145. Eminem, "The Marshall Mathers LP"

 

This sullen, angry blast of rage and contempt is quite a change from yesterday's sunny new wave dance-pop.  Even in a genre that pulls no punches in dealing with difficult topics, this record is particularly bleak and angry.  There are some raps that are dope as fuck, however.

After Eminem shot to fame with the Slim Shady LP, he became obviously paranoid about being perceived as a one-hit wonder, and this album repeatedly speaks to that.  On "The Way I Am," the song that got him his first producer credit (and which he wrote, not coincidentally, after a meeting with label execs), he raps:

I'm so sick and tired of being admired
That I wish that I would just die or get fired
And dropped from my label, let's stop with the fables
I'm not gonna be able to top on "My Name is... "
And pigeon-holed into some pop-py sensation
That got me rotation at rock'n'roll stations

Of course it seems ridiculous in retrospect, but who knew then if the world was ready for a white guy who could actually rap?  And the one thing you have to grudgingly admire, even if you can't stand the guy or his subject matter, is the incredibly intricate rhymes he assembles.  He uses language like Eddie Van Halen uses a guitar, nimbly arranging bursts of words, as he brags about in "I'm Back:"

I murder a rhyme, one word at a time
You never heard of a mind as perverted as mine
You better get rid of that 9, it ain't gonna help
What good's it gonna do against a man that strangles himself?
I'm waitin' for Hell, like hell, shit, I'm anxious as hell
Manson, you're safe in that cell, be thankful it's jail
I used to be my mommy's little angel at twelve
Thirteen, I was puttin' shells in a gauge on a shelf

This album also has the six-minute-plus tour de force "Stan," a song about an obsessive fan that became so well-known the term "stan" entered the English language to describe fandom.  It's set to Dido's lovely song "Thank You," a juxtaposition of the terrifying and disturbing with the beautiful and gentle.  In the song, the eponymous superfan doesn't just kill himself when his idol fails to respond to him quickly enough; he also kills his girlfriend, who's tied up in the trunk.  It's a harrowing and disturbing song, given a friendly sheen in retrospect by the now-gentrified term.

I don't mean to suggest the songs aren't "good" on their own terms.  I've loved "The Real Slim Shady" since the first time I heard it; set over a Dr. Dre beat with a tinkling harpsichord sound, Em's rap is melodic and instantly catchy.  As befits this album, of course, it's a long list of grievances Em has about (and this is not an exclusive list) Christina Aguilera; girl and boy groups; Will Smith; and Tom Green.  You may or may not remember Eminem's now-iconic performance of the song from the MTV Video Music Awards, when 100 copies of Eminem himself filled Radio City Music Hall:

There is no avoiding the elephant here; the record is aggressively misogynistic and homophobic and often difficult to listen to.  I can barely get through "Kim," for example, an ultraviolent revenge fantasy, or "Marshall Mathers," whose grotesque homophobia is basically inexcusable.  So while this album may be packed with some great musical ideas and some of the best rapping of all time (don't take my word for it; Kendrick Lamar said "I got my clarity just studying Eminem when I was a kid"), its anger gets in its own way.  Of course, Eminem would be thrilled to know it's too much.  He's a provocateur at heart.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? I guess so, but damn.