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Last Updated: Friday 18-May-2001 16:54
VH1 MMLP REVIEW
Eminem is a master of the lost art of interpolating how not to give a damn about what anybody thinks. The Marshall Mathers LP not only picks up where his rock-solid 1998 debut, The Slim Shady LP, left off, it's also a bona fide masterpiece of shock theater taking the MC's "Slim Shady in all of us" concept to a new stratosphere of rhetoric. Since his phoenix-like emergence from the underground hip-hop movement, Detroit's finest export since the Stooges reaps the golden fruits of critical and commercial fortune by providing a soapbox for his twisted outlook on life. Under his birth name, Eminem goes off on anyone and everyone who has pissed him off, done him wrong, or just made him go "whoa!" Right off the bat, on "Kill You," he writes an open letter of disgust to his mother for suing him - he's not fooling around. "Stan," by far the album's most mind-blowing track, kicks off a trilogy of jams that shows Eminem handling the pressures and potholes of celebritydom. Prodigious in a Stephen King-like way in its use of alliteration, "Stan" chronicles the downward spiral of an obsessed fan as trip-hop diva Dido sings the hell out of the somber, rainy-day hook copped off the Sliding Doors soundtrack. "Who Knew" takes aim at people who take his lyrics too seriously while giving insight into the bloodshed in our nation's study halls with a snicker of black comedy that strikes a balance between concern and contempt. Acting like youth culture's conscious, Eminem spills his blood and ink vitriol on anybody who's diluted the artistic value of American music: pinup popsters, wack rappers, playa-hatahs, etc. "New Kids on the Block suck a lot of d*ck/ boy-girl groups make me sick," he sings to the tune of LFO's nauseating hit "Summer Girls" on the climactic title cut. But while Em shows no remorse in expressing his contempt for the Britney Spears ("what's this b*tch retarded? Gimmie back my 16 dollars!"), Ricky Martins, and 'N Syncs of our nation's malls and preprogrammed radio stations, he saves his harshest lyrical evisceration for fellow Detroitians the Insane Clown Posse: "Faggy 2 Dope and Silent Gay/Claiming Detroit when y'all live 20 miles away," he spits. "Ask them about the club they was at when they snuck outÉ.and got paintballs shot at their truck - Blaow!" The most disturbing song, however, is "Kim," a six-plus-minute crunch guitar meltdown re-creating the violent passion in the ongoing conflict between Em and his baby's mama that literally comes off like the worst screaming match you've ever had with a significant other. Paranoid overtones notwithstanding, The Marshall Mathers LP as a straight-up hip-hop album is Eminem's finest hour yet. With his mentor Dr. Dre serving as executive producer and providing beats for nearly half the tracks with help from the likes of the 45 King and Eminem himself, Slim Shady brings forth the unbridled poetic tenacity of his most eye-popping subterranean moments with a style that knows no boundaries. He takes it back to the East Coast hardcore of 1993 with Onyx's Sticky Fingaz and RBX on "Remember Me?" and gets down and dirty West Coast style with Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Xzibit as Nate Dogg sings the hook on the phenomenal "Bitch Please II." He even manages to successfully put his own boys, the Dirty Dozen or D-12, on the throwdown "Under the Influence." Songs like "Stan"
and "Kim" could cement Eminem's place as possibly the greatest
storyteller in all of hip-hop, beating out even Slick Rick in terms of
sheer cinematics. People are already calling The Marshall Mathers LP the
album of the year. Its unabashed ability to speak out without fear of
the commercial or public repercussions such self-expression brings should
be saluted accordingly in the name of all that's free and original in
modern music
---- http://www.shadyfactory.cjb.net -- |
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