And even now, The Marshall Mathers LP is at times a profoundly difficult and unsettling listen. And he knew exactly what he was doing.Īt the time of release, I didn’t know hip-hop, wasn’t wise to hip-hop and frankly, the whole concept of the record seemed ugly to my bland, Britpop-honed sensibilities. The ultimate suburban parent’s nightmare, as so many others had been before. As for Eminem? He opened his UK tour in the winter of that year wielding a hockey mask and chainsaw. The great and the good shook their heads, expressing disgust in neat soundbites. The tabloids pleaded the Home Office to ban him from entry. The pious wrung their hands in exasperation.
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In a world subsequently traumatised by 9/11, desensitised by viral video and gradually acclimatised to real-life brutality and sorrow on our screens, it’s hard to recall the sweeping tirade of outrage and horror that accompanied the release of Eminem’s second album back in May 2000. Dre and Rick Rubin whom, she says, “work their respective brands of magic, crafting a sonic landscape wherein Eminem can hilariously yet masterfully rap like Yoda while reworking a Zombies classic one minutes and immerse himself into a sinister revenge fantasy the next."Slim Shady does not give a fuck what you think…" The Boston Globe‘s Sarah Rodman describes the sequel as “more intense than the original, as the Detroit rapper explodes like an M-80, radiating anger, humor, and vulnerability often within the space of a single couplet.” Rodman acknowledges the influence of co-producers Dr. “It revives some of his worst traits as a would-be provocateur,” Kot writes, but in the wordplay-happy rap world, “Eminem still crunches together syllables, silliness and storytelling flights of ridiculousness with acrobatic skill.” The Marshall Mathers LP 2 “encapsulates all that was good, bad and just plain tasteless about hip-hop’s middle-age prankster 13 years ago,” says the Chicago Tribune‘s Greg Kot, who credited the album two out of four stars. PHOTOS: They Said What? 14 Celebrities’ Most Outrageous Statements “Where Jay Z‘s album felt chilly and glazed-over – the work of a king in search of a specific mandate – Eminem’s scorches, spewing emotion as hot (and as damaging) as lava.” And while the album’s “layers of nostalgia” may prevent Eminem from starting anew, he “sounds more alive – angrier, yet more fully present – than he has in years.” Times‘ Mikael Wood feels The Marshall Mathers LP 2 does just that.
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With a fresh slate of industry talent already competing on the charts, Eminem’s latest installment has to bring more than edgy lyrics to the table if he hopes to reclaim his throne. Rolling Stone‘s Jon Dolan gave the album four out of five stars, but offered a critical response to the rapper who, he notes, “could use a publicity stunt.” In spite of controversy, however, the album is also about “reclaiming a certain freewheeling buoyance, about pissing off the world from a more open, less cynical place.” Eminem has touted hefty emotional baggage throughout his career, and Dolan jokes that “he’ll probably still be able to give us pause when he’s rhyming about retirement ventures through dentures and cleaning out the colostomy bag he wears up inside his saggy drawers.”
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But after more than a decade, “they have mutated from being his prey to now being his muse.” The rapper’s core themes – “revenge, resentment and heartbreak” – come out in force on the new album “as heavy-breathing voices which adhere to Em, fueling impassioned, and at times crudely comical, lyricism, which he spits at a rapid speed and through alternating tonality.” “Eminem’s demons are as present on The Marshall Mathers LP 2 as they were on its 2000 predecessor,” Billboard‘s Erika Ramirez writes. PHOTOS: ‘Born in the U.S.A.’: America’s Most Patriotic (and Un-Patriotic) Musical Offerings The Marshall Mathers LP 2 has garnered mostly favorable reviews, but the album continues to rouse controversy in this week’s What the Critics are Saying: