However, its financial success secured him as the best-selling rapper of all time, and praise for this album has retrospectively increased, to the extent of Cult Classic status among his fanbase. This time, audiences were divided over how plain weird the album was, with the constant use of his Triumph-The-Insult-Comic-Dog-Voice and the continuation of his celebrity-bashing being common areas of criticism. In the summer of 2009, Relapse was released, sending him back into Slim Shady territory, detailing his descent into drug addiction during his hiatus. After its release, he took a break from music (aside from Curtain Call: The Hits, which had a couple of new songs on it, and The Re-Up, a mixtape-style album that attempted to showcase the artists on Shady Records) to deal with his own personal drug problems and the shooting death of his best friend Proof. note Its outcome was eventually revealed to have been influenced by Mathers making it with a prescription drug addiction that almost killed him. His fourth studio album in 2004, Encore, was taken by critics and fans alike for Seasonal Rot, considered to be lyrically and musically below par for him. He was no less prone to commercial success, but opinions around his new releases shifted undeniably. It's after this period, widely considered to be Em's "golden age", that things began to change. (He didn't go to the ceremony, preferring to sleep instead. While he hasn't done much acting since, he won an Academy Award for the song "Lose Yourself", the first time the award has ever gone to a rap song. As far as content goes, while MMLP doubled down on SSLP's mix of Slim Shady madness and glimpses into Em's dark upbringing, The Eminem Show was a more mature rumination on the world of fame and isolation he had built for himself.Īround the time of recording The Eminem Show, Em starred in 8 Mile, a semi-autobiographical account of the struggles he faced while forging his rap career, also producing its soundtrack. The three albums generated some of the most popular rap songs of their time, as well as some of the biggest commercial success the genre has ever seen ( MMLP is still ranked as the fastest-selling rap album of all time to this day). As his crass persona made him an icon of the American underclass and counterculture, it also made him one of the most consistently controversial artists of his day, the routine accusations of things such as misogyny and homophobia surrounding his lyrics generating a wave of moral panic among parents and Media Watchdogs alike, which only increased their impact on pop culture and made for a good excuse for him to continue writing such songs. Dre's record label.īetween 19, Em would release three albums - The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show - that would elevate him from a small-scale breakout to a household name. The EP gained Em significant attention in the world of underground hip-hop, and eventually got him signed to Dr. The lyrics were dark and gruesome, but took a twistedly funny approach to subjects such as rape, murder, the occult, drugs, and suicide. The EP was remarkably different from his previous work and a novel concept to rap in general, as it focused not on the character of the rapper himself but instead a separate alter ego: "Slim Shady". His first studio album, Infinite, was released in 1996 and underperformed critically and commercially underground rappers and critics alike felt it was a bad imitation of the likes of Nas or Jay-Z.Īngry, poor, in a rocky relationship with his wife and with a new baby daughter to feed, Em followed up with an EP in 1997 - The Slim Shady LP. His early raps were heavily influenced by the popular gangsta rap of the day, and being white, he was often mocked for even trying, not to mention physically assaulted and shot at. During this period around his teenage years, Mathers discovered a love of rap and would practice it as often as he could, his iconic stage name a copyright-friendly evolution of the first name he rapped under (M&M).
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