Child pages

Table of contents

Related Pages

• Eminem (Analysis of Successful People) ← This is for non-musical information, like work habits, his path to success, etc.

Rap-analysis-related links

• Genius - Eminem
  • I've gone through every annotation he's written up until 2016.10.20 and, if I thought it had some useful information, copied it below and tried to categorize/summarize it.

General music-related info about him

• On how rap-beefs can become violent:
  • If you get distance, with the beef happening on records and not in a battle, then days go by, weeks. I’m an M.C in the middle of it, and I’m talking about it with my friends. Now I’m heated, and now I do wanna fight you. My friends have hyped me up to it. My boy has probably said “Yo, when you see that person, you need to fuck them up.” Same with their camp. So that’s why it becomes some other shit, instead of a face-off in an actual rhyme battle. (Source)
• On dissing other people on records vs. in battle raps:

  • Battle rap is healthy for hip hop. The entire battle scene, the way that it’s thriving right now and how big it’s becoming and everything—it’s great. There’s something to be said about two guys, facing each other and squaring off. But if you take any of those raps and put them on a record, that turns into fighting, for some reason.

    If I’m battling somebody, I go into the battle knowing that. This person’s gonna say foul shit about me. But when somebody calls somebody out on a record, it’s different. In a battle, people expect it. (Source)

• He came up with the shift to his angrier / darker style a a result of the anger he felt from the response to Infinite.

  • So put my tape back on the rack
    Go run and tell your friends my shit is wack

    
    When we put Infinite out, it was local. We pressed up under a thousand, initially. We expected we’d be able to get something with it, though. When that didn’t happen, it was really deflating. People were saying that I sounded like AZ and Nas. I was upset. Not to say that I didn’t love AZ and Nas, but for a rapper to be compared to someone, for people to say that you sound like someone else — nobody wants that. I had to go back to the drawing board. So I remember getting mad. I was like, “I’m gonna rap like I don’t care anymore. Fuck it.” I started to write angry songs like “Just Don’t Give a Fuck.” (Source)
  • I'm buzzin', Dirty Dozen, naughty rotten rhymer
    
    I brought the material to Proof and the rest of the guys in D-12. Proof had the idea like, “Yo, let’s all rap like ‘fuck the world’.” That’s when I feel like I started rounding a corner. Whenever we’d make D12 songs, it was just staying on that page, that same page. I felt like it was a way to getting everything out that I wanted to say. (Source)
• He came up with his Slim Shady alter-ego at the suggestion of his best friend Proof.
  • Slim Shady; Eminem was the old initials (bye bye!)
    
    Coming out with an alias was part of Proof’s whole idea. He said, “Let’s be in a group called D12, and there will be six of us, and we’ll each have an alias. We’ll each be two different people.” When I started rapping as Shady, as that character, it was a way for me to vent all my frustrations and just blame it on him. If anybody got mad about it, it was him that said it, you know what I’m saying? It was a way for me to be myself and say what I felt. I never wanted to go back to just rapping regular again. (Source)
• He has said he has OCD. (Source) ← Half the time he's BSing with those comments, so it's not clear if he's joking or not.

How he works

Album-level issues

• He will use skits to communicate information to the audience that wouldn't really fit in one of the songs.
  • Eminem: I always wanted to make sure that people knew what I was doing. That’s part of what Paul’s role was in the skits. He was the adult. We wanted people to know that we knew this shit was fucked up and pushing the envelope, but that there was still a voice of reason somewhere. (Source)

Songwriting (General)

• He will sometimes come up with the concept for a song after listening to the mostly-completed accompaniment.
  • My Name Is
    • Get the clip where they're interviewing Dre and he explains that this happened for "My Name Is".

  • Stan

    • And even if I could it'd all be gray
      But your picture on my wall
      It reminds me that it's not so bad, it's not so bad
      
      When I heard “your picture on my wall,” I was like “Yo, this could be about somebody who takes me too seriously.” So I knew what I was going to write about before I wrote it. A lot of times when I’m writing songs, I see visions for everything I’m writing. This was one of those. (Source)

  • Rap God
    • I'm beginning to feel like a Rap God, Rap God
      

      The hook was the first phrase I thought of when I heard the track. I thought “Okay, this has something to it and might be catchy but — I’m a “rap god”? Why? If I’m going to say that, I need to validate that.”

      I don’t want to say it’s the crutch, exactly, but the theme of the whole song is: this is the only thing I know how to do. I don’t know how to do anything else, aside from play a little bit of basketball. (Source)

• He's willing to come up with lyrics on-the-spot. He doesn't need to labor over the lyrics for days / weeks / months.
  • Dre put on the Labi Siffre record, and I was just like “Hi! My name is!” That beat was talking to me. I was like, “Yo, this is it, this is my shot. If I don’t impress this guy, I’m going back home and I’m fucked.” I knew Dre wasn’t an easy person to please. I made sure that everything he had a beat for, I had a rhyme ready to go, or I came up with a rhyme on the spot. (Source)

  • He and Dre recorded 3-4 songs in 6 hours on their first day working together.

    • “My Name Is” was the first song we recorded. We recorded three or four that day, in like six hours. One song was called “Ghost Stories” and one was “When Hell Freezes Over.” I feel like there was one more but I can’t remember what it was. We always have this discussion, because Dre says it’s four. (Source)
• He doesn't consider himself good at writing raps about other people's lives.
  • Lose Yourself
    That was one of those songs where I remember telling Paul, “I don’t know how to write about someone else’s life.” Because the movie is not me, the movie is Jimmy Smith Jr. So I’m playing this character, but I have to make parallels between my life and his, in this song. I gotta figure out how to reach a medium. It would sound so corny if I was just rapping as Jimmy Smith Jr. How is that going to come from a real place? (Source)
    
    • He seems to be talking about performing a rap as someone else.
    • "Stan" is a clear counterexample to this idea that he doesn't know how to write about someone else's life.
    • But this is a good explanation for one thing I'd been wondering for years, which is why Em never continued down the path that "Stan" made clear would be profitable, and write raps about other people's lives, that either he could perform himself or could have other people perform. This is basically what Hamilton ended up doing, except they also had the idea of making it "clean" both in words and also subject matter, so the potential audience was huge, and now they're making an absolute killing. Em might need to write under a pen name to get certain groups of people to admit to listening to anything he's written, even if it's clean.

• Part of how he learned how to come up with lines that would get a reaction from people was by performing live at open mics.

  • On stage screamin' like Rage Against the Machine
    I'm convinced I'm a fiend

    A lot of the aggression came from the Hip Hop Shop days, when you wanted to get a reaction out of people. When you’re behind a microphone in a studio, you’re not going to see someone’s reaction. So I wanted to say the craziest shit, imagining the reaction I would get if someone was sitting by a speaker. At the Hip Hop Shop, you had a pretty good idea of what lines were going to get a reaction or not. You would see it. (Source)

  • This is exactly what comedians do; it's how they learn what material works and what doesn't.

• He often comes up with his in-line jokes as a result of searching for rhymes:

  • I slap Linda Ronstadt with a lobster, throw her off a balcony
    Just so happens she's fond of algae
    
    

    Let’s say I’m writing, and I lock onto Linda Ronstadt. I’m in the studio and I chuckle. Someone hears me and is like, “What the fuck are you laughing at?” It’s because I thought of something funny that rhymes with something. I’m not gonna not say this, because it’s funny, regardless of whether or not it’s fucked up. If it happens to connect and there’s some kind of humor in it, some reason for it to rhyme with something else, then I’m going to say it.

    When I’m pushing boundaries, I want to make sure that I keep myself in check. I want you to know that this rhyme might be fucked up or funny or not, or whatever. I’m aware of it and I know I’m probably fucked up for saying it.

    I don’t think it’s any different than what comedians do. Have you ever seen Lisa Lampanelli? She takes the piss out of herself while she says these ridiculous things. You’re like, “That was fucked up,” and then she comes right behind it with some self-deprecating thing about herself. She’s figured out a way to weave certain things together that’s very clever.

• He tries to not posture too much, by also saying self-deprecating things.

  • Ungh, school flunky, pill junkie
    But look at the accolades these skills brung me
    
    I don’t ever want to be too braggadocious. If I’m going to brag, let me pull it back with lines like “school flunky, pill junkie.” I’m a fucking waste of life. I’m a waste of sperm. I am a fucking outcast of society, I am a piece of shit. But I know how to rap. Other than that, I’m a fucking scumbag. I’m worthless. Or this is what I’ve been told. (Source)

• He tries to avoid using a distinctive / rare word in more than one song.

  • Straw into gold chump, I will spin
    Rumpelstiltskin in a haystack

    I recently went online and realized I actually said “Rumpelstiltskin” in a Tim Westwood Freestyle and forgot I said that b4. Fuc. (Source)

Rhyme construction

• He spends a lot of time trying to create phrases that match both in rhyme and also their rhythm.

  • Right For Me

    • Couple of shots of Jäger
      Public intoxication, dis-fuckin'-combobulation
      Flooded with thoughts of anger
      
      When a phrase hits me, sometimes I start building out from there. Like let’s say it was “fuck with this operation.” The phonics, me and Royce talk about this shit all the time. We sit here and spend so much time connecting all these twenty syllable words and phrases, and most people don’t catch them. They catch the last rhyme, the –ation in operation. They don’t hear that “couple of shots of jager” connects to “operation.” (Source)

    • What he's referring to is the rhythm. He's saying most people are aware of the end-rhymes, but aren't noticing all the rhythm-matching between phrases.
      

  • Renegade

    • See, I'm a poet to some, a regular modern-day Shakespeare
      Jesus Christ, the king of these Latter-day Saints here
      To shatter the picture in which of that as they paint me as
      A monger of hate, satanist, scatter-brained atheist
      
      

      When I’m writing, I’m in the syllable game. I’m connecting 5-6-7-8 syllable phrases where every syllable rhymes. I get heavy into that. When I start rapping something, and I think of more syllables that connect with it, sometimes I want to just keep the scheme going forever.

      I’ve done it before in songs, where the syllable scheme of the first verse ends up being the syllable scheme of the second verse, and the third verse — all the way down. I do it because the lines start connecting and making sense. Once I find something and lock in, it comes out pretty quick. (Source)

  • Lose Yourself

    • God only knows, he's grown farther from home, he's no father
      He goes home and barely knows his own daughter

      Maybe people are just thinking father rhymes with daughter or something. But it’s about repeating a pattern. The trick is to get the pattern to hit on the same beat—“grown farther,” “own daughter,” the “knows” and “goes,” like that. (Source)

• When stringing together multi-syllable rhymes, he tries to get the same parts of the rhyme to hit on the same parts of the beat.
  • Lose Yourself
    

    God only knows, he's grown farther from home, he's no father
    He goes home and barely knows his own daughter

    Maybe people are just thinking father rhymes with daughter or something. But it’s about repeating a pattern. The trick is to get the pattern to hit on the same beat—“grown farther,” “own daughter,” the “knows” and “goes,” like that. (Source)

    • In this example, it's clear that the end-rhymes are hitting on the same parts of the quarter-notes as each other, but I'm not sure if "grown farther" is.
• He may be willing to make the song weird if it'll make a rhyme fit.

  • Lose Yourself
    Food stamps don't buy diapers, and there's no movie
    There's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life

    
    Putting the name of the actor right there in the lead single was just about the rhymes. I had started with this syllable scheme — “somebody’s paying the pied piper” and “Mekhi Phifer” ended up fitting. That was all it was. (Source)
    
    • So for the movie '8 Mile', he created one custom song, which was the "lead single" for the movie, and in that song he used the actual name of the actor that plays his best friend in the movie (so he's the major supporting actor). So it's kind of breaking the fourth wall. That's a weird thing to do.

• He will come up with ideas for individual rhymes and store them for later use.

  • Eminem Interview with 60 Minutes

    Anderson Cooper: I've heard you say that you bend the word. Marshall Mathers: Yeah, it's just in the enunciation of it; like, people say that the word "orange" doesn't rhyme with anything, and that kind of pisses me off, because I can think of a lot of things that rhyme with orange. AC: What rhymes with orange? I'm trying to think–I can't think of anything... MM: If you're taking the word at face value and you just say "orange", nothing is going to rhyme with it exactly. If you enunciate it and make it more than one syllable, "o-range", you could say, like, I put my orange four-inch door-hinge in storage and ate porridge with Geor-ridge. You just have to figure out the science to breaking down words. AC: And do you think about this throughout the day? When you're driving along, do you think about rhyming words? MM: Yeah, all day. Yeah, I actually drive myself insane with it. AC: But it's interesting for a guy who hated school, who was in the 9th grade three times, you spend all your time thinking about words. MM: I found that no matter how bad I was at school, and no matter how low my grades might have been at some times, I always was good at English. AC: I heard that you used to read the dictionary. MM: I just felt like, "I want to be able to have all of these words at my disposal, in my vocabulary, at all times, whenever I need to pull 'em out. Somewhere they'll be stored, locked away. AC (Narrating): His words are stored but they're not exactly locked away. He actually keeps them in boxes. AC: You store stuff in just boxes like this. MM: Yes. AC (Narrating): Inside are hundreds of scraps of paper on which he's obsessively scrawled words and phrases. AC: So, wait, this is a pad from a hotel in Paris, it looks like. MM: Yeah. AC: And you just scribbled four little words, scribbled there. MM: Yeah. AC: How do you even read this? This is tiny? MM: I know what it says...I guess. (Looks at pad.) I might use that, actually. AC (Narrating):They're not lyrics, really, they're just ideas that he collects. He calls it "stacking ammo". AC: I've gotten letters from crazy people, and they kind of look like this. MM: Yeah? AC: Sometimes, yeah. They're all in capital letters or they're scrawled on pages like this. MM: Yeah, well, that's probably because I'm crazy.

    
    

• He will sometimes create a section of rhymes by starting with a particular phrase he'd like to say, and then figuring out what other words would need to be put in front of and after that phrase to make it connect with earlier and later lines.

  • Couple of shots of Jäger
    Public intoxication, dis-fuckin'-combobulation
    Flooded with thoughts of anger
    
    

    When a phrase hits me, sometimes I start building out from there. Like let’s say it was “fuck with this operation.” The phonics, me and Royce talk about this shit all the time. We sit here and spend so much time connecting all these twenty syllable words and phrases, and most people don’t catch them. They catch the last rhyme, the –ation in operation. They don’t hear that “couple of shots of jager” connects to “operation.”(Source)

Performing / recording

• He may rely on the fast-paced drums in the accompaniment to get his timing right. I'm surprised he doesn't use a click-track.

  • Where's my snare?
    I have no snare in my headphones
    
    This was true. I was recording and couldn’t hear the snare, the engineer had it muted for some reason. I left it. (Source)

• With Infinite and the SSLP, he was able to perform songs in one take.

  • “My Name Is” was the first thing that came out of my mouth that first day I was at Dre’s house. I don’t know if we released what I did the first day or if I re-did it, but it was basically the same. I didn’t understand punching, or believe in it. So I would just go from the top of the song all the way down. I was never flying in hooks. Everything was live, one take. If I got all the way to the fucking end, and messed up the last word, I’d be like “Run it back, let’s do it again.” I remember Dre was like “Yo, are you fucking crazy? Let’s just punch.” I didn’t like that concept because I wasn’t used to it. When we were recording here in Detroit, in the beginning, I was saving up my money to go in. We only had an hour, you know? I’m like “One take down, alright, let’s go to the next song. Fuck it.” That’s what I was used to. (Source)
• In the studio, they'll combine different takes.
  • When we recorded Stan I worked with a couple different engineers but this particular engineer I had never worked with before. While we were recording the third verse of Stan, he started rolling a joint and asked me if I minded if he smoked while we cut. What was I gonna do? Say no? He was already rolling it so I told him “no problem”. Everything was cool and I had gotten all the way to the last 3 lines and I screwed up so all he had to do was punch in my vocals at the end so I could re-do that line and the verse was finished. (...) (Source)
  • Lose Yourself
    I don’t think it was one take all the way down, but it was one take each verse. “Got the first verse, okay, punch me in at the second. OK, the whole third verse.”(Source)

Producing

• One way that they'll create an accompaniment is to start by playing chords on a guitar, and then when he hears something interesting, they'll build out from that.

  • Lose Yourself

    • When we were making 8 Mile, I was revisiting this old CD from two years before [NW: so, 1999-2000], going through old loops. I found the “Lose Yourself” demo on this session where me and Jeff Bass were just making beats. Jeff was just sitting on those guitar chords, and then it went into something different. I was just like “Yo, that section, right there, I gotta make a beat out of that.” I recorded the demo version of it the same day I made the beat. I didn’t like the rhyme, and put it off to the side.

      But it’s one of those beats I never gave up on. That beat was definitely a highlight of my producing. I ended up doing the new version on the set of the movie, just writing between takes. (Source)

• Not really him, but his producers: For 'Stan' they heavily sampled Dido without asking / telling her until the whole song was done, and then they sent it to her. I don't think she got paid for it. She said in some video on YouTube that she was thrilled when they told her, but it's still revealing about how they work. I'm guessing this is a trick you could not do with established artists (like Mariah Carey).
• When he produces songs, he uses old technology.
  • On Square Dance: I like going on stage to this beat. I don’t even know if people care that much about me producing things. It’s fun for me to make a beat, but it doesn’t give me the same feeling or gratification as rapping. I’m not really tech savvy. I still use an MPC 2000. That’s probably a cardinal sin now in hip hop. Everyone’s onto other things. I just use that because I don’t have time to learn something else. I don’t have the patience. (Source)
    • NW: Well, there you go; that explains a lot. His songs really suffer for this.

Albums after MMLP

• How he records his vocals:

  • Lose Yourself
    8 Mile wasn’t coming out for another year and a half, and Curtis really wanted music for the movie. He wanted it to be created from the environment, so he was pushing me to make stuff. I think “Lose Yourself” was the only thing I worked on specifically for the movie.

    We filmed half of it in the dead of winter. We had a music trailer on set, designed like a studio. One trailer was music, and we had another with gym equipment in it.

    We were on lunch break, and I needed to finish the track. I don’t think it was one take all the way down, but it was one take each verse. “Got the first verse, okay, punch me in at the second. OK, the whole third verse.” For some reason, I just captured something there that I didn’t want to change. I remember trying to change it and go back and re-do the vocals, and I was like “Yo, let me listen to the old ones? Just keep the old ones, fuck it.” (Source)

• How he comes up with songs:

  • D12 - Purple Pills

    • I been to mushroom mountain once or twice, but who's countin'?
      But nothin' compares to these blue and yellow purple pills
      
      Sometimes, a full melody will hit me and the words fall out easily. Other times, I just get a basic idea of a melody and whatever the rhythm is doing, however many syllables it is. Ham-bur-gers. Sometimes it will be the last word that will hit me, and it will be like “Okay, now fill in the blanks.” And sometimes it will just get the beginning phrase, like with “Purple Pills.” I think a lot of that material just came from walking around the studio. We’re just goofballs man. We would just clown. (Source)
      

  • D12 - My Band

    • My salsa makes all the pretty girls want to dance
      My salsa, look out for my next single, it's called My Salsa
      My salsa, salsa, salsa, salsa
      My salsa makes all the pretty girls want to dance
      
      We would always be in the studio, just goofing. We would walk around the studio just saying dumb shit. We’d say “This thing just popped up in my head, let me go lay it.” So, my band, my salsa. I just said it. (Source)

My theory for why his later albums are not as good

• Background: I personally only think the SSLP and the MMLP are masterpieces. I think there was a very noticeable drop in quality starting with TES, and it just got worse from there.
• My guess: I suspect that the other members of the team that created the SSLP and the MMLP were taking a big chunk of the resulting profits, and Eminem wanted to try to go it alone and keep more of the profits for himself.
  • This is a very common story in music. As I write this, Kesha is in a legal battle with the producer who 'discovered' her to try to get out of her contract, presumably because she isn't making nearly as much money as she could be if she could change producers.
  • This is also presumably why you see artists frequently creating their own production companies as soon as they become famous. Dre created Aftermath, Em created Shady Records, Jay-Z created Roc Nation, Lil' Wayne started Young Money, etc.
  • You also see the same thing in the videogame industry.

1996 - Infinite

General Thoughts

• he was 24 when this was released (1996)
• his delivery of the lyrics is a lot more flat / disengaged than on the Marshal Mathers LP
• his mic is noticeably worse than in later albums; their voices don't sound as clear
• he's not at ALL offensive in this album; he comes off as a really nice guy (eg Never 2 Far's message is that you can lift yourself out of poverty if you try hard enough).
• he doesn't posture in such an exaggerated way as in his future albums; it's standard rap posturing ("my flow's the best", etc.)
• he has a love song ("Searchin'"); neither of his next two albums have anything like that
• his voice sounds higher than on his later albums, with less bass in the recording.

Stuff I've learned

• He says in one of his Genius annotations that he recorded the entire album with one take per song, in an hour of studio time, because he had needed to save up the money to pay for it himself.

Open Mic

• they repeat the chorus too much

1997 - The Slim Shady EP

• Wikipedia - The Slim Shady EP

  • Unlike Infinite, The Slim Shady EP helped Eminem garner significant underground attention and eventually garnered the interest of famous West Coast hip-hop producer Dr. Dre, who subsequently signed Eminem to his Aftermath label, and executive-produced his breakthrough major-label debut The Slim Shady LP. Eminem first introduced his "Slim Shady" persona on this EP, and his lyrics are a marked departure from those found on Infinite, featuring constant references to drug use, sexual acts, mental instability, and over-the-top violence. Another departure was his exploration of more serious themes of dealing with poverty, his direct and self-deprecating response to criticism, and of marital and family difficulties. His flow is also noticeably different than on Infinite; whereas critics claimed he sounded too much like Nas and AZ on that album. Eminem also began using story telling on this EP. The production value of the music on the tracks was also noticeably higher than on prior album efforts.
    [...]
    Eminem desperately tried to contact big producers such as Dr. Dre, (who would later sign Eminem) to do production work on the album but with no luck.

• 
  • No writing credits  Maybe it was all Em? Especially considering the Bass Brothers are only listed at Producers on two tracks, that seems to make it unlikely that they were helping him write his lyrics on every track. And he has sick lyrics on every track.

General Thoughts

• the difference between this album and the previous one seems (to me) to be an acknowledgement from Eminem that people want rappers to be very unusual, like cartoon characters or WWF wrestlers or movie characters.
• he was 25 when this was released (1997)
• he's started to layer on second takes of him saying things to emphasize certain words. I still haven't figured out the pattern that determines when he decides to use the technique.
• he's started to combine humorous imagery with more serious imagery; it reminds me a lot of what I've noticed about my favorite movies (Back to the Future, Star Wars, Indiana Jones): they do a fantastic job of taking you through a range of different emotions
• There's no writing credits
• 2018.06.17 - I just heard Nas's "If I Ruled The World" for the first time and it does sound extremely similar to Eminem's flow on the Slim Shady EP/LP. And Eminem released the EP a year after "If I Ruled The World" came out.

Low Down, Dirty

• The snare(?) on the 2 and 4 beats seems like it might be too loud or at the wrong frequency, it makes it hard to make out what Em's saying.

Just Don't Give a Fuck

• He does a great job of loading up the song with lots of sounds, so it sounds "full"
  
• He uses lines that I'm guessing he developed while prepping for rap battles, because they aren't relevant to a wider audience:
  • You wacker than the motherfucker you bit your style from
    You ain't gon' sell two copies if you press a double album
    (...)
    Better hide your wallet 'cause I'm coming up quick to strip your cash
    Bought a ticket to your concert just to come and whip your ass

• "Raped" is uncensored on the line "Raped the women's swim team", but on the LP it's censored. I read online that when the LP was first coming out it was decided that that was too much.

• He uses new ways of referring to a noun:
  •  "snow season" instead of "winter"
    • I'm colder than snow season when it's twenty below freezing
• The range of the tone of his voice is smaller here than on the SSLP version. He doesn't go as low, and he doesn't go as high.

Mommy

• This skit was shortened (I think?) and included in the actual song on the SSLP.

Just The Two Of Us

• The Bass brothers' production here is not bad, but it's also not amazing. It's not SSLP-level. But Dre isn't listed as a producer on most of the SSLP songs, so I wonder if the BB did a second pass without much input from Dre, or if Dre was providing substantial feedback but decided to not try to get listed as a producer.
• The underlying melody-loop is more noticeable than in the LP, and IMO gets annoying from the repetition. It's 8 bars, but the second 4 bars are just a small variation on the first 4, so it basically sounds like a 4 bar loop. And it's a 4-minute song.
  
• They changed the name of the song on the SSLP to "'97 Bonnie and Clyde", probably because copying both the underlying loop and the name of "Just The Two Of Us" would've been too much and would've gotten them sued. The underlying melody-loop is much less pronounced in the SSLP, it's almost implied, where all that's really played is an accompaniment to the actual melody.
• internal rhyme "hurt" and "her"

• • It's just a little scratch - it don't hurt, her was eatin
    dinner while you were sweepin and spilled ketchup on her shirt

No One's Iller

• Swifty
  • He's probably the second-most-competent performer after Em, even though he's not as easy to understand as Fuzz.
  • His lyrics seem totally generic / forgettable, though.
• Bizarre
  • He is a terrible rapper.
  • He's also got the funniest lyrics and delivery. I wouldn't be surprised if Eminem's sense of humor on his songs came from Bizarre.
• Fuzz Scoota
  • He has some really bad lines in his verse.
  • He's the second-easiest rapper to understand after Eminem.
  • He tries to tell little stories in his lines, which is nice, and is something you see Eminem do a lot on the SSLP. Em may have been influenced by Fuzz.

Murder, Murder

• This song does a good job of setting a bleak mood. It's basically two(?) stories of Em robbing someone and then getting caught by the police.

1999 - The Slim Shady LP

General Thoughts

• he was 27 when this was released (1999)

What's the purpose of the little scenes between songs?

• It could be a way of transitioning from one emotional state to another. eg he'll go from a funny song to a serious song or vice versa.
• It may serve as a "breathing period" between songs, so listeners can have a short break. I think the same thing happens at swing dances: the DJ will alternate high-energy songs with lower-energy songs to give people a break.
• It may also be there to add length to the album.

Cover Art

•  ← He's wearing really wide clothing (if that's even him); it makes him look a lot bigger. The all-black also adds to the menace.
  

1. Public Service Announcement

• This skit sets up 'My Name Is' so, so well.

2, My Name Is

• The melody/loop is from Labi Siffre - I got the

3. Guilty Conscience

The main sample:
Ronald Stein - Go Home Pigs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD82-bTtwqY&t=0m06s

4. Brain Damage

• asdf

5. Paul - Skit

6. If I Had

• asdf

7. '97 Bonnie & Clyde

• The violence aside, this is really an absolutely brilliant song.
• The accompaniment in this song seems more advanced than almost every rap song that's come out since then.

8. Bitch - Skit

9. Role Model

10. Lounge - Skit

11. My Fault

12. Ken Kaniff - Skit

13. Cum On Everybody

14. Rock Bottom

15. Just Don't Give a Fuck

• it's VERY interesting to listen to this song back-to-back with the version of the song on the EP.
• Production Changes:
  • The original has a repetitive sample that repeats every 8 beats (2 measures), and it quickly gets old. They replace it with a MUCH better sample that repeats every 4 measures. They lead the song with the loop repeating twice and each note being held down, and then they cut it out and only play each note quickly with the same instrument, but instead play the same note multiple times with a different-sounding instrument. Then they vary it again for the chorus, with the higher instrument playing a short flourish instead of the same note.

16. Soap - Skit

17. As the World Turns

• the intro lasts 29 seconds
• the entire song is absolutely ridiculous, but it gradually gets more and more ridiculous, which makes it really funny. If you listen to "Tonite" immediately afterwards you'll notice that he uses exaggeration a little bit

18. I'm Shady

19. Bad Meets Evil

• I really think Eminem's songs tend to suffer when they have other rappers on them. Royce is a good rapper, but his lyrics just aren't in the same league.

20. Still Don't Give a Fuck

• He overlaps two different takes of him talking to fit in lyrics: "to all the people I've offended (Yeah fuck you too!)" The last syllable of "offended" and the following "yeah" seem almost overlapping.

2000 - The Marshal Mathers LP

• Released May 2000
• Wikipedia - The Marshall Mathers LP

2. Kill You

• shut the hell up
  I'm tryna develop these pictures of the Devil to sell 'em
  
  I absolutely love this image, it's maybe my favorite line in the song.

• Blood, guts, guns, cuts
  Knives, lives, wives, nuns, sluts
  
  Great sequence.

• 'tweece' ← This is an early example of the kind of imperfection that became way more prevalent in his later songs.
• The song seems to be addressed at women (especially given the last line), which is kind of bizarre and continues his trend of picking on groups that aren't likely to start actual violence.
  • I guess given the opening (re: his mother) it makes more sense for him to be addressing manipulative(?) / crazy(?) women.

3. Stan

• An absolutely brilliant song, one of the best songs Em ever made.
• This is a drastic change in tone from the previous song, which is a nice way to mix things up. In this song Em is the reasonable guy, and his fan is the crazy one.

• Hey, Slim, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to drive?
  You know the song by Phil Collins, "In the Air of the Night"
  About that guy who coulda saved that other guy from drownin'
  But didn't, then Phil saw it all, then at a show he found him?

  
  A brilliant set of lines in terms of the realism of the choice of words and delivery.  It doesn't seem to give an accurate summary of In The Air Tonight, but that makes sense for the character speaking the words.
• The song ends weirdly abruptly.

4. Who Knew

• This is a weaker song. It's directed at the critics of the violence in his songs.
  • The actual lyricism is fine, but the accompaniment is not at all interesting, there's a bit too much repetition in/of the chorus, the actual message of the song is something he covers in several other songs on this album and the previous album (so the concept of the song isn't unique), there isn't much emotion in the lyrics (so that dimension is uninteresting), there isn't as much humor as in his humorous songs (so that dimension isn't as interesting).
• He references the Monica Lewinsky scandal.  I don't know why he keeps referencing that.  I guess when this song came out it would've still been recent but the number of times he references it makes it seem like he can't think of other things to talk about.  Same thing with the gay bashing.

• I don't got that bad of a mouth, do I?
  Fuck! Shit! Ass! Bitch! Cunt! Shooby-de-doo-wop!
  Skibbedy-be-bop, a Christopher Reeve
  
  Funny lines.

• How many retards'll listen to me
  And run up in the school shootin' when they're pissed at a tea
  -cher? Her? Him? Is it you? Is it them?
  
  The 'tea – cher' split isn't nice.

7. The Way I Am

• This was one of the singles.
• His delivery in this song is just perfect. I can't think of any other rapper who can get anywhere close to this level of intensity.

• When a dude's getting bullied and shoots up his school
  And they blame it on Marilyn and the heroin
  Where were the parents at? And look where it's at!
  Middle America, now it's a tragedy
  Now it's so sad to see
  
  Great lines.

8. The Real Slim Shady

• Will Smith don't gotta cuss in his raps to sell records
  Well, I do, so fuck him and fuck you too!
  
  Great lines.

• And there's a million of us just like me
  Who cuss like me, who just don't give a fuck like me
  Who dress like me; walk, talk, and act like me
  And just might be the next best thing, but not quite me
  
  The flow here is great.

• The entire third verse is incredible:

  I'm like a head trip to listen to, ‘cause I'm only givin' you
  Things you joke about with your friends inside your livin' room
  The only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of y'all
  And I don't gotta be false or sugarcoat it at all
  I just get on the mic and spit it
  And whether you like to admit it, I just shit it
  Better than 90% of you rappers out can
  Then you wonder: "How can
  Kids eat up these albums like Valiums?"
  It's funny, ‘cause at the rate I'm going, when I'm 30
  I'll be the only person in the nursing home flirting
  Pinching nurse's asses when I'm jacking off with Jergens
  And I'm jerking, but this whole bag of Viagra isn't working
  And every single person is a Slim Shady lurking
  He could be working at Burger King, spittin' on your onion rings
  Or in the parking lot, circling, screaming, "I don't give a fuck!"
  With his windows down and his system up
  So will the real Shady please stand up
  And put one of those fingers on each hand up?
  And be proud to be outta your mind and outta control
  And one more time, loud as you can, how does it go?

9. Remember Me?

• This is a really weak song.
• Verse 1 (RBX) : His voice is interesting but the lyrics are bad, and I suspect he speaks too slowly to be able to say anything interesting.
• Verse 2 (Sticky Fingaz): His delivery is great, but the lyrics are bad.

10. I'm Back

• This is a really weak song.
• "Slim, for pete's sakes, put down Christopher Reeve's legs!"

11. Marshall Mathers

• This song has a great accompaniment, but the actual lyrics are addressing stupid beefs.
• Startin' shit like some 26-year-old skinny Cartman (Goddamn it!)
  
  This is maybe the first example of Eminem using the Cartman voice that he ended up using a lot later on.
• Faggy 2 Dope and Silent Gay
  
  IMO these guys were way too far below him to be worth space on his album.

12. Ken Kaniff (Skit)

• This depicts ICP giving head to Ken Kaniff.
• IMO it's just gross to have it on the album.

13. Drug Ballad

• The accompaniment here is great. The lyrics are good, but I feel like they could have been even better.

14. Amityville

• This is a weak song. Weak accompaniment, weak lyrics, weak concept.
• He let his D12 friend Bizarre have a short verse on this song  ...

15. Bitch Please II

• Man, hearing this right after Amityville makes me appreciate just how good Dre / Snoop / Nate Dogg are as a team.
• The lyrics aren't anything especially memorable, but the delivery is very clean.

16. Kim

• By far the best song on the album, no contest. Maybe the best single song he ever made.
• Em just killed this. I can't think of any other song, rap or otherwise, with this much emotion in the vocals.
• I think it may have more of an impact on people who have heard / seen serious domestic disputes.
• It seems pretty clear that this song was born from the concept of having a prequel to '97 Bonnie and Clyde.

17. Under the Influence

• A very weak song.
• A D12 song... 
• The chorus is terrible.
• Bizarre's delivery is really terrible.
  • He has a "drop bombs like Vietnam" line...ugh...
• Proof's delivery is adequate if not very original; he sounds kind of like a Wu-Tang rapper.
• Too many rappers with full-length verses. It sounds like Em was hooking up his friends at the expense of his fans.
• It's incredible that this song immediately follows Kim; Eminem at his best right next to him at his worst.

18. Criminal

• The accompaniment on this song is amazing.
• Eminem: “Criminal” was my new “Still Don’t Give a Fuck” for The Marshall Mathers LP. That’s why I did the same intro as I did on the ‘'Still Don’t Give A Fuck’‘. That’s why–just like ’‘Still Don’t Give A Fuck’‘–it’s the last song on the record. It sums up the whole album. (Source: "Angry Blonde", via the Genius page on 'Criminal')
  • Lesson: You really can just copy certain things from the past.

• Come on, relax, guy! I like gay men
  Right, Ken? Give me an amen!
  
  Em speaking as Em with the Cartman voice... 

• The chorus is one of the best in any Eminem song:
  
  I'm a criminal! ‘Cause every time I write a rhyme
  These people think it's a crime
  To tell 'em what's on my mind
  I guess I'm a criminal! But I don't got to say a word
  I just flip 'em the bird and keep going
  I don't take shit from no one; I'm a criminal!

• The skit in this song is hilarious, the funniest one I can think of by Eminem, and maybe any rap artist.

• If I ever gave a fuck, I'd shave my nuts
  Tuck my dick in between my legs and cluck
  
  Very well-delivered.

2002 - The Eminem Show

• Wikipedia - The Eminem Show

• Good songs
  • Business (Dre prod.)
  • Superman
  • Say What You Say (Dre prod.)
  • My Dad's Gone Crazy (Dre prod.)
• This feels like a half-experimental album, but I feel like Em should have figured out some way to "screen-test" the experimental tracks before putting them on his album. It's tough when you're famous because fans may say they love anything you do.
  • Eminem experiments with singing on "Hailie's Song".
  • Eminem does a lot of his own production on a bunch of songs, which he never did on the SSLP, and only did on one track on the MMLP.
  • Eminem has his friends D12 on a song, and they're not very good.
  • He heavily features his daughter on "My Dad's Gone Crazy".
• This album is weird, because half of it is (IMO) at the same quality-level of his previous albums, but the other half is definitely not at the same level, and overall I remember finding it to be a disappointment relative to his previous two albums.

18. 'Till I Collapse

Accompaniment

• The melody doesn't really move. It's so, so focused on C-sharp. Maybe there aren't any chord changes? I don't know enough to say what's going wrong here.

19. My Dad's Gone Crazy

Lyrics

• He has some absolutely-hilarious lyrics in this song, among the best he's done.
• He has a nice shift 

Colleagues

Bass Brothers

• Wikipedia - Bass Brothers

  • Jeff Bass is considered one of the most influential people in Eminem's career.
    
    Most of Eminem's hit singles have been either produced by Dre ("My Name Is", "The Real Slim Shady", and "Just Lose It") or Jeff Bass ("Without Me", "Beautiful" and "Lose Yourself").

    Both have won Grammy Awards for their work with Eminem. Jeff Bass won an Best Original Song Oscar in 2003 for co-writing "Lose Yourself" from the film 8 Mile.

• Eminem behind the scenes of The Slim Shady LP 1999
  • Mark Bass seems to half-jokingly say that he discovered
• The Hustle Sanctuary - Jeff Bass talks about discovering Eminem.

Mike Elizondo

• Wikipedia - Mike Elizondo
• 2012.12.21 - YouTube - Musicians Institute - Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre, Eminem) at MI
  • Only 1:28 long, and he doesn't say anything useful / revealing.

Theron Feemster

• Wikipedia - Theron Feemster