That said, I always appreciate a fine piece of writing and this piece over at Pitchfork was pretty good:
Star Trek isn't the only franchise reboot expected to do big numbers this summer-- instead of the 13-year-old who got into The Slim Shady LP and found that underground shit he did with Scam, Relapse is for that guy's little brother who's 13-years old right now, and Eminem is fully committed to upping the ante for today's desensitized sensibilities. Do a double-take when he rapped "I just found out my mom does more dope than I do"? This time, you get to untangle the knotty word thickets of "My Mom", wherein young Marshall gets bullied and tricked by you-know-who into an addiction to prescription pills. Recoil when he threatened to push a fat girl off the high dive in swim class? He's now murdering his cousin in a tub and drinking the bathwater. Cringe at Eminem advocating roofies at a kegger? Get ready for the term "felching" to enter the public consciousness as Eminem gets anally raped by his stepfather in a tool shed. Got all that? Congrats, you're now four songs into Relapse.
As much as I loved music, I always found telling someone how something sounded really hard, and thus music criticism really tough. Still, this is a nice contribution to the genre.
One question I have for the assembled. Does Em have a truly classic album? He's a great rapper, no doubt. But does he have an It Takes A Nation, an Illmatic, an Aquemini or a Death Certificate?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
i like the way he rhymes, but pretty much none of his subject matter. ever.
The closest is his first (name's escaping me at the moment); it created its own world with its own logic like the truly great records do that you mentioned above.
But I don't think his first record is compelling enough for me to reach for it every few months, like the handful of records that are in my permanent rotation.
So, for me, no, Em doesn't have a classic. The first is his best, and there are tracks on others that he destroys. But as for a Nation or an Aquemini, nope.
PS... For me, ATLiens will always be the classic.
I think his first was definitely his best. Slim Shady LP, I believe. Classis though? I don't think so.
Yeah, definitely not a 'classis.' Or a classic.
Em's closest was probably The Marshall Mathers LP. The Slim Shady LP had some unfitting and outright horrible Bass Bros. production, and Infinite was a bit too obscure to have a lasting impact on be influential. Marshall Mathers was Eminem at his best, with good to great production to back him up, and Em able to mesh his psychotic style with his lyrics. That said, I wouldn't say that that album is a true classic.
Eminem's catalog up until The Eminem Show is damn consistent, though; it's a shame he fell off as badly as he did.
I went back and looked at the track listings. I was wrong. The Marshall Mathers LP was his best.
Yeah, I went back and looked at the track listings. You're right. The Marshall Mathers LP was his best.
I honestly think his best is yet to come, once he gets out of the shockrap game. So no, he hasn't made a classic album yet, but he HAS made a classic song--"Stan." One of the most brilliant joints in the history of the genre, hands down.
What makes you think hes getting out of the shock rap genre?
No, I don't think he does.
His best track was prob off the Soundbombing Album (and it wasn't even the best track on the album..99 with Common and Sadat X was). I've always given him props for his lyrics even when I found his voice annoying and his delivery terrible.
I'd put his best album right under "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper"
First of all, thank you for recognizing Death Certificate. It never gets the credit it deserves. I really think you can make the case that no album has ever been as diverse in terms of subject matter (No Vaseline, True to the Game, My Summer Vacation, and Robin Lench, all on the same album?!) and yet consistently excellent from start to finish (there really is not one track on that album that fails to measure up, even Look Who's Burnin', which is probably the weakest link, is an A-/B+ at worst).
Anyway, I think Eminem has made some classic tracks and has definitely dropped some classic verses (Renegade comes to mind) but his albums are, fundamentally, pop albums and like almost all pop albums, they are made for the moment and not to withstand the test of time. Beefing with NSYNC and Moby just does not a classic make. I actually just listened to Slim Shady LP from start to finish for the first time in a while and it's a great album, better than I remembered, but it's not Death Certificate and it's not close.
Agreed
Marshall hasn't made a song that will ever come close to "A Bird in the Hand"
Excellent review in the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/18/AR2009051802859.html?hpid=topnews
If I may quote:
"Sparking outrage and eliciting oh-no-he-DIDN'T gasps have always been Eminem's raison d'être. So of course he's not going to change course here.
"But his shock-and-offend shtick has become stale as his music has become predictable, sometimes to the point of self-parody."
I think this is dead on. If you just listen to Marshall Mathers LP, it is some impressive work. Then it all starts going to hell about halfway through The Eminem Show. Same old stuff over and over and over until you want to stuff Eminem in the trunk instead of Kim.
I saw his most recent video, for the first single off the new album and he's still doing what he was doing before he left...spoofing the celebrities in the news, acting silly....the usual.
I said to myself 'he took three years off and he's still doing this'. So until he grows as an artist, as opposed to growing more disgusting, I don't see a classic coming from him. Which is a shame because he's quite gifted in my opinion.
I don't think he has a classic album.
That said, I think what determines "classic" status is different for Em's generation. Meaning folks who came up with him and consider him to be one of the foremost rappers in the game might think Marshall Matthers is classic in the sense that it moved units. I wouldn't put it up against classics from the genre's golden age because I think its unfair to Em and obscures the way something like The Low End Theory came to be understood as a classic piece of work.
His on stage persona is that of an emotionally crippled permanent adolescent. I have no idea if that's his real personality and I won't speculate, but until that persona grows up some he'll never move beyond novelty status, which is where I see him.
Clearly he's got skills, but his shock value songs have completely diluted his credibility, to the point where the only music of his that I am able to enjoy is the comedy stuff which has no pretense of sincerity.
yeah...pretty much. I keep thinking to myself, "Dude, you're 36 years old -- get over it!"
9 years later, I still consider "The Marshall Mathers LP" a stone classic...it might be a few tracks too long- but in my opinion, so are most classic hip-hop albums- especially "It Takes a Nation..." and "Aquemini" (OK, "Illmatic" is pretty tight).
But aside from all the shock, most of the rhymes are insanely good, the anger in his performances are frighteningly real, and it's a pretty compelling exploration of several things: 1) a brilliant but self-destructive mind spinning out of control, 2) what it's like to be the first white rap superstar (Vanilla Ice and the Beastie Boys were never capital-C Celebrities) and 3) a remarkably insightful look at Celebrity in general, and what it reveals about both Celebrities and the general public.
Also, it got whole lot of white boys like myself to examine hip-hop a lot more seriously. And the beats are dope.
Eminem is a great MC. But if it took him to make you "examine hip-hop a lot more seriously," I'm not sure how to take your taste in classics.
Let me put it this way: when Eminem hit it big, I was still in high school, in mostly white suburbs. My exposure to hip-hop was limited. Sure, I heard some Dre, Snoop, and Biggie, and whatever else was on the radio and MTV, but I never really listened much.
"The Marshall Mathers LP" was like a gateway drug to me, and a lot of other white dudes I know (and I'm sure a lot more I don't know)- it was the first hip-hop record I listened to all the way through, many times over, and made me want to dig into all the rappers that inspired him. Soon, I was re-discovering Dre, Snoop, Biggie, and discovering OutKast, Tribe, Nas, Wu-Tang, Pharcyde, Public Enemy, etc...
Maybe you don't like Eminem as much as I do, and you can question my taste all you want, but the dude was kind of responsible for getting this white dude to appreciate hip-hop much much more. That's a good thing, no?
OK, I was unduly harsh. If you think some on it though, you'll see why this might be frustrating for black rappers and they're fans.
See, this is why I love debating music and what's classic!
I'd rate "LABCABINCALIFORNIA" far ahead of any Marshall album..heck for commercial joints I'll still put "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper" ahead of anything Marshall has ever or will do.
TNC,
I think I can see where the frustration's coming from- before Em, there was a lot of superior hip-hop getting made by superior black artists, and (much like Elvis did with rock n' roll, as Eminem often points out) it took a white boy to take the music to the next level of the collective consciousness. Yes, it sucks that white American boys like myself didn't pay as much attention to the pioneers at the time, because their skin and experiences didn't match ours- but we do pay attention now. (in our defense, black teenagers like the one you admittedly used to be frequently shunned "white" music for similar reasons.) It's not ideal, but it worked out for the best- hip-hop is truly a global phenomenon now, and Jay-Z gets much more respect than Shady these days. That should far outweigh the frustration, right?
Joe, did you really say DOOM and Marshall in the same breath?
MPresto,
I did in fact mention Doom and Eminem in the same breath. But not before you said an album Will freaking Smith made when he was a teenager was better than albums that Eminem hasn't even made yet.
Now, whether or not Doom is out of Em's league, or Em is out of the Fresh Prince's league, is a matter of taste. But at least I never claimed to see into the future.
Firstly, Joe, Ima need you to refer to anything Will Smith made before Fresh Prince of Bel Air with the proper amount of reverence if you want to be taken seriously in a Hip-Hop conversation.
Now...
I have no particular ax to grind against Mr. Mathers...he is repping his life experience and exercises a spectacular amount of talent. I would be willing to give Slim Shady and Marshall Mathers LP a classic designation, not necessarily on its artistic merits, but because of the impact it had on the game.
Is it in the same rarefied air as Nation of Millions? or By All Means necessary? Blueprint? Ready to Die? Illmatic? Not quite.
Long Live the Kane? Raising Hell? sure.
But thats an old man talkin. yall young folk carry on amongst yourselves.
Joe,
I agree that it is a matter of taste. I think Em is a supreme writer, he could ghostwrite for any MC. I find his voice and delivery garbage, but like you said it comes down to taste.
As for Will Smith, when he was the Fresh Prince and "Brand New Funk" and all the subsequent singles dropped, it was the shit. That album is as classic and as much a game changer as anything Em has done.
As for seeing into the future, I'll say this: Em's act is wearing thin and I'd love to see him rhyme about something new.
On point. Entirely too much of this on the internet. Maybe IRL?
My mans and them Noz at www.cocaineblunts.com nailed it:
Em hasn't come close to making a classic rap record. No number of suburban white boys who got turned on to rap music through him will change that. And that's no disrespect intended - we're glad you've gotten here from there. But it's not about you.
Jonathan,
I hope I didn't imply that "Marshall Mathers" is classic simply because it turned a lot of white boys on to rap; that part was an afterthought, an added bonus. I do think the album would be classic even if it sold just 100 copies.
I also think it's a lot more substantial than a lot of folks give it credit for. Yes, Em's early singles were "good corny pop,"(and these days, bad corny pop), but his non-album cuts- especially on "Marshall Mathers"- can be deep, nuanced, complex, and thought-provoking more than merely shocking. Deep, nuanced, complex, and thought-provoking enough to be classic. If you haven't listened to it since it first dropped, maybe you should re-evaluate it.
I'm not going to pretend I've listened to nearly as much hip-hop as you guys...but if I were to make a list of classic albums of, say, this decade- pop, rap, rock, whatever- "Marshall Mathers" is without a doubt on that list, alongside stuff by Radiohead, The White Stripes, OutKast, Jay-Z, The Flaming Lips, MF Doom, Kanye West, Talib Kweli, Green Day...it's a record to be reckoned with...
And of course, when I said "non-album cuts" I meant to say "non-singles."
He doesn't have his Illmatic, as far as I'm concerned, but I think being a product of the freestyle battle/Lyricist Lounge/Scribble Jam era didn't really hone those skills. The point was to register immediately with a live audience--punchlines were important, shock was important, ostentatious flows were important. It wasn't, to me, about building for longevity or reaching out through space-time via the miracle of recorded sound--you had a few minutes onstage at a time, and it was score now, win now.
Rockbottom is Eminem's opus. Listen to the lyrics on this joint.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdXdsF08SWQ
I feel like I'm walkin a tight rope
Without a circus net
I'm popping Percocet
I'm a nervous wreck, I deserve respect
But I work a sweat for this worthless check
Bout to burst this tech, at somebody to reverse this debt
"I had a white fan base before the signing of Marshall"-Jadakiss
"As much as I loved music, I always found telling someone how something sounded really hard, and thus music criticism really tough. Still, this is a nice contribution to the genre."
HA! When I was at Howard in the late 90's, one of my crew's pastimes was puzzling over your album reviews in the Washington City Paper. You always seemed to have a knack for making a mountain out of a molehill in our estimation: basically the over-analysis entertained us. I love your blog, though.
As to the question that closes out this entry, though, I'd strongly argue that the Marshall Mathers LP is a classic album.
First off Coates, I know you're not gonna let them get away with having a hip-hop roundtable without you on it. You're the only blog I read because I can connect to most of what you say concerning society and race.
As far as hip-hop goes, I remember when Eminem came on the scene and I thought he was more of a pop star than hip-hop MC. Hip-hop has just transformed and there are many negatives that many of the old hip-hop heads place on the new stuff. Me being of the older generation, I don't think a classic full-proof album has landed since Black Star.
I think it's part due to globalization and the fact that times aren't as hard as they were in the late 1980s and early 1990s is the reason for the transformation. And now that there's money to be made anything goes. But one should always go to the root. That's what I did after hearing Illmatic, Ready to Die, or Aquemini, which led to Sly & the Family Stone, James Brown, Funkadelic, etc.
All I know is when me and the crew get together for a barbque, beers, or whatever nothing rarely gets play on the record player that is older than 95. I hate to admit it, but Nas was mostly right when he said hip hop is dead, but it ain't no thang because they left us with plenty of classic albums to play over and over.
They asked me. I declined. I'm not up on a lot of the recent stuff.
I'm sorry I love hip hop and I can't take anyone seriously who doesn't think Em is a world class emcee. Marshall Mathers is a classic. Slim Shady is a near classic. Not the best production but the wordplay is amazing. I don't like that Pitchfork review at all. I get tired of people constantly focusing on the outlandish thing he says. He can rhyme and flow and do it all. In other words he is a true MC.
Right, but who said he wasn't a world-class MC? The question was, does he have a classic.
I think Em is a world-class writer for certain..world-class MC? Who knows?
Classic albums? I'm not certain of that.
Come on, this "classic album"(RIP) trope is some ol' Bill Cosby sh*t, i.e. generationally insular.
I would abide by anyone calling It Takes a Nation ... the most important hip hop album of all time. But it's no end-to-end listen, just a quick refresher on the track listing reveals a handful of interlude joints that no longer feel necessary ("Mind Terrorist" etc). And while I'm not gonna beef w/ anyone who bumps "Cold Lampin' With Flavor" or "Party for Your Right to Fight" or "Louder Than a Bomb", those songs are far from classic, and I will probably get out of listening range.
Most "classic" albums will fit this description. They're classic because of a handful of classic songs. The rest of it is contextualized to your life , and/or pomp and circumstance. An Illmatic might still fit only because of the pruned down track list.
So in that context, I have a gripe with anyone not giving Em his props. And I'm not talking about the "skills" argument -- although honestly, I'm looking squinty-eyed at any "true school" hip hop head arguing about "classic album" being more important than "skills" -- but if we're playing, let's call it "Classic Album Poker", then I'll take Em's hand off the Marshall Mathers LP: "Stan", "The Way I Am", "The Real Slim Shady", "Kim", and the low card "I'm Back" ... can match up with anyone else's hand on a given album.
Further, I'd argue to those talking about Em being redundant, I can't off the top of my head think of an artist with more emotional/narrative/songwriting range. Public Enemy? Socio-political consciousness does not = range. Outkast, of course, but they don't really go to the dark side like Em did. Nas gets creative, but he swigns and misses A LOT.
Eminem Show is a classic album as well. And if you only got through half then you missed a few of the great songs "Superman", "Til I Collapse" "Dad's Gone Crazy". (throw in "Cleaning out my closet" and "sing for the moment" and you have another full house even sans "Without Me")
I've only casually heard a few tracks of the new album, but in general I think he's just gotten old. Same thing happened to Jay-Z. Black Album drained his emotional reservoir. Nothing left to prove. Both of them are skilled craftsman who don't need to be rapping anymore, and they sound like it.
Only thing proven is that hip hop is still very much a young person's game.
As a white boy who was in love with hip hop well before Eminem, I am in agreement that he has no defining, timeless album. In fact, the best thing about him was his ability to tie together absurdities in a pretty sick flow. My favorite song of his, as MPresto noted above, was "Any Man" (from the Rawkus mixtape, Soundbombing II), had a refrain that consists of:
"Any man who would jump in front of a minivan for twenty grand and a bottle of pain pills and a mini thin..."
Is this a beautiful line? No. Timeless? No. Does the flow sound sick when he spits it? Yes.
All I'm sayin', though, is that none of his songs can even touch Spottieottiedopealiscious, let alone have any of his albums match Aquemini.
And if it took Eminem for anyone to get turned on to hip hop, well, I hope they worked backward through hip hop's history rather than listening to Asher Roth or Young Jeezy or BG from the Hot Boyz.
I'm gonna leave it to the Beasties to sum up Eminem:
"You sold a few records but don't get slick
'Cause you used a corked bat to get those hits
Yeah you've been in the game, your career is long
But when you break it down you've only got 2 songs"
"i can't admit or come to grips/ with the fact that i may be done with rap/i need a new outlet" --eminem, relapse, 'beautiful'
'beautiful' is the only track on relapse that eminem produced himself. i use this track to talk about the entire album because it's the only track on the album dre didn't touch. lyrically and production-wise, it's all eminem. (btw, he sampled rock therapy's 'reaching out') on 'beautiful', he admits his frustration with the fact that he might not be so suited for the rap thing anymore. he also urges us to "walk a mile in his shoes" while reminding us that he'll be "one tough act to follow". what a way to bow out. therefore i don't think we'll be hearing much from em after this. he didn't do this album to prove anything to the rest of us or even himself. relapse is em's epilogue.
unfortunately, this album won't be a critical success. the subject matter is dated, his flow isn't as groundbreaking as it was a few years back and the whole white-boy-rapping phenomenon no longer exists. plus, let's face it, in these tough economic times the last thing folk wanna hear is somebody talking about killing folks and drinking their bathwater. when shit gets bad people wanna dance and forget. we want to listen to music that doesn't remind us that rent is due. thus the recent pervasiveness of pop music in hip hop.
"Therefore i don't think we'll be hearing much from em after this."
lol, he has another album out this year...
i'll believe that when i see it on shelves.
Ironically, Eminem sums my feelings about him best:
And all that gibberish that you were spittin' you need to kill it
And your style is like dying in my sleep, I don't feel it
"And hit you wit some ill flows that make as much sense as dykes using dildo's” I'm way late to this thread but some corrections are in order Slims first Album was Infinite, which was some classic late 90's hip hop shit. Here's why the Slim Shady LP is a classic:
It legitimized the white MC in a way that had not been done since, say 3rd Base, and even they had to be a bit self deprecating with their lyrics from a racial standpoint. His album broke the mold and while he did become a pop star, you cannot ignore the significance of the Shady LP. I can't believe this is even up for debate "I just don't give a fuck" w/ lines like "I'm nicer than Pete/I'm on a mission for a milkbone/ I'll Everlast you/ and melt Vanilla Ice like silicone” The dude has clearly fallen off but very few guys can capture lighting in a bottle more than once.
The mmlp is easily a classic. As far as singles go, I don't get how anyone can sleep on Stan. The word is fuckin hiphop slang now. It's certifiably a classic record.
What's surprises me is that Em went from the MMLP where he showed off his artistic merit, to The Eminem Show where he showed off his stake on the claim of "great rapper," to the bullshit of Encore (I didn't even bother to listen this new record).
On The Eminem Show, Em showed versatility and probably the best technical soundness of a rapper since Big Pun. The multis were there, the flow was monstrous (and even switched up for a few songs). He called out an actual rapper instead of a pop star (Canibus). It was an all around great effort and I think gave him legitimate top 5 current rapper status. He was on that battle rap shit. till i collapse? that's just a great song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPkAHvp1Vgw&feature=PlayList&p=935960A46CE33EA9&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=33
Then he backed off from all that and fell off. It's like he went on autopilot. I think Proof dying took a lot out of him.
I think the fundamental difference between hip hop heads is whether you appreciate words or flow more- I know a lot of people who like hip hop can get into many purely good lyricists, but often I just can't get over the production or specifically, the dissonance between the words and the beat. The words aren't enough without the musical/prosody/playfulness w/ language element. I guess that also means that good production matters more to me than pure rhyming, or that the rhyming needs to be positively fantastic to hold my attention with a wack beat. What Eminem has is such great flow, without sacrificing most of his lyrical content. I just can't understand people who don't like his delivery, since that's absolutely what makes him exceptional, along with some sweet internal rhymes. That's what the Square Dance thing is about, or Till I Collapse, or Soldier, or Rabbit Run, or even his verse on You Don't Know. Admittedly, Dre beats do certainly help.
Let me put you on to this VIBE article about Eminem by Zadie Smith, a pretty impressive writer in her own right-
http://www.vibe.com/news/online_exclusives/2009/05/eminem_day_four/index.html
The point is one about skills, basically- and that verse on Square Dance is about as awesome as anything since M.E.T.H.O.D. Man. The guy is really talented.
I don't get how people love the Infinite stuff and the Slim Shady LP. I mean, that's cool, and that's how I got to know his music (outside of some really long freestyle things on the radio that are pretty sweet- the Westwood joint, or the Stretch and Bobbito one)- but he's not even completely on-beat! I like "Just/Still Don't Give a Fuck" as much as the next man, and they're pretty funny, but Slim Shady LP is just not his best album by a very long shot. The Infinite stuff is straight up bad. In his later stuff, particularly The Eminem Show and the 8 Mile soundtrack, he showed that he could fit a rhyme or a story to a beat fantastically well, and play around with words in a way to make relatively similar subject matter seem fresh.
Judging him by the quality of people beefing with him is ridiculous. Anybody who's legitimately good doesn't pop shit; hell, one of Nas' Jay-Z disses was that "Eminem murdered you on your shit." Eminem raps all the time about approaching other rappers from a position of respect, and I think that's indicative of his particular situation, where he's not "classic", or hard, or whatever, in the same vein as other iconic MCs. He's distinct, for better or worse, and not entirely comparable.
However- all this comes together to illustrate how disappointing all his stuff has been in the past ~2 years has been. I'll still cop his new stuff, but I was so absurdly underwhelmed by almost every verse I've heard recently. The bar is, and should be, really high for him, and he straight up hasn't surpassed it. And for somebody who rapped about "And when your run is over, just admit when it's at it's end /
Cause I'm at the end of my wits with half the shit that gets in," maybe it's time to think about changing something dramatic or getting out of the game.
As much as I like it, I don't think that the Eminem Show counts as a classic album. My metric for a classic is whether I would listen straight through without an impulse to skip a song, and there's a lot of skippable stuff. Additionally, I blame De La and Prince Paul, and later Wu-Tang and Biggie for the regrettable evolution of the hip hop album skit.
Anyway, my standards are lower these days for hip hop- even for something like De La Soul, my standard is whether I don't hate any songs on the album, and basically no albums make the cut these days. The last one to do so was Fishkill. But I guess hip hop, like rhetoric, is always a declining art-