Zack: We’ve explained the selection process for albums before, but as a quick recap I pick three albums that Emily then chooses one for based on genre, with some consideration of era as well. For the particular hip-hop album, I nominated Phrenology by the Roots (which I would estimate there is an 85% chance Emily will like), Blueprint by Jay-Z (70%), and Marshall Mathers LP (20%). I gave Em a perfect pass into the low post, and she darted right out to attempt the three. But, since we’re here, let me right a long-short essay (trademark pending) on this album. I’ll save my reflections on Eminem more broadly for 500 albums from now when we review Slim Shady LP and I’m 54. I first started to like Eminem when I was in the 3rd grade, which is certainly not uncommon among gents my age. I would stay up past my bedtime to listen to 98.5’s top 10 songs of the day because I knew Real Slim Shady would slaughter everything in the sea of Britney and *NSYNC. It was just so different from everything else I was hearing. It was my first real exposure to rap music, and I was mesmerized. And my dad used to say I had carte blanche to do whatever I wanted since I was a pretty responsible 10 year old, so I made my request for the Marshall Mathers LP. That was rebuffed not because I was too young and impressionable to hear it (although that probably was and still is true), but because I had a younger brother and sister who did not have caret blanche and my parents were afraid they would be disturbed. So I retreated and came up with a new strategy. I asked for a portable CD player, since then they wouldn’t be able to hear it. I got my own stereo that Christmas, and in what I now recognize is a horrible moment of both stupidity and first world-ness, I was pissed. Yeah, I know that stereos have headphone jacks too. At least now I do. So it wasn’t until The Eminem Show that I officially owned an Eminem album. And while I have a particular sentimental attachment to that album, I think Marshall Mathers LP is my favorite. I mean, it has Stan on it for fuck’s sake. And it just has a great balance between Eminem-tearing-his-heart-out songs about dealing with sudden fame in a less-than-ideal fashion and those patented ridiculous and inappropriate tracks. Sure, Kim just seems to get worse to listen to with each passing year at an exponential rate (whereas ‘97 Bonnie and Clyde only moves at a linear pace). But the rest is just so solid. Besides for the balance of the tracks, Eminem is just really on point here, as he was on all three of those first major albums (I also think he’s pretty on point on Infinite, but I understand why others don’t like it). He’s always been technically skilled at a level that few can approach. He doesn’t have the wide range of tools that someone like Jay-Z has, but the ones he does have are employed so deftly that it borders on unbelievable. And the lyrics are pretty tight too. He’s caught a lot of flak for just being vulgar, and I could understand that if he was just making crude jokes. But he incorporates the vulgarity and immaturity in punch lines that are actually pretty funny if you’re not trying to be offended. Roll all that up, and you get an album that had a major impact on pop culture unlike almost any other rap album.
Favorite Tracks: Stan; Amityville; The Real Slim Shady
Emily: Around when The Real Slim Shady was big on the radio, a group of girls in my bunk at camp proposed that we do our lip sync to that song. The counselors almost immediately rejected that idea, mostly because we'd only be able to repeat the chorus over and over since the verses had so many curse words that they wouldn't even be able to censor it to make it appropriate for the camp show. Also, we were 9. They went on to choose a more appropriate pop song for the lip sync - pretty sure it was Britney Spears that year. So Eminem was definitely inappropriate when I was 9, and I haven't really listened to much since aside from his most popular singles. Now that I've listened to a whole Eminem album, it's still inappropriate at age 23, and just as in 2000 I would much rather listen to Britney Spears. A lot of the songs and skits just made me uncomfortable. Either Eminem was yelling at me (as I texted to Zack halfway through listening), joking about murdering his girlfriend, or making squeamish-sounding innuendos - nothing that I wanted to spend over an hour listening to. The one highlight of the album, though, was Stan. That song, contained in the world of an obsessive superfan and mixed over a soft Dido track, tells a vivid, wrenching story without the blatant vulgarity of the rest of the album. If The Marshall Mathers LP was more like that and less like Kim and the others, I would've enjoyed it much more. But that's not Eminem's style, and I'm just not cut out to be a fan.
Favorite Tracks: Stan; The Real Slim Shady; Marshall Mathers
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