I don't hate this album or think it's as much of a fall off as lots of people claim it to be. I love some of the beats, that follow on from what we heard on 'The Eminem Show'. 'Evil Deeds' is dope, largely thanks to the hard beat. It's simple, but bangs. 'Never Enough' would be more appreciated if it wasn't on this album. Eminem's verse is great. It's largely thanks to firstly hearing it on 'Like Toy Soldiers' but I love the chorus from Martika's Toy Soldiers'. The theme of the song feels similar to what we got with ''Till I Collapse' on the previous album, as 'Mosh' does thematically to 'White America'. So far it's a good album but begins to fall away.
'Puke' is another shot at Kim but isn't as cleverly done or interesting, or just as good of a song as what we've heard before. 'My 1st Single' features some experimental type of beat and while I like some of the spittin', who wants to hear burping on a record? Lyrically, I don't know what some of 'Rain Man' is... "And I ain't even gotta make no goddamn sense / I just did a whole song and I didn't say shit." At least he's honest. Like 'Evil Deeds' though, I've always loved the beat. 'Big Weenie' is my least favourite song here. The beat isn't as strong, gets repetitive and Em isn't interesting. It's well known that Em was losing it during the making of this album due to drugs and much of the lyrics on 'Just Lose It' is evidence of that, as they are on 'Ass Like That'. We had puking and burping before and now flatulence... A much better ass appreciation song from Eminem is 'Shake That', with a fire beat that Nate Dogg kills.
From the stupidity of the middle of the album, it gets back to some seriousness with the strong 'Spend Some Time' and the better 'Mockingbird', being about his daughters. 'Crazy in Love' is all Em just singing. He can handle a hook but a whole song...Not so much. The change-up with the hook is nice but it's a weak song. I don't like the beat or hook on 'One Shot 2 Shot' and then 'Encore' finishes the album off strongly.
Overall, Eminem has less to say here and the middle of the album is stupid but I feel like it has a reputation of being a complete mess and it isn't that. I like a lot of the beats. If you put a sober Em on some of the beats on the stupider songs, you'd have strong songs because the beats aren't bad at all. A sizeable fall from his best album, 'The Eminem Show', but if you delete a few songs you've still got some good Eminem on offer.
Beats: ★★★★
Bars: ★★★
Hooks: ★★★
Best Tracks: Evil Deeds, Never Enough, Like Toy Soldiers, Mosh, Spend Some Time, Mockingbird.
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