Album Review: The Slim Shady LP
For my album review, I chose to listen to the rap album; The Slim Shady LP, by Eminem. This album was released 24 years ago, in 1999. This was the second album that Eminem had released.
After my first initial listen of the album, I understood that this album is meant to be listened to front to back, the songs have a continuity in them that only comes together when you listen to them in the correct order. This album is very rhythm oriented, it has a harsh undertone as the “Slim Shady” persona takes over, he has songs that talk about his life and struggles and also has conceptual songs that dive deeper into his artistic ability.
Marshall Mathers (Eminem) started his career as a battle rapper in Detroit, Michigan. Making independent music and participating in rap battles when he could get the time/money. Eminem's career started after the release of his debut album Infinite, in 1996. This album gave him traction in his hometown and led to many appearances on radio shows in Detroit. It wasn’t until the following year in 1997 when Dr. Dre discovered Eminem. Within six months of them meeting, Dr. Dre had signed Eminem to a deal with Aftermath and Interscope records, the nearly 30 years following this deal have spoken for themselves. Eminem is the most successful rap artist ever, “selling more than 220 million records”, he is able to find this amount of success because he is very talented in his art form, but he also comes off as relatable to the normal person because he is not politically correct and puts his sense of humor in his music. He says whatever he wants and feels and that is meaningful to a lot of people. Because of his ability to reach his fanbase, and pure ability to write and rap. Eminem was inducted to the Rock n Roll hall of fame in November of 2022.
Although this album does not have a concept, the purpose of this album was to introduce Eminem's alter ego, Slim Shady to the world. Slim Shady is meant to be the person who can say whatever he wants in his music and not get scrutinized for it, the character of Slim Shady is one of three personalities that Eminem uses in his music, those being Eminem, Slim Shady, and Marshall Mathers. Marshall Mathers raps about his life, Slim Shady raps about his intrusive thoughts, and Eminem is his perfect mixture of both.
The album starts off with “Public Service Announcement” that explains the type of music that is in the album, it is an explanation of this album just being art and nothing more. The first real song in the album is the hit song “My Name Is” which has three record scratches at the beginning of the song making it one of the most recognizable Eminem beats to this day. The hit track, “My Name Is” is actually a sample of the song “I Got The…” by Labbi Siffre.
The sampling for this album does not stop there, the next track on the album “Guilty Conscience” (Feat Dr. Dre) is a concept of Dr. Dre and Eminem being the good and bad personalities of your conscience, the song follows three different people in three different situations. The sample for this song is a combination of two older songs, “The Back Room” by Pino Donaggio and “Pigs Go Home” by Ronald Stein.
The song “If I had” on the album, is a concept song about how he would live his life if he was rich, at the time Marshall was very poor and making music out of passion. This song is a manifestation of what is to come for him, he explains what he would do “If I had a million dollars” this is a reference to the sample of the song, “If I had a million dollars” by Barenaked Ladies.
One of my personal favorite songs on the album was “‘97 Bonnie and Clyde”. “‘97 Bonnie and Clyde” is a word painting, this is a song about him telling his daughter he just killed her mom after one of their ongoing arguments. The audience understands their marital issues and the cheating that happens in their relationship, but he explains this to her in a way that only she would understand and not question him because his daughter was very young at the time. The song starts with a car door being unlocked and a trunk being opened, the song follows a soft melody as the drum machine kicks in and he starts telling his daughter a dark story in a beautiful way. He tells his daughter that mommy is sleeping, and for her not to “worry about that little booboo on her throat, it’s just a little scratch it don’t hurt, her was eating dinner while you were sweeping and spilled ketchup on her shirt”
This rhythm pattern that Eminem follows is something that he has done all of his career, Eminem alternatively rhymes his lyrics, something he says in the first line will rhyme with the punch in the third line, and the second will rhyme with the fourth line, he has done this in every album of his career. Eminem is
The Slim Shady Lp, is a boom bap album above anything else. The beats and samples are overlaid to create a boom bap sound, something that Dr. Dre and Jeff Bass are well known for, outside of their other works. The tracks that mostly follow the boom bap sound are “My Name Is”, “Role Model”, “If I had”, “As The World Turns”, and “Still Don’t Give a F**k” These songs are set apart as the boom bap sound because of the upbeat and prominent presence of the kick and snare drums. With this being Eminem's breakthrough album, he proved his ability to be a real songwriter and broke through to millions of people who were looking for a successor to Tupac and Biggie, and I believe they got exactly what they were asking for.\
Eminem has had such an impact on the music industry that he created a movie loosely based off of his life, 8 Mile. 8 Mile was an academy award winning movie with an academy award winning soundtrack. His impact goes beyond music, but the influence in music has been his inspiration for many artists such as 50 cent, J Cole, Kendrick Lamar, and Big Sean. 50 Cent was discovered by Eminem and Dr. Dre was signed by Eminem. 50 Cent’s debut album Get Rich Or Die Trying was produced partially by Eminem and is considered the best debut album of all time. 50 Cent's loyalty to Eminem stays true to this day as the STARZ producer is creating a Tv show based off of his movie 8 mile. As Eminem has been ridiculed for being a white rapper in a mainly black industry, his influence on the game has always been questioned, but never been denied. He has signed and discovered some of the most influential groups of the early 2000s, those being the people of D12, and Slaughterhouse.
Overall impressions/ final comments
The tracks that stood out to me were “‘97 Bonnie and Clyde”, “Rock Bottom”, “If I had”, and “My Name Is”. These songs carry the most weight because the mixture of beat and lyrics are the most prominent. These songs fit all three of Eminem's personalities that were previously brought up.”’If I Had” and “Rock Bottom” qualifies as a Marshall Mathers song, “My Name Is” fits Slim Shadys persona, and “‘97 Bonnie and Clyde is an Eminem song. The tracks that sag can be the skits, they can interrupt the flow of the music but they have continuity in them that doesn’t exist without them, six of the 20 songs are skits, without them some of the songs lose a bit of context, they just break up the flow of the music at times.
Bibliography
Liam Flynn( Head Editor & Writer )As the Head Editor and Writer at Music Grotto. “25 Best-Selling Rappers of All Time.” Music Grotto, 7 May 2023, https://www.musicgrotto.com/best-selling-rappers-of-all-time/#:~:text=1.,Eminem&text=What%20is%20this%3F&text=Interestingly%20enough%2C%20the%20top%20selling,album%2C%20Infinite%2C%20in%201996.
“Eminem.” Eminem | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/eminem.
