Tarantino

Since no one else did it...

You know how it works: I will post the featured artists albums in chronological order and we will discuss each one over a short period of time. As the discussion begins to die down I will post the next album and discussion will gear up again. Please try and keep all comments limited to the album we're discussing at the time.

First up...



Original Release Date: 02/23/1999

Tracklisting:

1. "Public Service Announcement"
2. "My Name Is"
3. "Guilty Conscience" (feat. Dr. Dre)
4. "Brain Damage"
5. "Paul" (skit) (performed by Paul Rosenberg)
6. "If I Had"
7. "97' Bonnie & Clyde"
8. "Bitch" (skit)
9. "Role Model"
10. "Lounge" (skit)
11. "My Fault"
12. "Ken Kaniff" (skit)
13. "Cum On Everybody" (feat. Dina Rae)
14. "Rock Bottom"
15. "Just Don't Give a Fuck"
16. "Soap" (skit)
17. "As the World Turns"
18. "I'm Shady"
19. "Bad Meets Evil" (feat. Royce da 5'9")
20. "Still Don't Give a Fuck"

Tarantino

This album was the first thing I ever bought from Amazon. My uncle had gotten me a giftcard from Amazon, and at home we didn't have the internet. I ordered it from school during my 'study period'. I remember getting it in the mail, popping it into the CD player, and being shocked by the content and lyrics (up to that point, I had only heard the radio edit of 'My Name Is'. I also remember the first time I had heard this song - I was driving home from the mall after borrowing my mom's Saturn...I heard it and was cracking up in the car because it was just so...different.

I think that this album definitely holds up over time, and I still remember most of the lyrics.

bootsy

This one was an ok album. Definitely the best songs are all of the ones he released as singles but those were the ones that put him on the map.

EdTheRipper

I remember getting the single for Just Don't Give a Fuck maybe a month or two before the release of the actual cd. I loved it. Between that song and My Name Is, I was amped to get this cd. I bought it the day of release. It's not his best cd overall, but it's still a damn good one that I break out occasionally.

Boba Fett

The most tolerable novelty album of his career; the rest like Weird Al were the aural equivalent of beating a dead horse.

Jacoby Ellsbury

Im with edtheripper. I first heard "I just dont give a" on college radio a few months before the cd was released. I was buying hip hop vinyl at the time because some of the greatest songs ever made were not being released on cd so I picked that 12" up. I was also looking for anything and everything available that he made. If you were outside of Detroit you didnt know about the infinite or the SSEP until after the fact and in my opinion neither album is that great. I picked up kid rock's album when Bullgod was the only single he had out, bawitdaba was not out at the time. I was in a record store about 30 miles from home and being a collector at the time had to get everything. Picked up Kid Rock's cd just for the eminem appearance.

This whole album is really how eminem's voice sounded. It seems with the mmlp he began to change his voice so it wasn't so nasally. I know he was self-conscious of his voice at the time. This album is a 3.9/5 for me, not quite a 4. The next one is a 5 mic album IMO. There's a lot of pretty good songs, but not too many outstanding ones on SSLP. I can do without the "cum on everybody" dance tracks that em would throw on his albums. Some funny skits, but Ive always hated skits, glad they have gone away.

Randy Miller III

I really like this album, easily the most enjoyable of his back catalogue. Eminem was much more entertaining before he had tons of cash and fame.

Rypro 525

I remember this being the first cd i ever had taken away from me Essentially my 12 year old nephew had talked his mom into buying it (cause the clean version of 'my name is' didn't have much swearing), and then he got it for me. I also remember popping this cd in to listen on a school field trip, and since i had one of those cd players that had multiple headphone jacks, i let one of my buddies listen to it too. Lets just say we were both surprised at how much swearing there was. Anyways, back to how i had gotten it taken away. Apparently his mother heard one of the songs, was appalled by the lyrics, and then she called my mom up, and then i had it taken away (i was 15 at the time, yeah i know), also about a year later i was forbidden to get the MM LP since Em was on the news all the time since alot of the talk shows and what not kept showing and reading off his appalling lyrics.

anyways, i would prob say my fave song from that album is still 'forgot about dre'

Jacoby Ellsbury

Thats the chronic 2001

Rypro 525

shit, wrong album, meant "Guilty Conscience"

Daryl

[ugh, I hate when I type up a good-sized post and hit "back" by mistake]

So being from around the D, of course Em was a known up-and-comer, but I can't lie: I wasn't feeling a lot of his early stuff at the time. I had seen him do some great freestyles, but his written stuff wasn't that great, IMO, so I can't play the snooty "I was on him before he blew up" role. I wasn't a big fan of the SSEP with the exception of "Just the Two of Us" (I'm a sucker for tracks with slow rhythmic scratching). When the SSLP came out, it obviously benefitted from getting some better production and some actual guidance on how to properly lay a track - yet I still have never really cared for most of the carryovers from the SSEP. Anyway, a solid album that stayed in my rotation for a long time - although now when I revisit it there seems to be a little more fast forwarding/skipping by me than I remember ever doing before. Standout tracks for me: Rock Bottom, Bad Meets Evil, and of course the now even better '97 Bonnie and Clyde. One of my favorite tracks of all time by him.

Bottom line: very good, but not quite great, with only a few hints of the audio Tour de Force that was to come next......

Quake1028

I'll post some thoughts in a bit. Giving it another few spins to refresh my memory.

My Other Self

This is still my favorite Eminem album. Maybe it's nostalgia but I still listen to it quite frequently (just yesterday as a matter of fact). I like Em's "early sound" on songs like Brain Damage and Rock Bottom. It's definitely different come the next year when Marshall Mathers LP drops. I think it holds up but I'm also a fan of goofy Em and feel this album best represents his skill at the mic.

Tarantino

Released: May 23, 2000

Tracklisting:

1. "Public Service Announcement 2000"
2. "Kill You"
3. "Stan" (feat. Dido)
4. "Paul" (skit)
5. "Who Knew"
6. "Steve Berman"
7. "The Way I Am"
8. "The Real Slim Shady"
9. "Remember Me?" (feat. RBX & Sticky Fingaz)
10. "I'm Back"
11. "Marshall Mathers"
12. "Ken Kaniff"
13. "Drug Ballad"
14. "Amityville" (feat. Bizarre)
15. "Bitch Please II" (feat. Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit & Nate Dogg)
16. "Kim" ("The Kids" on clean version)
17. "Under the Influence" (feat. D12)
18. "Criminal"

Tarantino

Probably my favorite Eminem album, even if I feel there are some weak tracks (Amityville, Under The Influence). I picked this up the day it came out and I drove to see a girl who lived about an hour away. I listened to this all the way through and felt he came a long way from his last outing. I remember when four of the tracks leaked on the internet (I had dial-up at the time, and I'm pretty sure I was using Napster), it took about a half hour to download each song. One was Kim, and I'm not sure what the other three were, but I couldn't wait for this to come out.

My Other Self

I'm in the minority when compared to everyone else but this is one of my least-favorite Eminem albums. I don't know why -- I still remember my failed attempt at being able to buy it the day it came out -- but there's something about it that doesn't give it that classic status that I felt Slim Shady LP had. There's some stellar tracks on here but overall I think it's a tad overrated.

EdTheRipper

I remember actually walking two miles to the record store to pick this up the evening it came out. I could have gotten a ride the next day, but I didn't want to wait. When I got there, I found out that they were completely sold out but the guy working the counter had stashed a copy for me in case I came in. On my preferred format of the time...cassette.

I listened to it on the walk back home and remember just being blown away at how much he'd improved over the first cd. To this day, it's still my favorite of his cds.

Daryl

After his just ridiculous post-SSLP verses on B.I.G.'s "Dead Wrong" and Dre's "Forgot About Dre" (along with the radio playing a heavily editted version of "Bitch Please II"), my anticipation for the MMLP was probably an 11 on a 1-10 scale. It leaked a few weeks early on the 'net and shit, I probably put in 50+ listens before buying the thing on release day. And somehow it still exceeded my expectations. To me, this album is Em at his apex in terms of rhyming - his flow is just absolutely bananas right from the very first verse of "Kill You" - and probably setting the standard with "The Way I Am". While I'm not a huge fan of the obligatory "you need a radio-friendly first single" song - "The Real Slim Shady" is the best of the bunch, IMO (I don't skip it immediately like I do "My Name Is" or "Without Me"). Then there's my favorite section of the album - the Remember Me/I'm Back/Marshall Mathers trio - some of his word-play here still leaves me in awe: the nod-to-Rakim (editted) Columbine line, the "looking for Big's killers, dressed in ridiculous" line, the destruction of ICP (especially the "Lee nails" line), even the Jennifer Lopez/Puffy stuff still make me laugh. Hell, even songs that in theory should be trash ("Drug Ballad", "Under the Influence") somehow work for me. I would say "Kim" is the only real misstep on the album - he should have just put "The Kids" on both versions. Skip. "Under the Influence" is an absolutely horrific song in terms of content, but... I love it . Maybe it's the beat, maybe it's because it's one of the few times D-12 is actually good (especially Swifty), I don't know - I just love this song. One of the few instances ever where "we're just going for shock value" lyrics don't just annoy me. Dope rhyming and clever wordplay overcomes all, I guess.

Anyway, bottom line (all IMO, of course): 10 out of 10. Em's best (#2 is not even close). One of my top 5 hip-hop albums of all time. One of my top 10(-ish) albums of all time. Still give it a fair amount of play even to this day. Classic.

Jacoby Ellsbury

His best, 5 mic album. "The way I am" is probably his best lyrical performance. Love the kim song, Stan(obviously overplayed but still a great song), B*tch please, "remember me"(minus RBX). 1 or 2 songs Id say are subpar, but the rest are just great as is the the album as a whole.

bootsy

Pretty much summed it up. So many great songs, lines esp. Sticky Fingaz on Remember Me.

Tarantino

Released: June 4th, 2002

Tracklisting:

1. "Curtains Up" (skit)
2. "White America"
3. "Business"
4. "Cleanin' Out My Closet"
5. "Square Dance"
6. "The Kiss" (skit)
7. "Soldier"
8. "Say Goodbye Hollywood"
9. "Drips" (featuring Obie Trice)
10. "Without Me"
11. "Paul Rosenberg" (skit)
12. "Sing for the Moment"
13. "Superman" (featuring Dina Rae)
14. "Hailie's Song"
15. "Steve Berman" (skit)
16. "When the Music Stops" (featuring D12)
17. "Say What You Say" (featuring Dr. Dre)
18. "Till I Collapse" (featuring Nate Dogg)
19. "My Dad's Gone Crazy" (featuring Hailie Jade)
20. "Curtains Close" (skit)

Tarantino

I liked most of this one. I remember this came out when I had moved into a new condo, so me and the girl I moved in with were listening to this on repeat while we were painting.

My favorites from the bunch are Say What You Say, Superman, and Soldier. For Em, this was the first CD with a notable amount of 'skippable' tracks (Drips, Square Dance, When The Music Stops, Til I Collapse).

Jacoby Ellsbury

Wow, Til I colapse is the best song on the album. Pretty tough to make a bad song featuring Nate Dogg and this definitely isnt one of them. I'll agree with when the music stops and drips because they feature D12 who are worthless. Square dance is alright.

Soldier has the gayest chorus, its right up there with Cinderella Man in terms of chorus. Soldier-Just the way his voice is as he whispers that hook along with his frail psyche and his 140 lb frame he shouldnt be singing about being a soldier.

I give this album a 4 out of 5, slightly better than SSLP

Jam Master Jay

Some great memories with The Eminem Show. It came out right in the middle of my college years and it seemed like you couldn't go anywhere on campus without hearing it blaring out of dorm rooms, car stereos and parties. It was EVERYWHERE. Anger Management 2 was right around the same time too and was the first and as of today only time I have seen Eminem perform live.

As for the album itself, it still ranks pretty high up there for me. It's not the classic that MMLP was but was a really good follow up none the less. "White America", "Business", "Cleaning Out My Closet" & "Square Dance" are a great block of solid songs to start things off. I usually skip "Drips" but will occasionally throw it on to gross out one my female friends, she HATES that song. "Without Me" is the standard radio single that got played way to much. Rest of the album is pretty solid ("Till I Collapse" is awesome btw!) save for "Hallie's Song" which I thought was the biggest misstep.

I also have this rated higher than SSLP.

kstublen

Late to the thread, but The Eminem Show was actually the first Eminem album I bought. I heard The Slim Shady LP when it first came out and had a friend burn me a copy; same thing with The Marshall Mathers LP. I actually can't believe I was so young and listened to that music (I think I was still in elementary school or just starting middle school when Slim Shady LP came out). Of course, I now have official copies of all his albums, but when I was younger I didn't have the money and my parents wouldn't have taken me to the store to buy such an album.

Anyway, this was the first Eminem album (although I had bought Devil's Night when it first came out) that I bought and like his previous albums, there were hits and misses for me. I liked some of the more fun tracks (Business, Without Me, My Dad's Gone Crazy), but my favourite tracks (just like with his previous two albums) were the more serious, introspective tracks (Cleanin' Out My Closet, Say Goodbye To Hollywood, Sing For The Moment, and When The Music Stops).

To this day, Sing For The Moment is one of my favourite Eminem tracks.