Very, very, very good!

If you’re a fan of Eminem’s other albums, then you’ll find yourself scratching your head over this one. This is a pre-Dre Eminem—a Marshall Mathers from Detroit instead of Slim Shady from L.A. Many of the tracks from this album sound a lot like the underground hip-hop you’d get from groups like The Pharcyde. Very hip-hop, very underground, very good if you’re into music that doesn’t get any airplay.

As I said, this is before the Slim Shady persona was created, and sounds like the kind of rap that “Rabbit” (from 8 Mile) would have done when he was poor and couldn’t catch a break.

If you’re open to underground hip-hop done by one of the best in the industry, you should try to dig up this album from somewhere and give it a listen.

Yawn

I’m really disappointed to see how far Eminem has fallen since his first album. Everything that I already said about “The Eminem Show” applies here too, except that this album is worse. The only good song on the whole album is “Mockingbird”. Other than that, I found myself skipping through each of the tracks as they began to bore me.

His work with D12 has been better though. Check them out if you want to hear some better stuff from Eminem.

For this album, I think Mr. Mathers was bored, and just needed to get something out to boost his CD sales. If this really was the case, it shows.

The beats aren’t what they were in previous albums, the lyrics are uninspired, and the delivery is unconvincing. He’s got a couple of pop hits here, but I felt like I could have written better stuff than I was hearing on this album… which is too bad, because I really liked Eminem’s earlier efforts.

If you’re looking for a good rap record, I’d suggest looking elsewhere. The only reason I can see for buying this album is for completeness’ sake (assuming you already have his earlier - and much better - works).

Eminem’s sophomore effort is probably the best of all of his studio albums. Whatever uncertainty was in him during the recording of the Slim Shady LP is gone, and Eminem delivers an awesome, dead-on flow that is sure to make the other rappers feel the need to change their underwear.

Dre’s musical influence is still strong in this album, making it a must-have for anyone who can appreciate the artform that is rap (“real rap”—see my posting on the Slim Shady LP).

With a tight delivery and spitfire lyrics, Eminem nails everything on this album. All other wannabe rappers should just go home now, ‘cause you haven’t got anything to bring to the mic.

This was Eminem’s first major label record, and I must say that it’s one of the best rap records in quite a while.

First of all, rap - real rap - is an artform based on beats and rhythms. Most so-called rappers don’t know the first thing about their artform, and straight-up suck.

Dr. Dre’s beats combined with Eminem’s spitfire delivery make this an album worthy of a Grammy. However, although it is very good, it sounded like he was new to all the attention he was getting—which is reasonable considering that this is his first major-label record. It wasn’t until I listened to “Infinite” that I realized why he sounded the way he did… Infinite is a radically different album, so going from the Infinite style to the Slim Shady style was a gargantuan change.

Still, this is one of the best rap albums ever put out by anyone, if you don’t mind getting offended every once in a while for the sake of an extremely talented artist.