''Oh well, I tried.'' On the album's first song, ''White America,'' he analyzes the phenomenon that is himself, theorizing that suburban teenagers connected with him because he looked like them, which worried parents. He rates his own vocal prowess when he tries to sing a ballad in ''Hailie's Song'': ''I can't sing,'' he says at the end of the track. In many ways ''The Eminem Show'' doesn't need a review, because the thin-skinned Eminem offers his own running commentary on the album, with lyrics like ''my insecurities could eat me alive.'' She won't even be at your funeral.''Īt times Eminem is too honest for even his lawyers to take: in a rarity for most pop albums, some words on all copies of the CD have been masked by the record label, including a comment about his ex-wife in ''Hailie's Song.'' One of many aspects differentiating Eminem from other best-selling, vulgar pop stars is that there is so much pathos and honesty in his lyrics, especially on ''Cleanin' Out My Closet.'' Here he asks his mother, ''Remember when Ronnie died, and you wished it was me?'' (He was an uncle who committed suicide.) Then, he continues, with words aimed to strike at any mother's heart: ''Hailie's getting so big now. The cartoonish excess of previous albums (as well as, unfortunately, the addictively bouncing beats) have been largely bypassed and replaced with real life, love it or hate it, whether it's the rapper celebrating winning joint custody of his daughter (''Hailie's Song'') or living his newly single life as a groupie-using misogynist (''Superman''). Dre (the producer largely responsible for his success) and the pop stars Jermaine Dupri and Moby (the latest targets of his vengeance). The cast of characters on ''The Eminem Show'' includes Kim (ex-wife), Hailie Jade (daughter), Mariah Carey (reportedly a former relationship), Steve Berman (a record executive), Dr. Unlike most pop albums, this one uses real names. Listen to some of the best new recordings here. Classical Music: 2021 was a year of reawakening for the art form.
Best Songs: A posthumous political statement and a superstar’s 10-minute redo are among the 66 best tracks of 2021.He also imagines being ''a family man happily married'' with ''at least half a million for my baby girl.''įrom Lil Nas X to Mozart to Esperanza Spalding here is what we loved listening to this year. In the songs he dreams of being a star, with concert tours and albums in stores. He is 21 and living in his mother's mobile home, on the verge of being a father. The pilot episode was his 1996 independent rap album ''Infinite.'' Here we see Eminem less angry and more ambitious. And not just any reality show, but one like ''Cheaters,'' so excruciatingly raw and human that it is both hard to watch and hard to stop watching. What his albums have become is the audio equivalent of reality television.
Despite these problems, it is expected to be one of the best-selling albums of the year.įorget for a moment the many issues (race, sexism, violence, free speech) associated with Eminem. First, it was pushed up to today, then the album was put on sale Sunday, wreaking havoc with the marketing campaign. So many copies of the album have been taken off the Internet and sold as bootlegs that Eminem's label, Interscope/Universal, made the rare decision to release the album early.
This is because these drivers were blasting early pirated copies of the album, which was scheduled to be released next week. For the last three weekends not a night has gone by without at least a few cars cruising down Los Angeles's main drag, Sunset Strip, blasting ''The Eminem Show.'' This album, the latest from the fast-rhyming, ire-raising rapper Eminem, briefly became the equivalent of bass-enhanced car stereos and custom rims: a showboating way to call attention to a car.