The Eminem Show

Released in May 2002 and the third studio album by Detroit rapper, Eminem, The Eminem Show takes what makes the first two albums so good, meshing them together while showing us a much more personal side of Marshall Matters. 

The album starts off hard with ‘White America’ With Eminem seeming to give us his perspective on rural white America, and a reoccurring theme throughout the album that I first noticed with this song and a few others on the album like ‘Sing for the moment’and ‘Without me’ is the effect that Eminem seems to think he has on Americas youth, bringing to light on how he’s aware of just how raunchy and offensive his lyrics can be. These two are some of the stronger songs off the album and pack a lot of feeling behind them as if Eminem is standing up for himself and any accusations made towards him regarding the effect he might have had on youth in America. 

‘Cleaning out my Closet’ Is where we see a much more emotional and personal side of Eminem as it’s been no secret that Eminem has had trouble in the past with his homelife growing up and on this track, we see his frustrations come out, not giving his mother a second. It’s intense, it’s emotional and feels like much more of a callback to the Marshall Matters LP. 

Things do start to look a bit up when Em does dip back into his ‘Slim Shady’ persona with the song ‘without me’. It has that similar energy, being a bit of a piss take on older generations in America. The flow and chorus on this track are Eminem at his peak. Things do start to get a bit silly after this track with the song ‘Drip’ which has no problem talking about the troubles of dealing with an STD and goes into vulgar albeit funny detail. There’s also the track ‘Hailie’s Song’ which sees Eminem try his hand at singing and the results are mixed. He’s not the worst singer but when you know how good a guy this rapper it’s is not hard to be a bit disappointed in his singing voice. 

But for my money ‘The Eminem show’ has a career highlight with the track ‘Till I collapse’ which is this motivational romp where Eminem talks about his possible fading relevancy, calling out other artists and what making hip hop music means to him. It’s an incredibly powerful track and even after listening to this album multiple times it still sticks with me. 

‘The Eminem Show’ to this day is Marshall’s most personal and consistent album, meshing previous styles to make one that’s more personal. Despite the album showing its age a bit, The Eminem Show is still a fine showing from Eminem in his prime