'Hey kids.do you like Primus?' This almost constitutes a theme to the album. Hell, why else do you think the second line you hear on this album was 'You wanna see me put Nine Inch Nails through each one of my eyelids?' If you've got the uncensored version, you get there even earlier. After all, black people weren't the only ones living empoverished lives, and Eminem realised this.Ī lot of the white youth Eminem was talking to, though, buried their dreams and frustrations in rock music - a genre about as explicity 'white' as rap was explicity 'black'. Eminem took the same principle, and applied it to white youth. Rap had long soundtracked America's black youth, with songs about the poverty they face, the discrimination within the system, and the hedonistic lives they wished to lead. The message Eminem had was one directed at America's poor white youth. (Given how much Public Enemy hated Elvis for appropriating black music, there's a delicious irony here.) Eminem had a message with this album, but he knew people would have to be convinced to listen to it. If you're not familiar with Public Enemy, then basically, this means that the core message of the music is wrapped up in surrealist humour, which makes it both easier to digest and easier to listen to. But his role proved to be a backseat one, comparable to Flava Flav's role in Public Enemy. Sure enough, this is called The Slim Shady LP for a reason (just as the next two had their names for a reason), and the Slim Shady character was always lurking around a corner.
The other major single - Role Model - helped this view along.īut those who bought the album expecting a full album of this character were going to be shocked. Many people were drawn in by the cartoon version of Marshall Mathers (Slim Shady, if you will) presented on Slim Shady and Guilty Conscience - a crazy, over-the-top, surrealist view of trailer park White America. Although it was The Marshall Mathers LP that really made him the massive star he is now, this album, as his major label debut, set the ball rolling.Īs an introduction, it's hard to beat. #273 on Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums Of All Time.Įminem? Who's that? Recently voted the most powerful man in music by Q magazine, and the biggest and brightest star of our age - he will probably turn out to be the most durable, too - few people in the past few years have been as ubiqitous as Eminem.
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