The level of skill that is heard on this album is insane. The technicality of the rhymes, the complexity of the flows, the pitches, the phonetic rhymes and linguistic twists; Eminem is at one of his best. This a 4.5 only because of the skill. If this album was artistically composed, had outstanding production, and rose in the conceptual area, it would've been a classic.
Infinate is a great album. I like it because it is extremely interesting to hear Eminem 3 years before he released his defult album. He really started off with knowing what he was doing, mainly when you listen to his first song "Infinate". It really started the album with a bang. Another song that is one of my favorites is "Never 2 Far". It has a really good catchy beat and awesome lyrics. It is basically the prequel to his 2002 hit "Loose Yourself". And lastly, another good song to listen to is a love song called "Searchin" It is the opposite of his 2000 song "Kim" It is how he thinks Kim is the one for him. Those songs are my favorites on the album. Eminem had great production on this album but it is a little short.
Even if Infinite seems kind of anecdotic comparing to the following Eminem's album, I think it is still worth a listen. Production sounds weak too often, but Em knows yet how to play with words (you can clearly hear his Nas/AZ influences though) and it's pretty funny to hear him talking about some topics without sounding totally insane. The title track is pretty cool.
Eminem shows a lot of promise here, but the potential is ruined by some awful Illmatic-wannabe beats, a lot of em's collaborators, and the fact that Em just isn't that great at this point. Slim Shady EP is kinda nice, with his style more developed, this is the tale of a talented but ultimately under developed MC trying to create a classic and instead of doing so, sounding like a white kid trying to re-create all of those great east coast records released around this era.
