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He's playing the same old marshall vs shady real-or-fake game as usual and its as interesting and complex as it ever was.
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We've heard it all before, we know the punchline, we've bought into the joke, but still we want the delivery again and again.
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Where The Marshall Mathers LP sounded like a primal howl of rage, The Eminem Show showcases an artist trying to make sense out of the chaos and turmoil in his personal and professional life.
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It's a third album that avoids all the pitfalls of third albums: introspective without being self-pitying, expansive in scope without being pompous, exploring new directions without disappearing up its own arse.
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Beyond allowing peeks into his life, Eminem's other gambits are self-pity and self-mythologizing, and they aren't nearly as potent.
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Eminem just may have made the best rap-rock album in history
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VibeThe Eminem Show is a brilliant piece of theater and a guilty pleasure. [Aug 2002, p.155]
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"The Eminem Show" is not a great artistic step forward, but it reaffirms Eminem's stature as a talented and prescient pop star.
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The Eminem Show is essentially a holding pattern, but it's a glorious one -- one that proves Eminem is the gold standard in pop music in 2002, delivering stylish, catchy, dense, funny, political music that rarely panders.
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This is mainly an improvement on a brilliant formula.
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With each successive album Eminem finds new depth and excitement within the same themes and structures he used way back on The Slim Shady LP, so even if new songs contain earmarks of Eminem classics, they still feel reinvigorated.
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A thump-and-groove driven Cadillac ride down the shadowy streets of Motown.
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The Eminem Show lacks the overwhelming, single-minded force that The Marshall Mathers LP had.
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MixerIt's safe to say that if you liked Em's last two albums, you'll like this one. [Aug 2002, p.80]
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He often riffs for too long, so by the time he's singing to his daughter on "Hailie's Song," you feel the album's nearly 80-minute length.
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UncutBehind the hype and the swagger, he's still baring enough of his soul for The Eminem Show to be compelling theatre. [Aug 2002, p.118]
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Q MagazineThe only problem is Slim Shady. As Eminem outgrows his old alter-id, so the obligatory pantomime villainy, skits and crass cameos by Shady Records signings become a hindrance. [July 2002, p.109]
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The Eminem Show has pretensions toward real life, but it possesses all the resonance and revelation of a sitcom.
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A disappointing combination of promising musical experimentation and uninspired lyrics.
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We're unlikely to hear another platinum-selling album in 2002 that sounds as tired and thoroughly played out as the fourth offering from the troubled young Marshall Mathers.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 1,699 out of 1850
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Mixed: 39 out of 1850
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Negative: 112 out of 1850
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Jun 5, 2012
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Aug 13, 2010
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Nov 1, 2018