JAPrufrock's Full Review: The Eminem Show [PA] [Limited] by Eminem
“Listen to the sound of me spillin’ my heart through this pen/
Motherf*ckers know that I’ll never be Marshall again”
Sorry Eminem, but I don’t believe you.
I didn’t believe your schizophrenic act on The Marshall Mathers LP and, quite honestly, I didn’t believe your sincerity and concern on “Stan.” So now, upon the release of The Eminem Show, I find myself not believing you once again. That is because this time around, you are exactly Marshall Mathers.
The Eminem Show showcases Eminem at his most introspective and at the same time, his most responsible. It is his most focused work lyrically, thematically, and (though it still remains somewhat derivative) musically. He presents himself as a pop-culture icon who cannot escape who society has made him, recognizes this change in himself, and then transcends this role by becoming both intensely personal and hip-hop’s “spokesman.”
“I want everybody to listen to the words of this song,” he overdubs at the beginning of the first song, “White America,” and just as on the rest of the album, Eminem has fully recognized the power his words have—not backing down to the claims that his lyrics were careless or irresponsible, but stepping away from the easy fame gimmicks that include pop-culture dissing, drug references, useless guest appearances, violence and gay-bashing. Instead, Eminem treats the album as if it was his swansong, speaking not only of the responsibility of rappers, but of the personal importance.
But at the same time, possibly because of this new focus, The Eminem Show represents Eminem at his most daring. Let’s start with “Without Me,” the lead single much in the vein of “The Real Slim Shady” and “My Name Is.” Complete with insults (though Moby takes the place of Christina Aguilera) the single is different as it starts off claiming, “Real name, no gimmicks,” and Eminem goes on to nearly put to death the Slim Shady figure in a song that, while rather pointless in message, isn’t as blatantly self-glorifying as Jay-Z although Em almost has the right to be so. His rhythm and lyricism has never been more apparent and, as an emcee, he rivals anyone at the mic.
“Real name, no gimmicks” resonates through the album, and even when Em seems to be running out of steam, resorting to sexually explicit insults and mom-bashing on “My Dad’s Gone Crazy,” he flips the track with his best verse ever, serving as the microcosm of his work:
"My songs can make you cry, take you by surprise
at the same time can make you dry your eyes
with the same rhyme. See what you see is a genius at work
which to me isn’t work so it’s easy to misinterpret it at first
"‘Cause when I speak it’s tongue-in-cheek
I’d yank my f*ckin' teeth before I’d ever bite my tongue
I’d slice my gums
Get struck by f*ckin’ lightning twice at once and die
And come back as Vanilla Ice’s son
And walk around the rest of my life spit on
And kicked and hit with sh*t every time I sung
Like R Kelly as soon as “Bump N Grind” comes on
"More pain inside of my brain
Than the eyes of a little girl inside of a plane aimed at the World Trade
Standing on Ronny’s grave
Screaming at the sky ‘til clouds gather
It’s Clyde Mathers and Bonnie Jade
"And that’s pretty much the gist of it
Parents are p*ssed, but the kids love it
Nine-millimeter heater stashed in two-seaters with meat cleavers
I don’t blame you, I wouldn’t let Hailie listen to me neither"
Showcasing not only Eminem’s perfect rhyme pattern, this final verse of The Eminem Show gives us an entirely deliberate and self-reflexive Eminem that gives him the artistic merit his previous work couldn’t bolster. Eminem understands not only who he is, but his responsibility to speak what must be stated.
“Music, reality. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. But we as entertainers have a responsibility to these kids” begins “When The Music Stops,” practically condemning the thug life. Eminem never once claims responsibility for making anyone act a certain way (“They say music can alter moods and talk to you/Well can it load up a gun for you and cock it too?”) but unlike his earlier, simplistic approach on The Marshall Mathers LP in which violent content was laughed off and parents were shifted the blame for misbehavior, Eminem accepts his power, rapping, “I guess words are a motherf*cker, they can be great or they can degrade, or even worse, they can teach hate” in the soon to be hit, “Sing For The Moment.”
Eminem understands his hip-hop history (“here’s the order of my list that it’s in: it goes Reggie, Jay-Z, Tupac and Biggie, Andre from OutKast, Jenna, Kurupt, Nas and then me”) and “Sing For The Moment” is his biggest statement. If Run-D.M.C.’s collaboration with Aerosmith on “Walk This Way” was the seminal merge of rock and rap, pronouncing hip-hop as a leading social and commercial force, “Sing For The Moment” is a reflection on its success (“Now how the f*ck did this metamorphosis happen / from standing on corners and porches just rappin’ / to having a fortune”) in a recycling of Aerosmith’s original power-ballad “Dream On,” which is nearly equal to Run-D.M.C. as an artistic and intrinsic definition of the genre.
In fact, the only times Eminem slips into schizophrenic mode is when role-playing a superhero out to save hip-hop but, as evidenced in “Till I Collapse,” Eminem remains prideful without falling into egocentricity. Eminem separates his art from his personal life, understanding that he may be one of the premiere emcees in the business (even selling himself short on some accounts), but fully able to embrace his weaknesses. He admits in “Say Goodbye Hollywood,”
"I thought I had it all figured out, I did
I thought I was tough enough to stick it out with Kim
But I wasn’t tough enough to juggle two things at once
I found myself laying on my knees and cuffs"
as Eminem pulls most of his material from his personal life, denouncing fame while evoking empathy rather than whining like Adam Duritz or going into social hibernation. Superstar status has come with a price, but his material remains intensely personal. “The Kiss” couldn’t be much more autobiographical, a thinly veiled reoccurrence, pistol-whipping John Guerra. “Cleanin Out My Closet” shows Em suffering honest effects from his mom’s lifestyle rather than resorting to attention-grabbing name-calling. This time when Eminem exorcizes his demons, we can’t help but feel for the guy.
Even when he claims, “my insecurities could eat me alive” in the cliché-ridden “Hailie’s Song” (“sky”/”cry,” “baby”/”crazy”), the song becomes one of the most daring moves in Eminem’s career as he sings a fragile ode to his daughter, exposing at least one entirely selfless act. “I’m happy,” Em declares on record. For once we can actually believe he has found some peace amidst the chaos. We believe both his pain and his solace.
Eminem’s grand scope makes The Eminem Show the strongest hip-hop album since OutKast’s Aquemeni, and though its strength is almost entirely due to lyrical arrangement, Dre has stepped up the production values in many places. “Business” sounds too much like “Forgot About Dre,” and the monotony of “Drips” and “Say What You Say” prove that Dre will never be a Timbaland, but Timbaland on your side is the next best thing.
Yet Eminem’s newfound responsibility doesn’t extend to all outlets and, to the delight of fifteen-year-old boys across the nation, Eminem emerges with a pair of sexually irresponsible tracks. All Freudian theory aside, there are three women in Marshall’s life: Debbie, Kim and Hailie. The latter being “the only lady I adore,” while every other woman becomes a reincarnation of the former two through a misogynistic lens. “Drips,” though on some level warns (“dick in a hearse”) of sexually transmitted diseases, the blame is placed solely on the cheating female while Obie Trice glorifies busting a “fat *ss nut.” “Superman” simultaneously expresses Eminem’s lack of trust while name-checking and then expanding upon OutKast’s “We Luv Deez Hoez” in a Southern groove. However, he quickly shifts from the “you hurt me” lines like “between you and I, not a jealous man, but females lie” and “I could never love you enough to trust you” to blatantly antagonistic misogyny (“Put anthrax on a Tampax and slap you till you can’t stand.”) I guess some habits are hard to break.
Yet for the first time, Eminem takes credit for his weaknesses. Taking into account both lyrical content and production values, there are really only about two or three weak tracks here which, granted the percentage of most hip-hop output today, cluttered with guest-appearances, is quite a feat. These weaknesses don't detract the album's focus. Technically, Eminem’s rhyme and rhythm are spotless and at the pinnacle of his oeuvre. Artistically, Eminem has established himself as an important artist—not only satirizing or asking important societal questions, but also entering into his own psyche as well as our radio antennae. The self-reflexive Eminem has a newfound and vital social consciousness. He understands the responsibility of his influence as well as understanding himself. For the first time, he lets us see that as well.
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