Tag Archives: eminem

#1100: Eminem – The Real Slim Shady

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If you were to start going through this series from the very first post and up to here, you’d think that the only hip-hop artists I listen to on the regular are Eminem and Kanye West. Not that there’s anything wrong with this. They’re both two of the best to ever do it in the genre. But, you know… I’d like to think I have a varied taste now. I wasn’t able to write the posts in time, is all. I started this blog when I was 17, and at that age, in my eyes, Eminem and Kanye were the best ever and no one could beat them. Times have passed, and their flaws – musically speaking – have become apparent to see as the years roll on. But their classic songs are still classics, including this one right here, which everyone knows and is still one of Eminem’s most popular tracks almost 25 years after its release.

‘The Real Slim Shady’ was the first single to be released from Eminem’s second major-label album, The Marshall Mathers LP. It had only been just over a year since the rapper blessed everyone’s screens with ‘My Name Is’, introducing the world to Slim Shady and the persona’s wild, wild antics. Now Em was back, laughing at the chaos left in his wake and making his mark again as a labelled misogynist and advocate of domestic violence (taken from Wikipedia, I’m sorry), being the White man succeeding in a Black man’s game and ultimately poking fun at the imitators who had made themselves present in the aftermath of his success. It’s a mixture of silliness and seriousness as Eminem criticises vapid boy/girl pop groups, journalists and critics and the general public. He also cusses out Will Smith in one of the funniest diss lines to be put to paper.

I was five when all of this was happening, so I didn’t really grasp Eminem’s magnitude at the time. To me, he would just pop up with his new singles every time a new album was coming around. I wanna say I do remember watching that VMA performance of the song where he got hundreds of lookalikes to stand menacingly as he rapped through the track. ‘The Real Slim Shady’ doesn’t have that much a personal connection with me, but it’s always just been there existing almost as long as I’ve been around, and it’s damn good. Does it sound a bit dated? Sure. I mean, those cultural references in the lyrics aren’t anything but stuck in the late ’90s/2000 dead-on. But once Eminem gets to rapping, I never get that feeling to skip it.

#975: Eminem – On Fire

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Is it fair to say that Eminem’s Recovery was the last album in which he actually sounded natural over a beat? Sure, it’s filled with all these poppy choruses that sound like they belong in 2010. But otherwise when the rapping’s going on, there’s never a moment where I’m suddenly put off by how mechanical and static he enunciates some words. On ‘Rap God’ there’s a lyric about rapping like a computer, which is kind of ironic because he’s been sounding like a malfunctioning one on a lot of song since, and I think it started from The Marshall Mathers LP 2 onwards, an album I’ve never cared for, but from what I’ve seen has become known as one of Eminem’s best in his post-classic era. I’m digressing a bit here. If you do agree with what I asked in the very first sentence of this paragraph, then I think the track ‘On Fire’ is a great example of Eminem just rapping well and sounding good over the beat provided, even though he’s not saying anything of great importance.

Seguing into the mix right after the end of previous track ‘Talkin’ 2 Myself’, ‘On Fire’ is led by a hypnotizing boom-bap beat produced by Mr Porter, also known to many a fan as Kon Artis from D12, which very much stays the same throughout the whole track albeit with some pauses and removal of elements to allow Eminem’s voice to take more of the spotlight for brief moments. Speaking of Eminem, he flat out states that this track is no more than “a bullshit hook in between two long ass verses”. It sort of sounds like he’s making fun of the listener for putting any emotional investment into this track, which he’s no stranger to doing. But looking deeper into the lyrics, there’s nothing much that you really have to latch onto. He’s just flowing and rhyming really effortlessly, and not in that way like now where he seems to try and put an emphasis into every internal rhyme he does. He references Flo Rida and Brooke Hogan, throws a shout-out to the track’s producer, and sort of makes a witty remark about Michael Jackson, who at the point of the album’s release had only been dead for just under a year. The whole track is just him reminding us that he’s very good at what he does, culminating in the hooks where he tells us he’s on fire the way he’s able to rap so well.

Although I have written about album opener ‘Cold Wind Blows’ in the past, I can say that that track is no longer in my rotation. Hasn’t been for some time now. And ‘On Fire’ is really the only track from Recovery that I go back to regularly. Like Em says, it’s just a simple hook sandwiched by two long verses. But it’s executed so well that I’m never disappointed by the end of it. The rest of Recovery consists of the most radio-friendly choruses and songs that I’ve just generally grown out of. But there’s still a soft spot I have for the album all the say. It reminds me of being in Year 10 and talking about awesome Eminem was with my schoolmates. But yeah, definitely sounds like it was made for 2010.

#885: Eminem ft. Hailie Jade – My Dad’s Gone Crazy

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I didn’t get to listening to The Eminem Show in full until I was 14. ‘Course I knew who Eminem was. You couldn’t miss him in the ’00s. Except for that time where he didn’t make music for a while. But I didn’t appreciate albums so much then as I did as time went on. And when I saw the tracklist on Wikipedia, I want to say I had the same reaction to those who bought the CD when it came out in stores in 2002. “My Dad’s Gone Crazy… featuring Hailie Jade? Nah, he didn’t get Hailie on a track with him?” Well, he did. The Hailie. His daughter who he shouted out, referred to in so many of his tracks, the apple of his eye was appearing alongside her father on a song. And it wasn’t as eyeroll-inducing as I thought it would be. Eminem is his (back then) usual comical, cursing, witty self. It just so happens that his daughter’s on there too.

Inspired by an out of the blue moment where Hailie said the title phrase one time when she was in the studio with her father, the track, I think, encapsulates all of Eminem’s alter egos/rapping styles, whatever you want to call them, into this track. In three verses, Em makes some not so subtle references to 9/11 – which at that time had only happened a few months prior – raps about hurting people with chainsaws, having sex with Dr. Dre with no protection, how much his mother talked nonsense, and, generally, how he wouldn’t have to rile the public up with the things he raps about if people just left him alone. Hailie comes in at times with some adlibbing and suitable sound effects. Whenever she appears, she’s upfront in the mix just to make it clear that, yes, she is on this. That may annoy some people. I’ve become used to it myself. I’m always glad though that it was never this schmaltzy daddy-daughter song. It’s one where Em asks for Hailie as he seems to be going on a downward spiral, which is kind of hilarious.

I think the last verse on here must be one of Em’s most underrated. As the last song on the final album of that classic trilogy, all of those lines truly summarise why Eminem had an effect on all of those who were listening to his songs/albums/anything that he was coming out with up to that point. Through it all there was the one person who he was doing it for, which was his daughter, and now here she was on a song with him at the peak of his powers. It’s beautiful stuff when you think about it. It really never was the same for Em after this particular album, as has been well-documented. Looking back, there’s something a bit bittersweet about it all. It is what it is.

#696: Eminem – Kill You

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In 2009, I was fourteen and going through those weird motions as you do at those early teenage years. That year saw Eminem return to music with Relapse. My friend and I thought that Eminem was the greatest rapper of all time. Thought all of his music was great. I hadn’t actually listened to any of his albums in full though, only his singles. So I decided to download The Marshall Mathers LP one day to up my game when it came to Eminem knowledge.

‘Kill You’ is the second track on the album, following the opening intro. Can’t say I had too many strong feelings about it 11 years ago. I thought the hook was good, the beat too, but I wasn’t really taking in what he was actually talking about. For that reason, I didn’t listen to it for a very long time. Gave the album a replay many years later…. and it became very clear that Eminem was saying some very fucked up shit on here.

It actually starts off quite normally. Eminem tells the listener about his less than pleasant relationship with his mother before voicing his acknowledgment of those who wondered what he would rap about now that he was rich from the success of The Slim Shady LP. And then he suddenly starts exclaiming about choking women until they can’t breathe. And then from then on it’s just one outrageous lyric after another with imagery of him raping his mother, dismemberment with a chainsaw, and basically being a psychopath and having no regard for any human life. He describes it so vividly and with such energy in his voice though, that it’s just enjoyable to listen to. Everything in here is so off the wall that you obviously shouldn’t take anything he says in it seriously. 20 years ago people didn’t understand this, and so protested and demonstrated against Eminem for his awful, hateful messages. Actually, he probably wouldn’t get away with releasing this in this age if he tried to.

This track is fantastic. It’s got all the clever wordplay, assonance, internal rhyming, metaphors, similes, imagery that you want from a hip-hop song and were the usual standard for an every Eminem song back in those days. He does the same thing now…. the songs just don’t sound as good. I’ll leave it at that.

My iPod #387: Dr. Dre ft. Eminem – Forgot About Dre

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“Forgot About Dre”. Well, everyone knows this one. So I probably won’t go deep into it. It’s a classic, really. A guy in a film rapped a verse of it on the radio which got people talking for a bit, so there’s that too. That’s how much it means to people.

At the time the song was released as a single, Dre had just released his second album “2001”. This album came seven years after his debut. People probably talked about when his next album would come out in the years between, or fenerally started to actually ‘forget about Dre’. Well, Dre’s here to remind you just how much he’s influenced the game. He might be older, but you still don’t wanna mess with him. This is the OG straight outta Compton who isn’t afraid to express himself.

Oh, and Eminem chips in a verse to reinforce this message too. And this is Eminem in his prime too, so you know you’re in for a treat.