The Shocking “Encore” (Eminem, Oh Eminem! Part 2)
Many seem to have happened to Eminem after “The Eminem Show”. He might still show up on TV as much. Watch MTV every weekend, and you will find Eminem weekend, Shady family weekend, hip hop weekend, which are mostly talking about the same person: him.
He, in fact, is still the best known rapper in the whole world nowadays and young schoolgirls worship him more than N Sync. However, listen to “Encore” and be prepared to be shocked! This album, being the politest among his records, is also presumably the weakest. First of all, we might miss a central theme which is to be found in each of his previous albums. In “Encore”, instead, Mathers spread unfocused issues and put up some jokes which made the work silly rather than hilarious.
The track “Evil Deeds” with its similar beat to the hit “Lose Yourself” is simply the continuation of his longtime problems, in comparison that this one is not as heartily. A few tracks are still centering on ex wife, Kim. One of them, “Puke”, has in fact a very catchy tune, but Mathers seems to lose his remarkable touch in depicting his feelings while singing it; not to mention the vomit sound along the track, which is quite disturbing. Another track, “Crazy in Love” with a sample from “Crazy on You” by Heart was a failure compared to “Stan”, with sample from Dido’s “Thank You”.
What can be a good idea is to include Martika on “Like Toy Soldiers”. While the central idea of the song is simple, about his complicated life and quarrel with others, the military drum beat helps to build the image. It is definitely better than the first single, “Just Lose It”, when he played as slapstick comedian and mocking Michael Jackson with his nose fell off.
“Mosh”, which was expected to explode more controversy, didn’t work well except for the amazing lyric noted by critics. Other tracks have various themes and repeatedly mention American pop culture icons, such as Jessica Simpson and her husband Nick Lachey, the Olsen twins, and JoJo; which didn’t fit Slim Shady’s characterization.
To sum up with, the album is immature. It seems like Mathers had run out of controversy, which made him tried to bring up any issues he could get. The result, thus, is that he sounds unenthusiastic of what he was doing. It might be a decent album for a first time rapper, but for Eminem? I would say I expected more.
Anyhow, this is the continuation of my thesis. I hope you can find something useful.
This has been originally posted here on january 8,2005
