, the crazier it is the better. Let's have fun with it and excite people.\"[11]\n
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Music and lyrics
\nDr. Dre produced most of the first half of the album, together with Mel-Man\n
Considered both a horrorcore and a hardcore hip hop album,[17][18] much of the album's first half was produced by Dr. Dre and Mel-Man, who employed their typical sparse, stripped-down beats, to put more focus on Eminem's vocals. The background music on the record employs \"liquid basslines, stuttering rhythms, slight sound effects, and spacious soundscapes\".[19]Bass Brothers and Eminem produced most of the second half, which ranges from the laid-back guitars of \"Marshall Mathers\" to the atmosphere of \"Amityville\". The only outside producer on the album was The 45 King, who sampled a verse from Dido's song \"Thank You\" for \"Stan\", while adding a slow bass line.\n
The Marshall Mathers LP is considered a transgressive work,[20] and contains more autobiographical themes in comparison to The Slim Shady LP.[21] Much of the album is spent addressing his rise to fame and attacking those who criticized his previous album. Other themes include his relationship with his family, including his mother and Kim Mathers, his ex-wife.[22] Unlike Eminem's major-label debut, The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP is more introspective in its lyrics and uses less of the Slim Shady persona, with music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing that the album's lyrics \"[blur] the distinction between reality and fiction, humor and horror, satire and documentary\".[19] The record showcases a variety of moods, ranging from irreverent and humorous to \"dark and unsettling enough to make you want to enlarge the parental warning stickers on the album.\"[21] According to Neil Strauss of The New York Times, \"Eminem never makes it clear which character\u2014Slim Shady or Marshall Mathers\u2014is the mask and which is the real person, because there is no clear-cut answer, except that there's a little bit of each character in all of us.\"[23]\n
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Most songs cover Eminem's childhood struggles and family issues, involving his mother (\"Kill You\"), the relationship struggles with his wife (\"Kim\"), his struggles with his superstardom and expectations (\"Stan\", \"I'm Back\", and \"Marshall Mathers\"), his return and effect on the music industry (\"Remember Me?\", \"Bitch Please II\"), his drug use (\"Drug Ballad\", \"The Kids\"), his effect on the American youth and society (\"The Way I Am\", \"Who Knew\"), and reactionary barbs to critical response of his vulgarity and dark themes (\"Criminal\").[24] Despite the large amount of controversy regarding the lyrics, the lyrics on the album were overwhelmingly well received among critics and the hip hop community, many praising Eminem's verbal energy and dense rhyme patterns.[17]\n
The record also contains lyrics that have been considered to be homophobic.[25] The song \"Criminal\" features the line \"My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge/That'll stab you in the head whether you're a fag or les...Hate fags?/The answer's yes\".[25] The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) condemned his lyrics and criticized the album for \"encourag[ing] violence against gay men and lesbians\".[26] However, writing for the LGBT interest magazine The Advocate, editor Dave White writes, \"If he has gay-bashed you or me, then it logically follows that he has also raped his own mother, killed his wife, and murdered his producer, Dr. Dre. If he's to be taken literally, then so is Britney Spears' invitation to 'hit me baby, one more time'.\"[25] Eminem noted that he began using the word \"faggot\" more frequently when \"people got all up in arms about it...to piss them off worse\", but added, \"I think it's hard for some people to understand that for me the word 'faggot' has nothing to do with sexual preference. I meant something more like assholes or dickheads.\"[27]Evangelical Christian religious figure James Dobson also heavily criticized Eminem.[28]\n
The second song on the album, \"Kill You\" exemplifies the album's over-the-top descriptions of violence, confrontational vocal delivery, and criticism of the media, record label expectations, and Eminem's mother.
The album's third single has been referred to as the album's centerpiece and includes a sample of Dido's \"Thank You\". During the verses, Eminem portrays both himself and an obsessive fan, with pen-scratching sounds in the background to indicate communication via letters.
The first track, \"Kill You\", discusses the controversy that surrounded the rapper's first album, nightmares of \"ladies' screams\", and being raised by a single mother.[29] In the song, Eminem also talks of raping his mother, and \"notes the irony of magazines trumpeting his mother-raping self on their covers'.\"[29] The six-and-a-half minute long \"Stan\" samples Dido's \"Thank You\" and tells the story of an exchange between the rapper and an obsessive fan, where the titular character berates Eminem for not responding to his letters, which later turns to the fan committing suicide with his pregnant girlfriend.[30] On \"Who Knew\", the rapper addresses criticism regarding glorification of violence in his lyrics, pointing out perceived hypocrisy in American society. According to Gabriel Alvarez of Complex, Eminem's response ranges oscillates from \"smart-ass ('Oh, you want me to watch my mouth, how?/Take my fuckin' eyeballs out and turn 'em around?') to smart ('Ain't they got the same moms and dads who got mad when I asked if they liked violence?/And told me that my tape taught 'em to swear/What about the makeup you allow your 12-year-old daughter to wear?').\"[31] \"Who Knew\" is followed by the \"Steve Berman\" skit, where the president of sales at Interscope Records angrily confronts the rapper about his lyrical content. He notes that Dr. Dre was successful because he rapped about \"big-screen TVs, blunts, 40's, and bitches\", while Eminem raps about \"homosexuals and Vicodin\", and believes that the album will be a commercial disaster.[32]\n
\"The Way I Am\" is a meditation on the pressure to maintain his fame, and his fear of being \"pigeon-holed into some poppy sensation/to cop me rotation at rock 'n' roll stations\".[33] He also laments the negative media attention received by controversial public figures such as himself and Marilyn Manson in the wake of shootings, including the Columbine High School massacre and the 1998 Westside Middle School shooting. The rapper criticizes the media for focusing on tragedies such as school shootings while ignoring inner-city violence that occurs on a daily basis.[33] \"The Real Slim Shady\" pokes fun at pop culture icons such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Will Smith.[34] \"Remember Me?\" follows with rappers RBX and Sticky Fingaz, who \"kick seriously Stygian darkness on the ominous track\".[24] In the song, he states \"I'm tryna clean up my fuckin' image / So I promised the fuckin' critics / I wouldn't say 'fuckin' for six minutes/(Six minutes, Slim Shady, you're on)\". Despite saying the word \"fuck\" one more time in \"Remember Me\", and three times at the beginning of \"I'm Back\", he does not say the word \"fuckin\" for seven minutes and 29 seconds after delivering the original promise, saying it again in the song \"Marshall Mathers\".[32]\n
This song, with its sparse, minimalist production featuring an acoustic guitar, is a diss track aimed at pop artists such as NSYNC, Ricky Martin, and Britney Spears. It also expresses frustration at people who have tried to use Eminem for his fame.
The album's most controversial track, \"Kim\" is a chaotic murder fantasy where Eminem plays both himself and the voice of his wife Kim. The production samples \"When the Levee Breaks\" by Led Zeppelin.
\"I'm Back\" features Eminem's observations regarding his rise to fame, explaining that he \"became a commodity/'Cause I'm W-H-I-T-E\".[29] The next song, \"Marshall Mathers\", mocks the chorus of LFO's \"Summer Girls\", while criticizing the lack of artistic merit of pop stars such as Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and Ricky Martin. The song also takes aim at rap duo Insane Clown Posse, where Eminem raps about Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope being flaming homosexuals.[34][35] \"Drug Ballad\" has vocals from Dina Rae,[36] and describes the rapper's struggles with his drug addiction. He writes about some of his experiences under the influence of ecstasy which makes him \"sentimental as fuck, spilling guts to you/we just met, but I think I'm in love with you\".[37] \"Amityville\" is a bass-heavy ode to living in Detroit, where the rapper discusses the city's crowning as murder capital of the United States.[17] \"Bitch Please II\" showcases Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Xzibit, and contains elements of g-funk, as well as R&B crooning from Nate Dogg on the chorus.[24]\n
\"Kim\", the prequel to \"97 Bonnie and Clyde\" from The Slim Shady LP, features Eminem \"screaming at his ex in an insane stream-of-consciousness hate spew\".[17] The song begins with Eminem talking softly to his daughter, but as the beat starts, the rapper takes on portraying two characters, utilizing his own enraged, threatening voice, and the terrified shrieks of his wife Kim.[38] As the song ends, Eminem kills her while taunting, \"Bleed, bitch, bleed!\"[38] \"Kim\" is followed by \"Under the Influence\", which sees Eminem speaking in gibberish for the chorus, and later rap group D12 \"runs rampant\" on the track.[24] \"Criminal\" features production from F.B.T., which consists of \"piano licks, swerving synth, and a deceptively simplistic bass rumble over which Em snakes and snarls and warns that 'you can't stop me from topping these charts...'\".[24] He pokes fun at critics who take his lyrical content seriously, explaining that \"half the shit I say, I just make it up to make you mad\".[39]\n
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Release
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The Marshall Mathers LP was released on May 23, 2000, by Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope Records, in the United States,[40] and on 11 September 2000, by Polydor Records in the United Kingdom.[41]The Marshall Mathers LP was released with two different album covers. The original features Eminem sitting on the porch of the house he lived in during his teenage years.[15] He reflected on the photo shoot by saying, \"I had mixed feelings because I had a lot of good and bad memories in that house. But to go back to where I grew up and finally say, 'I've made it', is the greatest feeling in the world to me.\"[15] The other cover features the rapper seated in a fetal position beneath a loading dock with alcohol and prescription pill bottles at his feet.[29] Will Hermes of Entertainment Weekly likened Eminem's appearance on the cover to a \"dysfunctional Little Rascal\", viewing the image as indicative of the rapper's musical evolution: \"Easy to read, right? The debut: a violent fantasy, the acting-out of a persona. The follow-up: the vulnerable artist unmasked.\"[29]\n
In his book Edited Clean Version: Technology and the Culture of Control, author Raiford Guins writes that the clean version of The Marshall Mathers LP \"resembles a cross between a cell phone chat with terrible reception...and a noted hip-hop lyricist suffering from an incurable case of hiccups.\"[42]\n
This version of the album often either omits words completely or obscures them with added sound effects.[42] The clean version of the album did not censor all profanity. Words like \"ass\", \"bitch\", \"goddamn\", and \"shit\" were uncensored. However, on the track \"The Real Slim Shady\", the words \"bitch\" and \"shit\" were censored out, as the label decided to use the radio edit. References to violence and weapons were also significantly altered, and the titles to the songs \"Kill You\", \"Drug Ballad\", and \"Bitch Please II\" are censored on the back cover.[42] The song \"Kim\" is removed completely and replaced by \"The Kids\", a South Park-themed track about drug usage and the American youth which is also featured on the special edition of the album.[43]\n
Special attention was given to editing aggressive and violent lyrics that were aimed at police, prostitutes, women, homosexuals, bullies, minors, and schools. In response to the attack that had occurred at Columbine High School in April 1999, names of guns and sounds of them firing were censored. Interscope Records insisted on censoring the words \"kids\" and \"Columbine\" from the line, \"I take seven [kids] from [Columbine], stand them all in line\" from \"I'm Back\", even on the explicit version of the album.[39] Mike Rubin of Spin called the censorship a \"curious decision, given that lyrics like 'Take drugs / Rape sluts' are apparently permissible\".[39] Eminem commented on his lyrics regarding the shooting, calling the specific Columbine incident \"so fucking touchy.\" He elaborated being saying, \"as much sympathy as we give the Columbine shootings, nobody ever looked at it from the fuckin' point of view of the kids who were bullied \u2014 I mean, they took their own fucking life! And it was because they were pushed so far to the fucking edge that they were fucking so mad. I've been that mad.\"[39] The full line appears uncensored in Eminem's song \"Rap God\" from The Marshall Mathers LP 2.[44]\n
The line \"It doesn't matter, [your attorney Fred Gibson's a] faggot\" was also censored from \"Marshall Mathers\"; the line refers to his mother Debbie Nelson's lawyer, who assisted her in filing a lawsuit against the rapper for defamation regarding lyrics from The Slim Shady LP.[45]\n
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Commercial performance
\nEminem (left) at the ARCO Arena for the Up in Smoke Tour, in June 2000, a month after the album's release\n
The Marshall Mathers LP sold 1.78 million copies in its first week, which made it one of the fastest-selling studio albums in the United States.[46] The album sold twice as much as the previous hip hop record holder for first week sales in the US, which was Snoop Dogg's 1993 album Doggystyle.[47]The Marshall Mathers LP sold over 800,000 copies in its second week, 600,000 copies in its third week, and 520,000 copies in its fourth week for a four-week total of 3.65 million. It also became one of the few albums to sell over half a million copies for four consecutive weeks. In total, the album spent eight weeks at number one on the US Billboard 200, ranking it fourth on the current all-time list of weeks spent at number one by a hip hop album.[48] By the end of 2000, The Marshall Mathers LP had become the second-best-selling album of the year with over eight million copies sold.[49]The Marshall Mathers LP was also the best-selling album of 2000 in Canada, selling 679,567 copies.[50]\n
According to Billboard, as of 2022, The Marshall Mathers LP is one of the 15 best-performing 21st-century albums without any of its singles being number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100.[51] The first single, \"The Real Slim Shady\", became Eminem's biggest hit up to that point. It peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the UK Singles Chart.[52][53] \"The Way I Am\", which was released as the album's second single, peaked at number eight on the UK Singles Chart[52] and 58 on the Billboard Hot 100. \"Stan\", the third single released from the album, became a number-one hit in both the United Kingdom[52] and Australia.[54] The song, which details around a crazed fan of the same name, has been highlighted as a work of poetry by critics, and soon gave rise to the Oxford English Dictionary term stan.[55][56][57]\n
In 2010, Nielsen SoundScan reported that up until November 2009, The Marshall Mathers LP had sold 10,216,000 copies in the US, making it the fourth-best selling album of the decade.[58] The album has been certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and its sales stand at over 11 million copies in the United States, making it Eminem's best-selling album in his home country.[59] In worldwide sales, the album has sold 25 million copies, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.[60] A sequel to the album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, was released on November 5, 2013.[61]\n
The Marshall Mathers LP was met with highly positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 78, based on 21 reviews.[62]\n
Rolling Stone magazine's Tour\u00e9 applauded Dr. Dre's production and Eminem's varied lyrical style on what is a \"car-crash record: loud, wild, dangerous, out of control, grotesque, unsettling\", but ultimately captivating.[17]Melody Maker said that Eminem's startlingly intense vision of \"rap's self-consciousness\" is truly unique,[64] while Steve Sutherland of NME praised the album as a misanthropic and \"gruelling assault course of lyrical genius\" that critiques malevolent aspects of contemporary society.[65]Chuck Eddy from The Village Voice said that Eminem is backed by attractive music and displays an emotionally complex and witting quality unlike his previous work.[70] In the newspaper's consumer guide column, Robert Christgau called him \"exceptionally witty and musical, discernibly thoughtful and good-hearted, indubitably dangerous and full of shit\", while declaring the album \"a work of art whose immense entertainment value in no way compromises its intimations of a pathology that's both personal and political\".[69]Will Hermes of Entertainment Weekly wrote that as the first significant popular music album of the 2000s, The Marshall Mathers LP is \"indefensible and critic-proof, hypocritical and heartbreaking, unlistenable and undeniable\".[29]\n
On the other hand, music journalist Greg Kot said the reaction to The Marshall Mathers LP was \"mixed\", or reluctantly positive, among critics who praised Eminem's \"verbal skills and transgressive humor\" but decried some of the subject matter.[71] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Hilburn reserved his praise because of homophobic lyrics on what he felt is an otherwise conceptual and personal work, \"docked a half star because of the recurring homophobia\u2014something that may be de rigueur in commercial rap, but which still is unacceptable.\"[21] Steve Jones of USA Today opined that Eminem's \"vicious and patently personal lyrical assaults\" would \"almost grow tedious if he weren't as inventive as he is tasteless.\"[68]Q magazine felt that the subject matter does not make for an enjoyable listen, even though Eminem's disaffected and nihilistic lyrics can be provocative.[66]Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani was more critical in a one-and-a-half star review and found his raps extremely distasteful: \"The only thing worse than Eminem's homophobia is the immaturity with which he displays it\".[72] On the other hand, Spin felt that the rapping is excellent, but plagued more so by unremarkable music and lackluster tracks.[73]\n
Since its initial release, The Marshall Mathers LP has been highly acclaimed in retrospective critic reviews. It has been regarded by critics as Eminem's best album and has been ranked in multiple lists of the greatest albums of all time.[83][84][85] In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Christian Hoard said it \"delved much deeper into personal pain [than The Slim Shady LP], and the result was a minor masterpiece that merged iller-than-illflows with a brilliant sense of the macabre.\" According to Sputnikmusic's Nick Butler, The Marshall Mathers LP stands as a culturally significant record in American popular music, but also \"remains a truly special album, unique in rap's canon, owing its spirit to rock and its heritage to rap, in a way I've rarely heard\".[80] Insanul Ahmed of Complex wrote, \"At a time when the Billboard charts were dominated by squeaky-clean pop acts like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys, Eminem offered a rebuttal to the hypocritical American mainstream that criticizes rap music while celebrating\u2014and, worse, commercializing\u2014sex, violence, and bigotry in other arenas. This album turned Eminem into a global icon. There was a huge amount of hype and controversy around it [...] But none of that takes away from its musical achievement. This album definitively proved that the Detroit rapper was a gifted lyricist, a brilliant songwriter, and a visionary artist.\"[85]Mike Elizondo, a former collaborator on Eminem's albums, said, \"I felt like Marshall was part of this wave with Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction (1994) and Reservoir Dogs (1992) [...] This next level of art with incredible graphic imagery that Marshall had the ability to paint. Love it or hate it he was obviously very skilled at the stories he was telling.\"[86]\n
\nJeff Weiss of The Ringer wrote, \"TheMarshall Mathers LP certified Eminem as an alienated voice of a generation, a caustic wedge issue distilling the spirits of Elvis, Holden Caulfield, Johnny Rotten, Kurt Cobain, Cartman from South Park, and Tupac if he shopped at Kroger. In a postmodern abyss where everything's performative, it might have been the last album that possessed the capacity to genuinely shock.\"[87] Dan Ozzi of Vice highlighted that \"Eminem was the one artist high school kids seemed to unanimously connect with. [...] he represented everything high school years are about: blind rage, misguided rebellion, adolescent frustration. He was like a human middle finger. An X-rated Dennis the Menace for a dial-up modem generation.\"[88] Max Bell of Spin wrote that the album remains \"one of the most critically-acclaimed, commercially-successful, and influential albums in rap history\", citing rappers influenced by the album, such as Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Kendrick Lamar, and Juice WRLD.[89] Bonsu Thompson of Medium described the album as \"a masterful confluence of punk, bluegrass, and subterranean hip-hop that gave life to a singular brand of Americana rap.\"[28] Thompson further praised the album's impact on whiterappers, saying, \"For a snapshot of the album's seismic influence, compare the pre\u2013Marshall Mathers LP decade of White rappers like Everlast and MC Serch with the post-2000 landscape of Action Bronson, G-Eazy, and the late Mac Miller [...] Eminem homogenized the White rapper.\"[28]
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Eminem's upending of the mainstream, particularly through the release of The Marshall Mathers LP, earned him countless enemies. From religious groups to government officials, he faced no shortage of protesters, but while Middle America \u2013 as well as occupants of other suburban areas around the world \u2013 hated him, their kids loved him, his music and his rebellious nature. You can love him or loathe him, but the fact we're still talking about The Marshall Mathers LP 20 years later speaks to its undeniable impact.\n
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\u2013 Will Lavin of NME, speaking on The Marshall Mathers LP[90]
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In 2003, The Marshall Mathers LP was ranked number 302 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time;[91] it was moved up to number 244 in the magazine's revised 2012 edition of the list,[92] and moved to 145 on the 2020 edition.[93]IGN named it the twenty-fourth greatest rap album of all time in a 2004 list.[94] In 2006, The Marshall Mathers LP was included by Time in its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time.[95] That same year, Q ranked it number 85 on a list of The Greatest Albums of All Time, the highest position held by any hip hop album on the list.[96]The Marshall Mathers LP was also the highest ranked hip hop album on the National Association of Recording Merchandisers & the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the 200 Definitive Albums of All Time, where it was placed at number 28.[97] It has been named one of the Top 100 Albums of the Decade (2000s) by Rolling Stone, who ranked it seventh,[98]Complex Magazine, who ranked it fourth,[99] and Pitchfork, who ranked it 119th.[100]The Guardian ranked the album at 29 on its Top 50 Albums of the decade.[101]The A.V. Club ranked the album at 36 on its Best Albums of the Decade list.[102]Popdose listed The Marshall Mathers LP as the 10th best album of the decade.[103]Spinner ranked the album at 22 on its Best Albums of the 2000s list.[104] In 2010, Rhapsody ranked it at number 1 on their list of \"The 10 Best Albums by White Rappers\".[105] In 2015, the album was ranked number 81 by About.com on their list of 100 Best Hip-Hop Albums of All Time.[106] In 2020, The Marshall Mathers LP was included at the 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century list of Stacker, being ranked at 69.[107] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[108] In 2022, it was ranked 25 by Rolling Stone on their list \"The 200 Greatest Rap Albums of All Time\".[109]\n
Controversies
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Nobody is excluded from my poking at. Nobody. I don't discriminate, I don't exclude nobody. If you do something fucked up, you're bound to be made fun of. If I do something fucked up, I'll make fun of myself\u2014I'm not excluded from this.\n
While the album was hugely controversial and criticized, Eminem propelled to the forefront of American pop culture.[111] At a United States Senate hearing, Lynne Cheney criticized Eminem and sponsor Seagram for \"promot[ing] violence of the most degrading kind against women\", labeling him as \"a rap singer who advocates murder and rape\".[112] She specifically cited lyrics from \"Kill You\", explaining, \"He talks about murdering and raping his mother. He talks about choking women slowly so he can hear their screams for a long time. He talks about using O.J.'s machete on women, and this is a man who is honored by the recording industry\".[112] Cheney drew a link between the Columbine massacre and violent music, mentioning artists Eminem and Marilyn Manson as musicians who contribute to the United States' culture of violence. Although she stated that she has \"long been a vocal supporter of free speech\", Cheney called for the music industry to impose age-restrictions on those who can purchase music with violent content.[112]\n
On October 26, 2000, Eminem was on the co-headlining Anger Management Tour with Limp Bizkit and scheduled to perform at a concert in Toronto's SkyDome.[113] However, Ontario Attorney General Jim Flaherty argued that Canada should stop Eminem at the border. \"I personally don't want anyone coming to Canada who will come here and advocate violence against women\", he said.[113] Flaherty claims to have been \"disgusted\" when reading transcriptions of Eminem's song \"Kill You\", which includes lines like \"Slut, you think I won't choke no whore/till the vocal cords don't work in her throat no more?\"[113] Eminem's fans argued that this was a matter of free speech and that he was unfairly singled out.[113]Michael Bryant suggested that the government let Eminem perform and then prosecute him for violating Canada's hate crime laws, despite the fact that Canada's hate-crime legislation does not include violence against women.[114] In an editorial in The Globe and Mail, author Robert Everett-Green wrote, \"Being offensive is Eminem's job description.\"[115] Eminem was granted entry into Canada.[116]\n
A 2001 and 2004 study by Edward Armstrong found that of the 14 songs on The Marshall Mathers LP eleven contain violent and misogynistic lyrics and nine depict killing women through choking, stabbing, drowning, shooting, head and throat splitting. According to the study, Eminem scores 78% for violent misogyny while gangsta rap music in general reaches 22%.[117][118] Armstrong argues that violent misogyny characterizes most of Eminem's music and that the rapper \"authenticates his self-presentations by outdoing other gangsta rappers in terms of his violent misogyny.\"[118] A fifteen-year-old boy in Fresno, California was arrested in September 2015 for making terrorist threats, after sharing the Columbine-related lyrics to \"I'm Back\" on Instagram.[119]\n
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Reactions from other artists
\nElton John performed \"Stan\" with Eminem at the Grammys despite negative reactions from the LGBT community.\n
Protests against the album's content reached a climax when it was nominated for four Grammy Awards in 2001 including Album of the Year.[120] At the ceremony, Eminem performed \"Stan\" in a duet with openly gay artist Elton John playing piano and singing the chorus. This performance was a direct response to claims by GLAAD and others who claimed his lyrics were homophobic, with Eminem stating, \"Of course I'd heard of Elton John, but I didn't know he was gay. I didn't know anything about his personal life. I didn't really care, but being that he was gay and he had my back, I think it made a statement in itself saying that he understood where I was coming from.\"[121] GLAAD did not change its position, however, and spoke out against Elton John's decision.[122] Despite significant protests and debate, The Marshall Mathers LP went on to win Best Rap Album.\n
Singer Christina Aguilera was upset about the lyric, \"Christina Aguilera better switch me chairs so I can sit next to Carson Daly and Fred Durst / and hear 'em argue over who she gave head to first\" from \"The Real Slim Shady\", calling the rapper's claim \"disgusting, offensive and, above all, not true\".[123] Eminem included this line after becoming angry with the singer for informing the public during an MTV special without his consent about the rapper's secret marriage to Kim Mathers.[123] However, the two later settled their differences after hugging backstage at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, with the singer appearing at the premiere of 8 Mile months later.[123]\n
In 2002, French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier filed a $10 million lawsuit against Eminem that was later settled out of court. The lawsuit claimed the beat for \"Kill You\" was stolen from his song \"Pulsion\".[124]\n
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. \u2021 Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.\n
^Stubbs, David (September 29, 2006). Eminem: The Stories Behind Every Song. Thunder's Mouth Press. p. 128. ISBN978-1560259466. Dina Rae sweetens the deal with some funky vocal flourishes\n
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^Louie, Rebecca (September 2000). \"The X-Factor\". Vibe. Vibe Media Group. Retrieved February 8, 2014.\n
^ ab\"Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP\". Melody Maker: 54. June 6, 2000. No one else puts such a rocket under rap's self-consciousness or makes it so shocking...\n
^\"Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP\". Spin. May 20, 2000. Funny how so much controversy can spring up over an album that is, musically, not all that noteworthy ... what could have been a brilliant statement, instead elevates Eminem to the rarefied air of true platinum rappers: ie, those that drop outstanding rhymes over frustratingly mediocre beats.\n
^Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (March 23, 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. ISBN978-0-7893-2074-2.\n
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^Weingarten, Charles Aaron,Mankaprr Conteh,Jon Dolan,Will Dukes,Dewayne Gage,Joe Gross,Kory Grow,Christian Hoard,Jeff Ihaza,Julyssa Lopez,Mosi Reeves,Yoh Phillips,Noah Shachtman,Rob Sheffield,Simon Vozick-Levinson,Christopher R.; Aaron, Charles; Conteh, Mankaprr; Dolan, Jon; Dukes, Will; Gage, Dewayne; Gross, Joe; Grow, Kory; Hoard, Christian (June 7, 2022). \"The 200 Greatest Hip-Hop Albums of All Time\". Rolling Stone. Retrieved June 8, 2022.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n
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+ "page_name": "The Marshall Mathers LP | Eminem Wiki | Fandom",
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+ "page_snippet": "The Marshall Mathers LP is the third studio album by American rapper Eminem, the album is the follow up to 1999's The Slim Shady LP and was inspired by his critics who had been criticizing him. Released on May 23rd, 2000, the record sold 1.76 million copies it's first week and went on to be ...The Marshall Mathers LP is the third studio album by American rapper Eminem, the album is the follow up to 1999's The Slim Shady LP and was inspired by his critics who had been criticizing him. Released on May 23rd, 2000, the record sold 1.76 million copies it's first week and went on to be certified diamond by the RIAA. Eminem released his debut solo album Infinite in 1996 to poor sales, resulting in Marshall creating his alter ego \"Slim Shady\" who had been introduced on The Slim Shady EP in 1997 which Interscope Records CEO Jimmy Iovine play for Dr. Dre after getting a copy of it by Mathers after placing second in a rap competition called \"Rap Olympics\" impressed by it, Dre signed Eminem to his record company Aftermath Entertainment a sub company of Interscope. The Slim Shady LP dropped a year after Eminem was signed and became the biggest selling rap album of that year debuting at #2 on the Billboard 200 and sold 283,000 copies on it's first week. Dre after getting a copy of it by Mathers after placing second in a rap competition called \"Rap Olympics\" impressed by it, Dre signed Eminem to his record company Aftermath Entertainment a sub company of Interscope. The Slim Shady LP dropped a year after Eminem was signed and became the biggest selling rap album of that year debuting at #2 on the Billboard 200 and sold 283,000 copies on it's first week. Marshall wrote lyrics while on a European tour promoting The Slim Shady LP and got inspiration in Amsterdam. The album has also been called the greatest hip-hop record, Rolling Stone placed it at 7 on the greatest albums of the 2000s and #244 on the 500 Greatest albums. ... Eminem released his debut solo album Infinite in 1996 to poor sales, resulting in Marshall creating his alter ego \"Slim Shady\" who had been introduced on The Slim Shady EP in 1997 which Interscope Records CEO Jimmy Iovine play for Dr. Dre after getting a copy of it by Mathers after placing second in a rap competition called \"Rap Olympics\" impressed by it, Dre signed Eminem to his record company Aftermath Entertainment a sub company of Interscope.",
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The Marshall Mathers LP is the third studio album by American rapper Eminem, the album is the follow up to 1999's The Slim Shady LP and was inspired by his critics who had been criticizing him. Released on May 23rd, 2000, the record sold 1.76 million copies it's first week and went on to be certified diamond by the RIAA. Having sold over 11 million copies as of 2018, it is the best selling rap album in the United States. The album has also been called the greatest hip-hop record, Rolling Stone placed it at 7 on the greatest albums of the 2000s and #244 on the 500 Greatest albums.\n
Eminem released his debut solo album Infinite in 1996 to poor sales, resulting in Marshall creating his alter ego \"Slim Shady\" who had been introduced on The Slim Shady EP in 1997 which Interscope Records CEO Jimmy Iovine play for Dr. Dre after getting a copy of it by Mathers after placing second in a rap competition called \"Rap Olympics\" impressed by it, Dre signed Eminem to his record company Aftermath Entertainment a sub company of Interscope. The Slim Shady LP dropped a year after Eminem was signed and became the biggest selling rap album of that year debuting at #2 on the Billboard 200 and sold 283,000 copies on it's first week.\n
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Writing[]
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Marshall wrote lyrics while on a European tour promoting The Slim Shady LP and got inspiration in Amsterdam. While there, Marshall got a phone call from Dre at the studio who was playing a beat in the background. Marshall asked what beat was playing and asked Dre to send a tape of the beat, which would later become \"Kill You\". Although many songs were written then, the first song he wrote for the album shortly after finishing work on The Slim Shady LP in late 1998 was \"Kim\", a song that portrays Marshall vividly murdering his then-wife, Kim Mathers. The song doesn't appear on the clean version and is instead it's replaced by \"The Kids\". The explicit version of this song is also featured as a bonus track on the explicit version. \"Criminal\" was based on a piano riff that Marshall overheard producer Jeff Bass playing in the next studio, whom also gave Mathers the inspiration for \"Marshall Mathers\" after hearing him strumming a guitar and spontaneously singing the hook with it. The most famous track \"Stan\" samples Thank You by Dido. The 45 King, the song's producer, heard the song on an advertisement for the movie Sliding Doors and added a drum and bass line. As soon as Marshall heard Dido's lyrics, he could hear in his mind the lyrics portraying an obsessed fan and began crafting a song about an obsessed fan who killed himself and his pregnant girlfriend (played by Dido in the video) because Eminem wouldn't respond to his letters. \n
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Recording[]
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The recording took two months and by February had 16 tracks and was ready to release the album. Marshall submitted the album to Interscope and they said it was one track short of a great album. Although \"who Knew was originally pending to be the album's lead single, Interscope CEO Jimmy Iovine suggested a lighter, more radio-friendly song similar to My Name Is from The Slim Shady LP. This thought greatly stressed out Marshall and led him to write The Way I Am. Mathers would later write \"The Real Slim Shady\", which was released as the first single off the album. The Way I Am, however, was released as the second single and talks about his fame and struggles going out in public and features Marilyn Manson who was accused of inspiring the Columbine shooting in Colorado. \"Stan\" would be released as the third single.\n
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Lyrics[]
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The album contains more autobiographical lyrics than The Slim Shady LP. The main topics throughout the album is his personal life, stardom, and criticisms that he's been given since the last album. The record also referenced events that happened around the time, such as the Columbine School Shooting Massacre in Colorado. Despite the release of a clean version of the album, even in the explicit version, most of the lines referencing the Massacre are censored including a line from the song \"I'm Back\" with \"I take seven [kids] from [Columbine], stand 'em all in line Add an AK-47, a revolver, a nine A MAC-11 and it oughta solve the problem of mine\" and in \"Kim\" with \"There's a [four] year old little [boy] laying dead with a slit throat in your living room!\". Those weren't the only censors in the explicit version. In \"Marshall Mathers\", when he addressed his beef with his mom and the lawsuit she filed against him, the line \"It doesn't matter [your attorney Fred Gibson's a] faggot!\" was also edited to avoid beef with the Detroit government.\n
The album also contains lyrical samples and hip hop references, such as the the hook on \"The Way I Am\", which samples \"And The Rhythm Goes On\" by Eric B. & Rakim. The first two lines of I'm Back are based on a song by the same group called \"My Melody\". The pre-hook of the song \"Marshall Mathers\" is a parody of \"Summer Girls\" by LFO. Snoop Dogg makes an appearance of the album with the song 'Bitch Please II' which is a sequel to the original \"Bitch Please off snoo is the only song that Snoop and him did together.\n
Some the lyrics on the record have been deemed homophobic such as in the song \"Criminal\" with the lines \"My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge/That'll stab you in the head whether you're a fag or lez...[Do I]Hate fags?/The answer's yes.\" which motivated GLADD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) to protest the album and get it pulled off the shelves. Eminem responded to GLADD saying \"I think its hard for some people to understand that for me the word 'faggot' has nothing to do with sexual preference. I meant something more like assholes or dickheads.\" and later said in an interview with The New York Times about same-sex marriages being legalized in Michigan \"I think if two people love each other, then what the hell? I think that everyone should have the chance to be equally miserable if they want\". He said that his \"overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.\"\n
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Controversy[]
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Album Cover[]
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The alternate cover art displays Eminem sitting on the porch of his home he lived in as a teenager.It gives a nostalgic feeling to Em to go back to his childhood house with his recent success. He reflected on the photo shoot by saying:\n
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I had mixed feelings because I had lot of good and bad memories in that house.But to go back where I grew up and finally say,\"I've made it\",is the greatest feeling in the world to me.
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Originally, the album was going to be named Amsterdam after a trip there shortly after the release of The Slim Shady LP,in which he wrote of the album.\n
The same house is used in the album The Marshall Mathers LP 2, the sequel to this album.However ,the only significant difference is that Marshall is no longer sitting on the steps.\n
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Lawsuits[]
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In 2002,Jacques Louissier (a french jazz pianist) sued Eminem cause he claims that he stole a song for the song \"Kill You\".\n
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Outside the US[]
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Eminem was supposed to play a concert in Toronto but was stopped by Canada's police force who said he wasn't allowed to enter the country cause of the hate crime laws in Canada. In a Globe and Mail editorial, author Robert Everett-Green wrote, \"Being offensive is Eminem's job description.\", Marshall was later granted in the country.\n
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Homophobic accusations[]
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The biggest controversy surrounding the album is the accusations made by GLAAD saying the album was homophobic and spreading \"hate speech\". GLAAD would protest the album saying \"This is not art, it's hate speech.\" GLAAD protested record stores and radio stations trying to stop them from promoting the album and trying to get people to boycott the record. Romaine Patterson at GLAAD said \"The Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem has been the most homophobic albums and lyrics we ever seem at GLAAD.\" The controversy came to prominence at the Grammy Awards which gave the album 3 Nominations much to GLAAD's dismay. They would protest the event and convinced CBS to air a anti-bullying advertisement during the Grammy broadcast. Eminem backstage. jokingly said that if he was going to perform, he should perform \"Stan\" with openly gay musician Elton John. They asked Elton to do it and he accepted the offer. Despite the performance being praised, GLAAD thought it was a publicity stunt and criticized Elton's decisions.\n
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Reception[]
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Awards[]
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The album was nominated for 3 Grammys and took away two awards, one for best rap album and another for best solo performance.\n
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Critical reception[]
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Despite the controversy, the record received critical acclaim. Metacritic gave the record a 78 out of 100. A critic for The Villiage Voice gave the album an A saying it's \"a record that rarely flags for more than two or three tracks\" and called Eminem \"exceptionally witty and musical, discernibly thoughtful and good-hearted, indubitably dangerous and full of shit\", while declaring the album \"a work of art whose immense entertainment value in no way compromises its intimations of a pathology that's both personal and political\".\n
An Allmusic review called the album \"fairly brilliant\". NME described the album as a \"[g]ruelling assault course of lyrical genius\". Entertamient Weekly called it \"indefensible and critic-proof, hypocritical and heartbreaking, unlistenable and undeniable\" and \"the first great pop record of the 21st century\". Rolling stone gave the record a 4 out o 5 stars saying that it's \"a car-crash record: loud, wild, dangerous, out of control, grotesque, unsettling. It's also impossible to pull your ears away from\".\n
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+ "page_last_modified": " Sat, 16 Mar 2024 23:04:04 GMT"
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+ {
+ "page_name": "The Marshall Mathers LP | album by Eminem | Britannica",
+ "page_url": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Marshall-Mathers-LP",
+ "page_snippet": "Other articles where The Marshall Mathers LP is discussed: Dr. Dre: \u2026work on Eminem\u2019s Grammy-winning album The Marshall Mathers LP. Dr. Dre would capture two more Grammys, both in 2009, for his later work with Eminem.In 2000 Eminem released The Marshall Mathers LP, which set a record in the United States for the fastest-selling rap album. The incredible success of the album, which included the provocative hit singles \u201cThe Real Slim Shady\u201d and \u201cStan,\u201d brought more controversy. \u2026work on Eminem\u2019s Grammy-winning album The Marshall Mathers LP. Dr. Dre would capture two more Grammys, both in 2009, for his later work with Eminem.Read More ... In 2000 Eminem released The Marshall Mathers LP, which set a record in the United States for the fastest-selling rap album.",
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\u2026work on Eminem\u2019s Grammy-winning album The Marshall Mathers LP. Dr. Dre would capture two more Grammys, both in 2009, for his later work with Eminem.
In 2000 Eminem released The Marshall Mathers LP, which set a record in the United States for the fastest-selling rap album. The incredible success of the album, which included the provocative hit singles \u201cThe Real Slim Shady\u201d and \u201cStan,\u201d brought more controversy. To silence critics, in 2001 Eminem performed\u2026
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+ {
+ "page_name": "Eminem\u2019s \u2018The Marshall Mathers LP\u2019: Hear What Came Before ...",
+ "page_url": "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/18/arts/music/eminem-marshall-mathers-lp.html",
+ "page_snippet": "These days, a rapper\u2019s rhymes are rarely more than a Twitter trending topic. But in 2000, multitudes were engrossed: a United States Senate committee about entertainment and violence (where vice-presidential wife Lynne Cheney said Eminem \u201cadvocates murder and rape\u201d); feminist and gay activists; parents groups and religious activists. In the often very catchy pop songs of \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP...These days, a rapper\u2019s rhymes are rarely more than a Twitter trending topic. But in 2000, multitudes were engrossed: a United States Senate committee about entertainment and violence (where vice-presidential wife Lynne Cheney said Eminem \u201cadvocates murder and rape\u201d); feminist and gay activists; parents groups and religious activists. In the often very catchy pop songs of \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d Eminem got into it with all these people, plus his family, other musicians (famous or obscure), celebrities and the media. On his second major-label album, the Detroit rapper provoked, joked, threatened and emoted. Twenty years later, listen to the songs that came first, and the ones he inspired. With his troika of identities \u2014 Marshall Mathers, Eminem, Slim Shady \u2014 appearing together for the first time, multisyllabic mockery, metrical slaloms of disdain and lots of funny voices, he exorcised trauma like a street magician flourishing cards, lyrics whirring around your ears. In 2020, having gone platinum 10 times, \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP\u201d hits differently. But it\u2019s still a vivid snapshot of the late culture wars, when a foul-mouthed white rapper was our worst public health scare. In response to Eminem\u2019s use of homophobic slurs on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d the Pet Shop Boys\u2019 Neil Tennant (with Johnny Marr on guitar) imagines a lovely one-nighter between the rapper and a schoolboy fan: \u201cHe said we could be secret lovers just him and me/Then he joked, \u2018Hey, man!/Your name isn\u2019t Stan, is it?\u2019\u201d ... Tyler Joseph is a pop empath by trade, embracing those who have suffered because of society\u2019s strictures as fellow \u201cheathens.\u201d Here, he also earnestly sing-raps on a \u201cSuicide Squad\u201d soundtrack song co-produced by Mike Elizondo, who co-wrote three songs on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP.\u201d",
+ "page_result": "\n\n \n \n Eminem\u2019s \u2018The Marshall Mathers LP\u2019: Hear What Came Before and After - The New York Times\n \n \n \n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n
Before & After \u2018The Marshall Mathers LP\u2019
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By Charles Aaron Produced by Aliza Aufrichtig
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May 18, 2020
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Eminem\u2019s second major-label album was a compelling but lurid whodunit. \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP\u201d wasn\u2019t a murder mystery, per se, though plenty of characters met their demise. It was a mystery of realness.
This remained a hip-hop conundrum 20 years ago \u2014 especially after the still-unsolved deaths of the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Were rappers real or fake? If you claimed to be a product of the drug trade, had you actually moved weight? After Eminem\u2019s unprecedented success for a white rapper, via \u201cThe Slim Shady LP\u201d in 1999 and its follow-up, questions abounded. Was he a prankster, an industry plant, a generational voice? (The last was asserted in 2003 by the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney.) Were his lyrics truth or fantasy? Was he a public danger?
These days, a rapper\u2019s rhymes are rarely more than a Twitter trending topic. But in 2000, multitudes were engrossed: a United States Senate committee about entertainment and violence (where vice-presidential wife Lynne Cheney said Eminem \u201cadvocates murder and rape\u201d); feminist and gay activists; parents groups and religious activists.
In the often very catchy pop songs of \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d Eminem got into it with all these people, plus his family, other musicians (famous or obscure), celebrities and the media. As a result, virtually every bystander had an opinion cocked, locked and ready to rock, to quote another Motor City madman, Ted Nugent. Eminem was a one-man internet before the internet really became the internet.
With his troika of identities \u2014 Marshall Mathers, Eminem, Slim Shady \u2014 appearing together for the first time, multisyllabic mockery, metrical slaloms of disdain and lots of funny voices, he exorcised trauma like a street magician flourishing cards, lyrics whirring around your ears. In 2020, having gone platinum 10 times, \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP\u201d hits differently. But it\u2019s still a vivid snapshot of the late culture wars, when a foul-mouthed white rapper was our worst public health scare.
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All music previews and full tracks provided by Spotify. Warning: Many tracks contain strong language.
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1. Public Service Announcement
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Public Service Announcement
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Track 1
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Before \u2018Public Service Announcement\u2019\n (1992)
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The Chronic Intro
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Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg
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An outlandish two-minute Gangsta Rap Manifesto that trumpets Dr. Dre\u2019s re-emergence as the master of hip-hop\u2019s sonic universe.
On \u201cThe Slim Shady LP,\u201d Eminem announced his fiendish alter ego by denying all responsibility for his listeners\u2019 \u201cactions.\u201d After still being scapegoated, he doubled down. Here, he whispers direction to the \u201cannouncer\u201d \u2014 the producer Jeff Bass \u2014 who intones, \u201cSlim Shady is fed up with your [expletive] and he\u2019s going to kill you.\u201d Eminem adds: \u201cYeah, sue me.\u201d
After \u2018Public Service Announcement\u2019\n (2001)
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Greatest Hits
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Ludacris
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Challenging Eminem for hip-hop\u2019s King of Comic Interludes, the rapper and actor Christopher \u201cLudacris\u201d Bridges gathers his Disturbing Tha Peace players for a tongue-in-cheek salute to \u201cRandom White People.\u201d
After \u2018Public Service Announcement\u2019\n (2003)
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Public Service Announcement (Interlude)
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Jay-Z
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Upping the ante on grandiosity, Jay-Z and the producerJust Blaze elevated the P.S.A. to a coronation anthem, stitching together samples of a Chicago garage band (Little Boy Blues), the comic Dick Gregory and a Dr. Dre production (D.O.C.\u2019s \u201cNo One Can Do It Better\u201d).
A beguiling stroll through a wife\u2019s mariticidal spree, composed by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart for a 1943 revival of \u201cA Connecticut Yankee,\u201d their musical adaptation of Mark Twain\u2019s novel. Fitzgerald quips: \u201cI tossed him off my balcony/To see if he could fly,\u201d while also adeptly rhyming \u201cpatricide\u201d with \u201cmattress side.\u201d
Punk\u2019s hardcore absurdists goof on the Doors\u2019 Oedipal hippie head trip \u201cThe End,\u201d while wrestling the riff from Black Sabbath\u2019s \u201cSweet Leaf.\u201d It\u2019s a Satanic-panic spoof of golly-gee family values that goes from childlike wonder to a vile din.
Eminem\u2019s Anger Management Tour, which included Korn in a later iteration, capitalized on a kinship between nu metal and rap fan bases, plus the performers\u2019 common subject matter. Like Eminem, the Korn singer Jonathan Davis endured childhood abuse; on \u201cDaddy,\u201d he plays a growling predator and his frantic, girl victim. Davis broke down sobbing in the studio while recording and you can hear him screaming through tears.
\u201cKill You\u201d has, perhaps, the album\u2019s quintessential chorus \u2014 whimsical, sarcastically violent and so catchy that arenas full of fans would scream its singsong threat in unison. But in trying to prove that he hadn\u2019t gone soft, Eminem unloaded one of his most misogynistic songs ever (this is where he sexually assaults his mother). When, after all the passionately rapped bluster, he says, \u201cI\u2019m just playin\u2019, ladies, you know I love you,\u201d it does not sound very convincing at all.
The Disturbed frontman David Draiman grunts, moans and bark-chants the chorus of this rock-radio hit over a lashing rhythm section and gnashing guitars. But about three minutes in, he begins to speak intently and the music dials back. Lapsing into screams, he threatens revenge on an abusive maternal figure,which he said was not his mother.
Over the plink of \u201cTheme From Love Story,\u201d the Peruvian-born, New York-raised rapper weaves a detailed but familiar hard-luck story of a poor kid who had a \u201cScarface fantasy stuck in his brain.\u201d But as the story goes on, the drama gradually heightens. By the brutal conclusion, \u201cKill You\u201d seems like a goofball lark by comparison.
Earlier, the Detroit/Brooklyn rapper poured out her agonizing experience of sexual abuse over the beat from Eminem\u2019s \u201cCleaning Out My Closet.\u201d On \u201cBattle Cry,\u201d she faces down her trauma and spits with a hard-earned, triumphant grit.
This affectionate, imagistic Paul McCartney sketch with radiant steel guitar was likely inspired by the Beatles\u2019 London superfans, a.k.a., the \u201cRegulars,\u201d who hung around Abbey Road studios and the group\u2019s Apple Corps office. Later, they split into the genially devoted \u201cApple Scruffs\u201d and reckless \u201cBaddies,\u201d but it\u2019s unclear if either group was responsible for the actual break-in through a window of McCartney\u2019s townhouse.
Selena Quintanilla P\u00e9rez, the Mexican-American \u201cQueen of Tejano,\u201d was working on her superstar-making, first English-language album when she was fatally shot by her former fan club president in 1995. This yearning pop ballad helped Selena\u2019s posthumous album of the same name become her most commercially successful, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.
A sludge-thrash maelstrom in which the singer Maynard James Keenan ferociously excoriates a fan who accused Tool of \u201cselling out.\u201d Yes, things get graphic.
Rapped as a series of letters from a distraught, obsessive fan, \u201cStan\u201d was the album\u2019s keystone and a pivotal moment in Eminem\u2019s career. In an unexpected misdirection, he plays a perfectly reasonable, empathetic version of himself. Acknowledging some fans\u2019 attachment disorders, he concedes that troubled kids could take his hyperbole for truth (\u201cSee, everything you say is real/And I respect you \u2019cause you tell it,\u201d he raps as Stan). He implies that fame can create a distance between artists and fans that\u2019s disturbing for both. On the final verse, he replies, barely rapping, sounding more Marshall Mathers than Eminem, offering Stan sensible, mature advice. But it\u2019s too late.
In response to Eminem\u2019s use of homophobic slurs on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d the Pet Shop Boys\u2019 Neil Tennant (with Johnny Marr on guitar) imagines a lovely one-nighter between the rapper and a schoolboy fan: \u201cHe said we could be secret lovers just him and me/Then he joked, \u2018Hey, man!/Your name isn\u2019t Stan, is it?\u2019\u201d
Tyler Joseph is a pop empath by trade, embracing those who have suffered because of society\u2019s strictures as fellow \u201cheathens.\u201d Here, he also earnestly sing-raps on a \u201cSuicide Squad\u201d soundtrack song co-produced by Mike Elizondo, who co-wrote three songs on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP.\u201d
An intern at a hip-hop blog heard this song, in which Nicki Minaj dissed copycat MCs, and tweeted a wish that the rapper would embrace more mature themes. Within hours, the \u201cBarbz\u201d (Minaj\u2019s stans) had crashed the young woman\u2019s phone with threats.
R.A. the Rugged Man, a.k.a. Crustified Dibbs, was a frightfully talented, unhinged New Yorker signed at age 17 to Jive. The label wouldn\u2019t release his records or free him from his contract, hence this song. An underground mainstay since the early 2000s, he rivaled Eminem in both mic skills and misogynistic outbursts.
Part two of a continuing, multi-album skit with Paul Rosenberg, Eminem\u2019s long-suffering manager-lawyer, who always fails to get the rapper to soften his subject matter.
Meet \u201cMizzle,\u201d a delusional white crackhead and unlikely Dipset affiliate, who appeared throughout Cam\u2019ron\u2019s \u201cPurple Haze\u201d album, seemingly just to annoy critics.
A gorgeously mordant, spectral lament that emerged in 1933 in either Paris or Budapest by one or two Hungarian Jews, \u201cGloomy Sunday\u201d became an omnipresent rain cloud drifting across Europe. No evidence exists that the song inspired a spate of suicides \u2014 widely rumored at the time \u2014 but Holiday\u2019s earnest version of a Tin Pan Alley translation was banned by the BBC in the early 1940s because it was deemed too somber for wartime. The song\u2019s primary writer, Rezso Seress, committed suicide in 1968.
Charles Manson claimed that songs on the Beatles\u2019 White Album (most notably, \u201cHelter Skelter\u201d) subliminally told him to go on a killing spree and start a race war.
This surprisingly bouncy track from the masters of horrorcore rap \u2014 concocted by Prince Paul from samples of Iron Butterfly and Booker T. & the M.G.\u2019s \u2014 shows what might happen if a suicide hotline was manned by three irreverent MCs.
A cheeky satire rife with degrading lyrics, \u201cWho Knew\u201d crackles with negative energy and theatrical yet exacting flows. It\u2019s still a jolt to hear Eminem rap a string of expletives, linking his rhymes to George Carlin\u2019s seven dirty words and the racist hysteria around jazz.
Titled after a quote from Mark David Chapman \u2014 the obsessive fan who killed John Lennon \u2014 this terse rallying cry was recorded after Manson\u2019s music was widely blamed for the mass shooting at Colorado\u2019s Columbine High School. Manson\u2019s band suspended touring, and a group of U.S. senators requested that his label (Interscope) halt production of \u201cmusic that glorifies violence.\u201d As label mates, Eminem and Manson became allies under siege, collaborating on a rock remix of \u201cThe Way I Am.\u201d
One of the songs of the summer in 2011, the deceptively breezy \u201cPumped Up Kicks\u201d is sung from the point of view of a \u201cpsychotic kid\u201d carrying his daddy\u2019s gun. The singer-songwriter Mark Foster said he wanted to address the rampant gun violence among isolated, alienated American kids; in fact, the cousin of the band\u2019s bassist was a Columbine survivor.
Rap artists have frequently battled the idea that their lyrics are autobiographical. Last February, the Florida dynamo YNW Melly was indicted on two first-degree murder charges and police seized on the lyrics and video of his hit \u201cMurder on My Mind.\u201d The song\u2019s video, which has almost 350 million views, showed Melly playing with a boa constrictor, waving automatic weapons and rapping, \u201cBitch, I\u2019m a murderer.\u201d
An insider\u2019s mockumentary of the music business, Brooks\u2019s album \u201cA Star Is Bought\u201d follows the comedian\u2019s obsession with scoring a Top 40 hit that would appeal to every radio demographic.
The first of another ongoing series of clashes between Eminem and an exasperated music-business foil \u2014 here, it\u2019s Steve Berman, the real-life Interscope vice chairman.
The rare white rapper to achieve post-Eminem pop success, Macklemore rhymed about being so desperate to get signed that he broke into the office of the Interscope co-founder Jimmy Iovine (who signed Eminem). But the song\u2019s \u201cIovine\u201d turned out to be a scammer: \u201cYou\u2019re one hell of a band, we think you\u2019re destined for greatness \u2026 Now, I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019ve had a long day, remind me now what your name is?\u201d
Under pressure for a follow-up album to the blockbuster \u201cDark Side of the Moon,\u201d the Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters wrote this epic record-company diatribe. A lumbering synth dirge leads into a series of creepy, corporate clich\u00e9s, voiced with a pained earthiness by the guest vocalist Roy Harper.
Ditching Ruthless Records and N.W.A. (including Dr. Dre), Ice Cube dialed up Public Enemy\u2019s Bomb Squad for his solo debut, \u201cAmeriKKKa\u2019s Most Wanted,\u201d an act of war fueled by righteous testosterone. Here, he snarls like Eminem\u2019s big brother.
Even on his debut single \u2014 a full-blown dismantling of his peers who sacrificed their truth for fame \u2014 this Detroit-born, West Coast-bred rapper and longtime Eminem collaborator has the raspy authority of a guy giving you advice while holding a grenade.
Like \u201cThe Real Slim Shady,\u201d \u201cThe Way I Am\u201d was written after Iovine said he didn\u2019t hear a hit on the initial version of the album. Exasperated and restless, Eminem has claimed that he started writing on the plane home from Los Angeles to Detroit. His anger became a sonic presence \u2014 bells toll as a thick, minor-key fog rolls in. (This is Eminem\u2019s first production credit.)
Korn\u2019s label expressed its desire for a single toward the end of the recording process, and the band reacted poorly. The howled chorus was its blunt reply.
Eminem\u2019s scrappy, never-quit attitude appealed to artists across genres. Taylor Swift once covered \u201cLose Yourself\u201d in concert and so did Colt Ford, a burly hick-hop songwriter who helped write Jason Aldean\u2019s smash \u201cDirt Road Anthem.\u201d Here, Ford promises not to sell his soul to be a star.
Once testifying that \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP\u201d changed his life, Lamar cited Eminem\u2019s clarity, timing, wordplay and technical facility. But by this track from \u201cTo Pimp a Butterfly,\u201d the student had become the teacher. Reflecting his internal dialogue \u2014 with and about \u201cLucy,\u201d a.k.a. Lucifer, a.k.a. the temptations of success \u2014 he changes his voice from verse to chorus, switching from rapping to speaking, all while weaving and skipping through flows and cadences to convey his shifting, conflicted moods.
Signed when he was a teenager living in New Jersey by Rick Rubin, this Puerto Rican battle-rap prodigy rolled out of bed spouting outrageously sinister punch lines. His unrelenting style was dense with brain-melting references and verbal acrobatics, delivered in a laser-precise, high-pitched sneer. Sound familiar?
A response to the Notorious B.I.G.\u2019s \u201cWho Shot Ya?,\u201d which was perceived as a 2Pac diss, \u201cHit \u2019Em Up\u201d was a bombshell in the East Coast/West Coast hostilities that ended in the deaths of those two rappers. Naming names and threatening to end careers and lives, it\u2019s a lyrical blood bath. One can imagine a young Eminem studying it like a sacred text.
An even cheekier introduction than \u201cMy Name Is,\u201d \u201cHow to Rob\u201d was 50\u2019s major-label debut single, before he was shot nine times and joined forces with Eminem and Dr. Dre. The furor over the song\u2019s slander of countless rap and R&B acts emboldened him to start beefs repeatedly to extend his relevance throughout a long career.
Stressed about whether he could write another \u201cMy Name Is,\u201d i.e., a punchline-packed, pop culture-puncturing, million-selling hit that broadened his appeal to white teens and beyond, Eminem somehow did just that and more for \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP.\u201d Not only did \u201cThe Real Slim Shady\u201d fire off impudently nutty gibes, it boasted a gooey, bass-driven beat by Dre, Mel-Man and Mike Elizondo that even had a club-friendly swing.
After Eminem and Mariah Carey discussed a collaboration in 2001, Eminem implied that they had been in a relationship (which the singer denied). They continued exchanging sporadic barbs, with Eminem the aggressor, until \u201cObsessed.\u201d It was a killshot, an airy R&B hair flip about a stan (Eminem), played in the video by a hoodie-wearing, goateed Carey.
Tyler called himself \u201cthe reincarnation of \u201998 Eminem\u201d on his solo debut mixtape, and he basically proved it with the lead single from his first studio album. On the very Eminem-esque \u201cYonkers,\u201d he disses rock stars, rappers, therapists and Jesus, before referencing school shootings, firing off homophobic slurs and claiming he isn\u2019t gay.
\u201cRemember Me?\u201d channeled the cartoonishly evil attitude of metal-influenced horrorcore rap and these maniacally Satan-hailing English guitar grinders laid the groundwork.
Eminem was protested as if he were the first MC to release indiscriminately grisly rap music. But there were plenty of \u201990s rappers paving the way, most visibly the Rick Rubin-championed Geto Boys, whose 1991 \u201cMind Playing Tricks on Me\u201d was a haunting asylum of bluesy trauma. Ganksta N-I-P, their Rap-a-Lot label mate, pushed even deeper into the darkness, but always with a flair for the absurd.
A rap virtuoso with an unmistakably searing voice, Harlem\u2019s Big L released his debut album for a seemingly mystified Columbia in 1995. They subsequently dropped him and he never found a label or producer who fully capitalized on his gift before he was fatally shot in \u201999. You can hear his furiously blinding bars on freestyles and compilations, but this track, a macabre dream sequence, singes the mic.
After an abusive upbringing, the white New York rapper Cage became an addict and was sent to a psychiatric hospital. He briefly signed with Columbia, then recorded the astonishing indie 12-inch \u201cRadiohead\u201d backed with \u201cAgent Orange,\u201d a witty yet terrifying depiction of his roiling mental state, inspired by both \u201cA Clockwork Orange\u201d and his father\u2019s exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. When Cage first heard the \u201cSlim Shady EP,\u201d he believed Eminem had stolen his entire identity.
With a rattling spray can, swirly sci-fi echo, train whoosh and a methodical bass line that subtly pins back your ears, this minimal Dre and Mel-Man production is as tastefully ominous as the lyrics are tastelessly bugged out. Onyx\u2019s Sticky Fingaz splatters his deranged, rapid-fire rhymes with a vengeance, as if to secure his place in the Eminem lineage.
Brooklyn\u2019s Necro, who produced Cage\u2019s \u201cAgent Orange,\u201d has been a white-rap nexus for 20-plus years. His brother was Ill Bill, whose group Non Phixion were formed by Third Bass\u2019 MC Serch and were later courted by Paul Rosenberg. Meanwhile, Necro created his own horrorcore subgenre, \u201cdeath rap.\u201d
The spookhouse emo version of horrorcore propagated by two Louisiana survivors of the SoundCloud wars. Here, Ruby Da Cherry is suicidally depressed because of a breakup with his girlfriend, Scrim is suicidally depressed because of his addiction to opiates and they\u2019re both mad that people think they use suicide as a gimmick.
Lucille Bogan, a.k.a. Bessie Jackson, took this song, most notably recorded by the blues boss Ma Rainey, and cut two versions with the guitarist Josh White. The second, far more explicit, would make even Eminem blush.
Guthrie channeled an itinerant, God-hating, union-scab narrator who wished everybody the worst \u2014 trainwrecks, famine, tight shoes, disease, tarantulas, teeth falling out and brains boiled in turpentine. In short, he was a criminal, as Eminem would say of himself at the album's end.
One of Eminem\u2019s most persuasive expressions of the album\u2019s theme, as well as the \u201cSlim Shady\u201d persona. He builds motivation for his antics; his rat-a-tat wordplay is mind-boggling; his teen-pop jabs aren\u2019t gratuitous in context; he freely admits his white privilege; the funny-voiced ad-libs rib all sides; and the grotesquely sexist Jennifer Lopez bit is so ludicrous that it\u2019s fairly clear what it\u2019s trying to be \u2014 a maze of celebrity-thirsting nonsense.
Before Run the Jewels, Killer Mike opened up this earth-scorching blast furnace of righteous plain speak (with Sinatra on the chorus), by calling out a stretch Hummer full of celebrity hypocrites, their enablers and President George W. Bush.
Wired, agitated, worried about money, haunted by death, cranking 2Pac, spilling his guts and alcohol on the pavement, lashing out at women, YG finally cries, \u201cOh Lord, where is the world today?!\u201d Lamar is in a spiral of his own, having flashbacks about being on welfare, anxious to get paid and devastated by mourning so many friends. Much like Eminem\u2019s rhymes on \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP,\u201d the duo\u2019s flows are precisely attuned to the tenor of their moods.
No two avowedly straight male entertainers have been more obsessed with other men eyeballing their buttocks than Eddie Murphy and Eminem. The first track on Murphy\u2019s debut album is about how it would be embarrassing if a homosexual man beat you up for catcalling him a homophobic slur. That\u2019s it, that\u2019s the joke.
The Beastie Boys, Eminem\u2019s biggest inspiration, had their own early problems with homophobia. On \u201cGirls\u201d from \u201cLicensed to Ill,\u201d Ad-Rock rapped, \u201cI asked her out, she said, \u2018No way!\u2019/I should\u2019ve probably guessed her gay.\u201d
It\u2019s curious that the song bearing Eminem\u2019s real (or given) name is overstocked with homophobic slurs. Then again, he hurls daggers at a whole assortment of subjects \u2014 the state of hip-hop, teen pop, scrounging family members, his mother\u2019s lawsuit and his Detroit-area nemesis Insane Clown Posse.
An iconoclastic Brooklyn rapper/producer, Le1f (who uses gender-neutral pronouns) showcases their slinky charisma and brash wordplay on this breakout single that percolated with percussive finger snaps and honking synth bursts.
Opening his second studio album, J. Cole plunges back into his ongoing inner conflict about selling out, but in the first verse, he also tries to address homophobia by toying with both sides. He spits a few hateful bars, crudely admits that someone else\u2019s sexuality isn\u2019t his business, then exits, saying, \u201cJust a little joke to show how homophobic you are,\u201d which is too cute by half, as well as incoherent.
In this short film, Mykki Blanco gives a moving, violently theatrical performance that explores the dangers of same-sex love across jagged cultural and political divides.
Pryor played the disheveled, foul-mouthed officiant of a man\u2019s funeral in this brief comic gem. The rough language was intended to heighten the chaos of the unruly characters and less-than-blessed situation.
Another continuing skit from \u201cThe Slim Shady LP,\u201d this one involves a ridiculously pushy gay fan who was originally voiced by the Detroit underground rapper Aristotle. But after a dispute, Eminem stepped in to play \u201cKen\u201d in a scenario involving Insane Clown Posse and audible oral sex. It\u2019s not one of the album\u2019s highlights.
A fast-rapping Eminem acolyte, Joyner Lucas joined his mentor to record an ill-conceived track called \u201cWhat If I Was Gay?\u201d which leaked but was never released. Here, Lucas joins Chris Brown for a fragile masculinity summit.
Spivey, a blues singer-songwriter and label owner, moans for a sniff, brags about her money bags, her plane and how the president and the Prince of Wales were barking around her trail. The guitar virtuoso Lonnie Johnson provides accompaniment.
Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy\u2019s Ovaltine?
\n
Harry \u201cThe Hipster\u201d Gibson
\n\n\t\t
A twitchy, jive-talking, white pre-rock \u2019n\u2019 roll raconteur, Gibson had a knack for writing offbeat songs, often about drugs, chased by his revved-up boogie-woogie piano. This one, made semifamous by Dr. Demento in the 1970s, was rejected by radio stations at the time.
Taking bits from a Philly Soul record, Rev. Gary Davis\u2019 \u201cCocaine Blues\u201d and a children\u2019s mnemonic, the Jamaican toaster/proto-rapper Dillinger scored an international hit with his brooding, jittery, reggae-funk echo of a brain-burning cocaine comedown.
A cleverly levelheaded song, considering Eminem has implied that he consumed a small pharmacy of substances while writing large parts of the album. Quickly locking into the Bass Brothers\u2019 taut, rhythmic boost, his verses escalate at a dizzying clip, like drugs flooding your bloodstream \u2014 for instance, \u201cAnd everything\u2019s spinnin\u2019, you\u2019re beginnin\u2019 to think women/Are swimmin\u2019 in pink linen again in the sink, then in/A couple of minute that bottle of Guinness is finished.\u201d Reflecting on the distorted emotions and aftereffects, as well as the ecstatic highs, he ultimately imagines himself sitting on a porch, holding his grandchildren, drinking whiskey while his daughter goes out to party. Instead, he got sober in 2008.
With electronic blips stippling an 808 trap beat, Anderson .Paak rapturously raps and sings about a loveless relationship based only on sex, drugs and lots more drugs.
No two rappers seem more dissimilar than Eminem and Future, Atlanta\u2019s zonked trap-rap avatar. But cushioned by the producer Zaytoven\u2019s twinkling low-lit ambience, gradually surging synths and a muted horn fanfare, Future leans into his regret and vulnerability like never before.
After a conversation about mass murderers, particularly Richard Speck, the country great Leon Payne sat down and wrote \u201cPsycho\u201d from the point of view of a man calmly revealing his madness to his mother. The honky-tonk singer Noack\u2019s calm, genial voice only added to the creepy chill.
Eminem thinks highly of Redman\u2019s rapping (he ranked him No. 1, above Jay-Z, 2Pac and Biggie, on the 2002 track \u201cTill I Collapse.\u201d) And though the Newark MC has his share of colorful nicknames \u2014 Funk Doctor Spock, the Funkadelic Devil \u2014 he\u2019s mostly just a grimy dude riffing wildly on horror movies and nodding darkly to his childhood.
Like Cypress Hill holed up in hell, the Detroit hip-hop lifer Esham outlined Eminem\u2019s act, but as a black underground rapper, 10 years earlier. Here, he stomps through a lo-fi wasteland littered with Dr. Dre\u2019s spare parts, blustering matter-of-factly about burning down churches and looking for cops and Klan members to shoot.
Detroit is the \u201cAmityville\u201d of the title, meaning a haunted shooting range that would make anyone mentally unstable \u2014 enter Eminem and Bizarre from his crew D12. Over a Bass Brothers track that\u2019s more jaunty than spooky, Eminem phones in a verse and Bizarre blankly recites some disgusting garbage that sounds like it bores even him.
Like Eminem, Lil B is never afraid to say anything, but he allows more light into the darkness. Encased in a rainbow cloud of angelic swoons (from the producer Clams Casino), Lil B first proclaims himself the \u201cBased God\u201d and free-associates his prophecy.
\u201cAmityville\u201d wants to convey Detroit\u2019s deadly chaos to the point that Eminem screams it was also like \u201cHamburger Hill.\u201d \u201cFaneto,\u201d released just before Chicago\u2019s Chief Keef split with Interscope, feels like watching a video on your iPhone of a sketchy car pulling up to your house.
The story goes that Eminem, 15, met his wife Kim, 13, as he was rapping this alpha-male masterpiece of lyrical potency, shirtless, standing on a table. It\u2019s also reminiscent of the time when he first got into hip-hop via his Uncle Ronnie (who committed suicide four years after \u201cI\u2019m Bad\u201d was released).
Eminem featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit and Nate Dogg
\n\n\t\t
A freshly minted restoration of Snoop Dogg\u2019s 1999 track \u201cBitch Please,\u201d reuniting the same cast, with Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo creating another gangsta-funk Shangri-La, but with less sexism and more self-pity. Eminem again flays media and activist haters, adding the sarcastic rejoinder: \u201cI just want you all to notice me and people to see/That somewhere deep down there\u2019s a decent human being in me.\u201d
Mickey Avalon featuring Andre Legacy and Dirt Nasty
\n\n\t\t
A sex worker, drug dealer and addict, Avalon joined with the MTV V.J. Simon Rex, a.k.a. Dirt Nasty, and childhood friend Andre Legacy to try and make music. Like a crew of lobotomized Eminems, these white Hollywood fiends were very 2006.
The Atlanta-based bluesman Blind Willie McTell recorded this unspeakably violent song \u2014 reportedly first performed in the 1920s by the black vaudeville act Butterbeans and Susie \u2014 with his own rewritten lyrics. After a woman badly mistreats the narrator, he decides to carve the entire alphabet into her body with a razor.
When discussing violence in rap lyrics and the difference between art and reality, people have often cited the Johnny Cash lyric \u201cshot a man in Reno, just to watch him die,\u201d in the song \u201cFolsom Prison Blues.\u201d But it\u2019s rarely mentioned that in \u201cCocaine Blues\u201d (also recorded at California\u2019s Folsom Prison), he sang that he shot a \u201cbad bitch\u201d down while high on coke.
Buoyed by a bright, vibrant soul sample, the Geto Boys\u2019 Bushwick Bill tells this gruesome, mesmerizing story \u2014 from birth to being shunned over his dwarfism to success to the night he was shot in the eye. Rushed to the hospital, he survives surgery and has his picture taken for a Geto Boys album cover.
Against Swizz Beatz\u2019s acoustic guitar-tinged backdrop, Eve calls out a friend\u2019s abuser, but the victim still ends up in a hospital bed taking her last breath. In response, Eve barks, \u201cI don\u2019t even know you and I want you dead.\u201d Then she gets her gun.
Six-plus achingly visceral minutes of psychotic jealous rage, with the rapper berating, threatening and victim-blaming the titular spouse, while also cooing sweetly at their baby, before finally dragging them both into the car for an ominous drive, \u201cKim\u201d was the most convincing acting job of Eminem\u2019s career. His anger and delusion surged and receded as the Bass Brothers\u2019 pounding track stormed forward. The song reached its dramatic peak when he howled, \u201cI hate you! I hate you! I swear to God, I hate you!\u201d but then paused, crying, and shouted, \u201cOh my God, I love you!\u201d
There\u2019s never been a more high-spirited murder song than the Dixie Chicks\u2019 banjo-flecked country-rocker about an abusive husband who knocks his wife into the I.C.U. and subsequently pays the ultimate price.
Rihanna is no stranger to revenge songs, and this rumbling dancehall-pop jam decorated with tinkly keyboards opens bluntly: \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to end his life/I know it wasn\u2019t right.\u201d
Posthumously released as an official single, this brief, mid-tempo love lament features the Florida rapper singing over acoustic-guitar strums. In the video, his girlfriend appears naked and drenched in blood, ripping at the flesh of a body lying in a forest. In 2016, she accused XXXTentacion of domestic battery and false imprisonment; the charges were dropped after his death in 2018.
Recorded for a Library of Congress oral history project by Alan Lomax, Morton launches into an assault of invective that only lightens up for the refrain: \u201cYo mammy don\u2019t wear no drawers.\u201d
Calm, cool and exceedingly stoned, Schoolly D narrates this debauched fairy tale about a teenage night on the prowl amid a cacophony of D.J. scratches and breakbeats crashing into drum-machine kicks, snares and cowbell. Schoolly\u2019s off-handed slurs are delivered with a winking sneer.
The pinnacle of \u201990s rave rebellion gone ka-ching. The techno-punk jester Keith Flint growls valiantly, and the D.J./producer Liam Howlett patches together stadium-rock breakbeats, sampling a 1988 Ultramagnetic MCs record for the chorus (and offending title phrase). Banned and protested, the group was accused of promoting violence against women; Howlett shrugged, saying anyone who believed that was \u201cbrainless.\u201d
On the rollicking \u201cBad Influence,\u201d Eminem glories in his role as America\u2019s top hater and poet laureate of parental hysteria, quipping, \u201cI don\u2019t promote violence/I just encourage it.\u201d Inside a fun house of goofy sound effects and ad-libs, he twists and turns phrases inside out until morality and freedom of speech are confetti in a rhetorical Tilt-a-Whirl.
Kanye West featuring Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Jay-Z and Bon Iver
\n\n\t\t
Mr. West gets in touch with his Slim Shady on this ghoulishly stagy posse cut from \u201cMy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.\u201d He carps about the gossip mill and boorishly rhymes \u201csarcophagus\u201d with \u201cesophagus,\u201d then hands it off to a brilliantly unhinged Nicki Minaj, who raps, \u201cFirst things first/I\u2019ll eat your brains.\u201d West\u2019s parting shot \u2014 \u201cI crossed the line/I let God decide\u201d \u2014 is very Shady.
The rapper-singer Juice WRLD spoke openly about Eminem\u2019s influence on his emo-saturated music, freeing him to rap about his struggles with addiction, women and violence, while drawing in listeners with comically cutting pop-culture allusions. Here, he\u2019s tortured by a codependent, drug-riddled relationship with a girlfriend.
Known for his early rock \u2019n\u2019 roll banger \u201cGood Rockin\u2019 Tonight\u201d \u2014 though Elvis\u2019 version stole his place in history \u2014 Brown also put his stamp on this lunatic yarn. \u201cButcher Pete\u201d has a long, sharp knife and he\u2019s choppin\u2019 up meat for miles around; but it soon becomes clear that ol\u2019 Pete was a lunatic gigolo who\u2019s choppin\u2019 up something else, including a 92-year-old woman and his cellmate in jail.
Axl Rose packs one of Guns N\u2019 Roses\u2019 more memorable melodies with his knee-jerk, teenage reactions to life as a hitchhiker and newcomer to Los Angeles. That means the small-town Indiana white kid takes out his frustrations while slinging racial and homophobic slurs. (He has said he was playing a character.)
An essential horrorcore text, \u201cLive By Yo Rep\u201d takes about 45 seconds to reveal its Slim Shady lineage. After a reporter asks what they would do if somebody tried to copy their style, Lord Infamous raps that he would take thousands of razor blades and press them into the offender\u2019s flesh. It gets more evil from there.
According to Eminem, \u201cCriminal\u201d is the last song on the album because it distills everything he wanted to say about being appointed America\u2019s top fall guy for all that was wrong with the \u201ckids.\u201d As with most satire, it raises and ridicules plenty of questions, but answers few. Eminem is on solid ground when he points out that parents were responsible for their children, not him. That ground shifts when he raps gay slurs, supposedly as a free-speech provocation. He wanted to be treated as an artist, not a political figure. But as a pop star, he was attacked as both. That\u2019s why he got paid the big money.
In the mid- to late \u201990s, as L.G.B.T.Q. life became more a part of mainstream culture, homophobia lashed back, most publicly in the killings of Gianni Versace and the college student Matthew Shepard. In the wake of all that, the emo-screamo pioneers Thursday go all in on \u201cM. Shepard,\u201d a thrashing, moody barrage of guitars with the singer Geoff Rickly shuddering at how frightening and complex it is for young people to come out when so many want them dead.
On this soulful story-song, the Minnesota rapper Brother Ali empathetically connects three struggling characters \u2014 a Somalian refugee, a child of divorce and a boy who is afraid to come out as gay. There\u2019s no resolution, just Brother Ali plainly stating the facts: \u201cIt\u2019s a cold world, y\u2019all, shame on us.\u201d
Facetiously, Gossip\u2019s Beth Ditto might be Eminem\u2019s worst nightmare, a lesbian loudmouth who grew up dirt poor in Arkansas, left home at 13 and became an international star by being herself. \u201cHeavy Cross\u201d is a squalling punk-funk expressway to your heart with Ditto\u2019s bluesy wail teasing and roaring.
\nCorrection: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Woody Guthrie song that was said to be about Fred Trump. It was \u201cOld Man Trump,\u201d not \u201cMean Talking Blues.\u201d\n
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