Eminem, may have burst quicker on the rap scene than any one in history. With no signs of this coming besides Dr. Dre singing him on contract, Eminem released “The Slim Shady LP”, one of the most mature and best debut rap albums I have listened to.
There aren’t a lot of songs intended to be hits on this album. We had about eight on “The Eminem Show” and three or four on “The Eminem Show” which really gets annoying because Eminem isn’t allowed to speak freely or preach throw a microphone like he does on this album. This album is the most personal, most emotional, and most meaningful Eminem album with only one song fit for being a single.
And that song is the infamous “My Name Is” with some of the most funny lines and rhymes I have ever heard. They are bold and meaningful while still remaining hilarious. The song features the chorus that saved rap when it was at in all time low: “My Name Is/Who?/My Name Is/What?/Chicka-chicka/Silm Shady. It is a chorus that anyone who wasn’t dead from 1999 until know knows by heart. This is the song that took rap to more of a political and fun feel.
If you want to hear club rap, don’t listen to this album. Eminem is a rapper I respect for being so open about his life in his records. Instead of cracking rhymes such as “Money/hoes/Clothes/All a G knows”, Eminem is more of “I hate my dad and I’ll slit his throat” a more personal and realistic feel to his songs. “ Guilty Conscience”, is a Jesus- Devil type of song with hood situations such as: Robbery, Rape, and etc. Dre and Eminem compliment each other perfectly such as they did on “Forgot About Dre”, the dirty rap beat carries on for the whole 3 minute with some interruptions to describe the situation and at the end of the video Dr. Dre dies which you can see by the gunshot at the end of the song.
So this album is dead serious but it is more than the typical gun-shot serious. This album gets to a point of what sounds like drowning his wife in the beautiful but serious “'97 Bonnie And Clyde”, the song contains Eminem and his Daughter Halley [Who Is Very Young at the time] and Kim [Eminem’s wife who he is about to drown [“Let’s see how far she can float”]. So by that line and how he is explaining it to Hailey so it doesn’t really have any secret meanings or complicated like some of Eminem’s songs. Another big thing about this album is the experiences Eminem had in school and at home as he sings in “Brain Damage”, about a bully beating him up so bad and even though Em tries to get out of the fight by saying he has a bum knee and a stomach ache, and the Nurse at the school only believes that he can have one thing wrong with him so she tells Marshall that he is full of it. The song gets interrupted by a clear and great chorus, and then another story about Deangelo Bailey a bully beating him up and he gets home and his left ear starts bleeding which leads his mom to question rather if he was on drugs and she beats him up, that’s what makes this one of the more intense songs on the album.
This album is also about the dream Eminem has about becoming a popular rapper as he sings in “If I Had”, one of the quickest and most intense songs on the album. The song like I said is lighting quick and is Em’s version of the popular wishes “If I Had A Million Dollars”, though Eminem spends most of the four minutes somehow fitting all of his personal problems into one song. There are really no jokes in the song and all of the rhymes begging with “Tired”, and the chorus really doesn’t change the beat or the tone of Eminem’s voice.
So we can see that Eminem’s songs can either can be really personal or really funny but can they be both? But we really have to wait to Em’s later albums such as “The Eminem Show” and “The Marshall Mathers LP” for those kind of influences. But the track that stands out that really combines the two is “As The World Turns”, a kind of joke track that makes jokes while for a little while getting side-tracked into Eminem’s personal life.
See this is when Eminem is at his best. When he can combine his personal life with all those funny pop culture lines that make everyone smirk. This is why the “Marshall Mathers LP” is so critically acclaimed as being a great album because basically every song excluding the skits does that for the album.
But this album is one of the best debut in Rap that I have heard. It is really serious not like “Encore” were every song is a joke or a collection of songs. This album is also well produced and well written. This is a great start to a great career for Eminem.
Download These:
My Name Is- For the funny side of Eminem with one liners and a memorable chorus.
Guilty Conscience- The song really shows the paranoid side of Eminem while he collaborates perfectly with Dre.
As The World Turns- Combines Eminem timely humor with his obstacles that he has to overcome.
4.5/5
