Steffi |
THE EMINEM SHOW
Each track is rated on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest score and 10 being the highest.
To be honest, I never used to be a fan of Eminem’s. Although I did not hate him, I did not particularly like him either. As a semi-feminist (I call myself that because I believe in equality, not in female domination…), I sometimes found Eminem’s lyrics slightly insulting; but even with that in mind, I could not deny that his songs were interesting, to say the least. With the hubbub surrounding The Eminem Show, I decided to discover, once and for all, what is all the commotion about? In all honesty, in this album, he has managed to shock me, the self-proclaimed unshockable one (not meant as a compliment to myself, just saying that since I try to find the humor in everything, I find that I’m not easily shocked anymore…).
Why has Eminem shocked me? Is it his lyrics? No. Instead, if he has portrayed himself honestly, or even half-honestly on this album, then I believe that it has shown some of his dimensions; this is surprising to me, for the album contains substance, something that I would not have expected listening to his released singles. His singles, for example “My Name Is,” “The Real Slim Shady,” and “Without Me” are, in my opinion, odes to popular culture. Many of the lines are powered by popular culture and current affairs, whether they be references to pop music (“I’m not sure which Spice Girl I want to impregnate,” from “My Name Is”) or the government (“I know that you gotta job Miss Cheney, cause your husband’s heart problem’s complicating” from “Without Me”). Although he would occasionally mention his personal life (“I just settled all my lawsuits, f*ck you Debbie!” from “Without Me”), I thought that the only manner in which he connected to his fans was through pop culture, with some swearing and perverse lyrics for good measure. As a result, I thought Eminem was exceedingly over-rated. To me, it takes absolutely no talent at all to refer to pop culture, swear and create some perverse situations on paper. A real artist connects to his audience by convincingly conveying emotions. If I can relate to the situation, I have to feel like the artist wrote the song for me; if I cannot relate to the situation, the artist has to make me understand what it would be like to be in that situation. To my astonishment, with The Eminem Show, Eminem has proven to me that he can do these things (blah, blah…I’m still going…).
As you can tell, this album review is already unconventional to my standards. Usually, I have a brief (with brief being the operative word…) introduction about the album, rate each song on the ten point scale, justify the mark with a paragraph and give the album an overall mark. This is easily done with the albums I usually review. Since I play instruments and sing (or what I call singing…), it is easy for me to justify marks on pop and rock songs. However, with this album, my standard outline proved to be impracticable; I will honestly admit, I have no idea, whatsoever , on how to review a rap album. I am clueless to the criteria. Do I discuss the details, like rhyme scheme, and how lyrics flow with the musical arrangement (aka, poetry class revisited…aka, my usual petty analytical self…)? Or do I discuss the theme of the song? Or do I do both? Or am I just analyzing too much, once again? I decided that the latter would be true. So, I offer you only mathematical statistics (now you know why I had to have such a nice, long introduction…cause I basically have nothing else to fill this page with…):
OVERALL MARK: 8.25
TRACK MARKS
- WHITE AMERICA: 5
- BUSINESS: 10
- CLEANING OUT MY CLOSET: 10
- SQUARE DANCE: 6
- SOLDIER: 6
- SAY GOODBYE HOLLYWOOD: 6
- DRIPS: 8
- WITHOUT ME: 10
- SING FOR THE MOMENT: 10
- SUPERMAN: 1……….0………. (against my better judgement, this song gets a perfect score…)
- HAILIE’S SONG: 10
- WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS: 9
- SAY WHAT YOU SAY: 7.5
- TILL I COLLAPSE: 8
- MY DAD’S GONE CRAZY: 7
I might add a full review if time permits, since I think all artists deserve their 15 minutes of scrutiny from me. The only reason that I did not do so from the beginning (I mean, along with the other twenty I gave you in the intro…) was this album review had become such a chore for me. Maybe if I pace myself, I will not think of it as a chore…
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Steffi |
