Obie Trice Albums Ranked

[Gregory Monty]

TheEminem Show is the fourth studio album by American rapper Eminem. After it had originally scheduled for release on June 4, 2002, the album was released nine days earlier on May 26, 2002, by Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope Records due to pirating and bootlegging of it. The album saw Eminem take a substantially more predominant production role; most of it was self-produced, with his longtime collaborator Jeff Bass, and Dr. Dre being the album's executive producer. It features guest appearances from Obie Trice, D12, Dr. Dre, Nate Dogg, Dina Rae and Eminem's daughter Hailie Jade Scott-Mathers.

The album incorporates a heavier use of rap rock than Eminem's previous albums, and its themes are predominantly based on Eminem's prominence in hip hop culture, as well as his ambivalent thoughts of fame. The album also features political commentary on the United States, including references to 9/11, Osama bin Laden, the War on terror, President George W. Bush, Lynne Cheney and Tipper Gore. Due to its less satirical and shock factor lyrical approach, The Eminem Show was regarded as Eminem's most personal album at the time and a step back from the Slim Shady alter ego.

Widely considered the most anticipated album of 2002, The Eminem Show debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and stood there for six non-consecutive weeks. It sold over 1.3 million copies in its second week in the US, where it registered a full week of sales. It also topped the UK Albums Chart for five consecutive weeks. It produced four commercially successful singles, "Without Me", "Cleanin' Out My Closet", "Superman", and "Sing for the Moment", and it features one of his most popular songs, "'Till I Collapse". The album was met with positive critical reviews, with praise directed at Eminem's mature, introspective lyricism and the album's experimental production.

The Eminem Show was both the best-selling album of 2002 in the United States and the best-selling album worldwide of 2002. In 2022, it was certified 12 platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and its worldwide sales of 27 million copies make it one of the best-selling albums of all time and the second best-selling album of the 21st century. At the 2003 Grammy Awards, it was nominated for Album of the Year and won Best Rap Album, while "Without Me" won Best Music Video. Blender, Muzik and LAUNCH named it the best album of 2002, and several publications named it among the best albums of the 2000s decade.

Eminem cited that the inspiration for the album was taken from the Peter Weir-directed 1998 science fiction comedy-drama film The Truman Show. Jim Carrey starred in the film as the lead character Truman Burbank, a man who unwittingly lives inside a TV show, where his life is broadcast to viewers around the world.[1] Eminem spoke on the film's influence, saying, "My life felt like it was becoming a circus around that time, and I felt like I was always being watched [...] Basically, Jim Carrey wrote my album."[1]

Stylistically, The Eminem Show has a lighter tone than The Marshall Mathers LP[3] and incorporates a heavier use of rap rock than Eminem's previous albums,[4] featuring mixed guitar-driven melodies with hip hop rhythms. In an interview with British magazine The Face in April 2002, Eminem said that he treated the album like it was a rock record. He continued that he "tried to get the best of both worlds" on the album.[5] Eminem spoke on specific rock influences, saying, "I listened to a lot of '70s rock growing up, when I was real little. When I go back and listen to them songs, like Led Zeppelin or Aerosmith, Jimi Hendrix...'70s rock had this incredible feel to it."[6] Notably, "Sing For The Moment" contains a sample of Aerosmith's "Dream On" as well as a reinterpretation of its guitar solo. Another rock sample on the album is the kick-clap beat of "'Till I Collapse", which is an interpolation of the intro from Queen's "We Will Rock You".[7]

The themes of The Eminem Show are predominantly based on Eminem's prominence in hip hop culture and the subsequent envy towards him, as well as his thoughts on his unexpected enormous success and its consequential negative effects on his life.[3] The album also touches on Eminem's thoughts on themes surrounding American politics, including references to 9/11,[8] Osama bin Laden,[8] the war on terror[9] President George W. Bush,[10] Lynne Cheney[11] and Tipper Gore.[11] Speaking on his use of political commentary on the album, Eminem told Rolling Stone, "You put your shit out there for the world to see and to judge, and whoever agrees with you agrees with you. Even my most die-hard fans don't agree with everything I say. These are my views, this is how I see it. You may have your own opinion, but you may not get to project it to the world like I do."[2] Writing for Spin, rock critic Alan Light said that the album may have proved that Eminem is the most "dexterous, vivid writer in pop music".[12] The album also sees Eminem dissing several artists, including Mariah Carey, Moby, Canibus and Limp Bizkit, while Dr. Dre disses Jermaine Dupri on the song "Say What You Say".[11]

Lyrically, the album displays a dramatic shift from the misogynistic and homophobic lyrics presented on The Marshall Mathers LP.[13] Eminem told Spin, "One of the frustrating things was people saying, 'He's got to cuss to sell records,' [...] That's why with this album, I toned it down a bit as far as shock value. I wanted to show that I'm a solid artist, and I'm here to stay."[14] Due to its less satirical and shock factor lyrical approach, The Eminem Show was regarded as a departure from Eminem's previous albums[3] with it being more personal and reflective and a step back of the Slim Shady alter ego.[15] Eminem said during an interview with MTV that he felt that The Eminem Show was his "best record so far".[16] In 2006, Q said that Eminem's first two albums "aired dirty laundry, then the world's most celebrated rapper [Eminem] examined life in the hall of mirrors he'd built for himself."[3]

With the release of The Eminem Show, Eminem was considered to be more socially acceptable: there were no protests over his lyrics, boycotts, and talk shows discussing his impact on America's youth. A columnist of The New York Observer wrote that Eminem had become a "guilty pleasure" for baby boomers, describing him as "the most compelling figure to have emerged from popular music since the holy trinity of [Bob] Dylan, [John] Lennon, and [Mick] Jagger."[12]

The "clean version" of The Eminem Show censors many more profanities and derogatory words than in clean versions of Eminem's previous albums, in which the words "goddamn", "prick", "bastard", "piss", "bitch", "ass", and "shit" were allowed.[17] This album allowed no profanities, and the profanities were either muted, obscured by sound effects, or back-masked.[17] In addition to this, entire sentences were sometimes removed from the censored version for being very sexually charged.[17] The entire song "Drips" was removed in early clean versions and is heard only as four seconds of silence moving on to the next track, "Without Me". Later on, digital releases of the clean version removed "Drips" completely, moving the next 11 songs up on the tracklist. Some copies of the clean version, however, feature an edited version of "Drips".[17]

There are some inconsistencies in clean version's censorship. In the skit "The Kiss", Eminem's shouting of the word "motherfucker!" is still audible in the censored version.[17] In the track, "Soldier", which is a continuation of "The Kiss", the word "bitch" was used three times, and can be clearly heard once.[17] "Hailie's Song" contains the back masked phrase "want her" which can be easily mistaken as "abort her" on both the explicit and clean versions.[17] Also, in "White America", the word "flag" is back masked when he raps, "To burn the flag and replace it with a parental advisory sticker".[17]

The Eminem Show received generally positive reviews from critics.[18] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 75, based on 20 reviews.[19]

Alex Needham of NME hailed The Eminem Show as a "fantastic third album" that "is bigger, bolder and far more consistent than its predecessors".[20] David Browne of Entertainment Weekly felt the album's more personal lyrics "succeed in fleshing out Eminem's complexities and contradictions", nonetheless concluding that "[l]ike its predecessors, though, The Eminem Show is a testament to the skills of its star. The sludgy rapping of such guests as D12 only confirms Eminem's dizzying prowess, gob-spewing individuality, and wickedly prankish humor."[21] Writing for Rolling Stone, Kris Ex argued that Eminem "may have made the best rap rock album in history."[22]

Edna Gundersen of USA Today wrote that Eminem is "as good as he gets but in the end inflicts more damage on himself, hoisting The Eminem Show to a level of self-absorption rivaled only by Woody Allen", and despite the presence of some mediocre tracks, he "displays an admirable dexterity in blending invective and invention, even though his approach is more reactionary than revolutionary."[26] Uncut wrote, "Behind the hype and the swagger, he's still baring enough of his soul for The Eminem Show to be compelling theatre."[27] Q was more mixed in its assessment, stating that as "Eminem outgrows his old alter-id, so the obligatory pantomime villainy, skits and crass cameos by Shady Records signings become a hindrance."[28] Marc L. Hill of PopMatters felt that the album lacked the shock factor of his previous albums and described it as "a disappointing combination of promising musical experimentation and uninspired lyrics."[29]

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