I have a couple of incredibly self-absorbed friends. They’re of
\nthe artistic type. The majority of the conversation revolves around
\neither themselves or their work. Everyone has friends like that.
\nAll they want to talk about are their families, their jobs,
\nthemselves. As a self-absorbed person, this is incredibly annoying.
\nBut some self-absorbed friends can actually back up their talk:
\ntheir conversations may revolve around completely around
\nthemselves, but they make the story and delivery so arresting that
\nyou don’t care that they just spent 50 minutes talking about how
\ngreat they are and how people constantly dog them because of petty
\njealousy.<\/p>\n
Enter Eminem.<\/p>\n
In the age of paranoia and uncertainty, Eminem’s ability to
\nshock just isn’t as present as it used to be. Shit, real-life is
\ncurrently more terrifying than anything on Eminem’s latest album,
\nThe Eminem Show<\/i>. Eminem would be gone the way of Insane
\nClown Posse if he just relied on his ability to shock. And unlike
\nother self-absorbed artists (be it rappers or emo-boys), Eminem’s
\nalbums usually contain full emotional spectrums: one song is
\nmisogynistic, boastful and blaring, another song is a razor-sharp
\ncritique of hip-hop culture that would have been at home on NPR’s
\nMorning Edition<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Yeah, Eminem does a lot of talking about himself, but oh, what
\ngreat topics to discuss. Why does a successful white rapper sell
\nalmost three times as many albums as the most successful black
\nrapper? Why did people go after Eminem for his homophobic comments
\nbut barely raise an eyebrow when the Wu-Tang-Clan did the same
\nthing? Shouldn’t standards be equal in the entertainment industry,
\nregardless of race? All these questions were addressed in the
\nopening track, “White America.” We have 19 more tracks, and if
\nyou’re even in the least bit interested in Eminem, you’re glued to
\nthe headphones. And why is it that music fans be so empty without
\nhim (“Without Me”)?<\/p>\n
Eminem covers a ton of ground in
\nThe Eminem Show<\/i>. In the final song, “My Dad’s Gone Crazy,”
\nhe sympathizes for the oppressed, impoverished people of
\nAfghanistan (“blow everything fuckin’ thing ‘cept Afghanistan on
\nthe map off”), expresses his undying love for his daughter by
\ngiving her some air time on a very high-profile album, makes one of
\nthe most outrageous and inappropriate analogies in a song (“more
\npain inside of my brain than in the eyes of a girl inside of a
\nplane, aimed at the World Trade”) and he still has enough time to
\ncome out of the closet (good for him!).<\/p>\n
Some parts of
\nThe Eminem Show<\/i> succumb to the worst of clich\u00e9s in
\nrap, such as unfunny skits and an obligatory song about the perils
\nof STD’s (
\nRolling Stone<\/i> was right: Ice Cube’s song, “Look Who’s
\nBurnin'” still reins as the ultimate song regarding a visit to the
\nfree clinic). The strange phenomenon about the worst elements of
\nThe Eminem Show<\/i> is that all of the weakest parts of the
\nalbum come when Eminem is not addressing topics dealing with
\nhim.<\/p>\n
\nThe Eminem Show<\/i> was primarily produced by Eminem with Dr.
\nDre serving as executive producer. It’s a slight move by Eminem to
\ndistance himself from just being a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 to Dre,
\nbut still keeping his ties close. The result is Eminem’s most
\n“rocking” album. Rap purists may dis the album as being too metal
\nor rock, but history shows that some of the best rap albums (
\nRaising Hell<\/i>,
\nIt Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back<\/i>) had plenty of
\nrock in them.<\/p>\n
Like the series
\n24<\/i>, you leave
\nThe Eminem Show<\/i> feeling rejuvenated and breathless. At the
\nsame time, you feel a bit fearful about the future of the product:
\nwhere does Eminem go from here? How much further can he look within
\nhimself before it gets old? How many more times can he rip open the
\nwounds of his childhood before it starts to become a novelty?
\nThat’s Eminem’s problem, not ours, however. In the meantime, stop
\nworrying about how he will one-up himself and enjoy
\nThe Eminem Show<\/i> for what it’s worth. It’s an album that is
\nso complex and dense that Eminem can take a five-year absence and
\nthe album could still be capable of revealing surprises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":26326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6341],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37554","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-eminem","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37554"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37554"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}