EminemBase wrote:Well I tend not to pit his albums against each other much now as it doesn't make much sense.
You can only really compare like to like and I can't judge Relapse against The Eminem Show when The Eminem Show is a rock-rap, political, introspective album and Relapse is an abstract, bouncy, bombastic, spazzy sounding album with psychopathic and sort-of, thematic, fantasy presentation...
It'd be like trying to compare a drama to a horror, I can only really compare drama to drama.
I could actually judge The Eminem Show against Encore or The Slim Shady LP against The Marshall Mathers LP, as they're paired albums, they lead in to each other and are of the same world.
Generally speaking though, I judge each album by its individual merits. I don't really care where the album ranks, I just want it to be good, I want to be blown away.
I could however step outside of that and I would still rank The Marshall Mathers LP as his greatest album, just as, a piece of art, just as: a presentation, a project. The thought put in to it, the consistency of it, the cohesiveness of it etc. - there's many ways to judge and describe and analyze an album or a piece of work, but I think more generic concepts such as 'cohesiveness' might make it more possible to judge all the albums / rank them as a whole, in a more simplistic way.
But yeah, unless I'm writing an article, I don't care or think about it. I just want a classic.
I don't think your assessments are consistent at all. You say that you won't compare a drama to a horror, but continue to divulge that you're happy to compare the SSLP to the MMLP because they're pairs? Yes they lead into one another (note that titles can be misleading), but this contradicts your earlier point. The SSLP is completely different in direction to the MMLP. The former is Eminem testing out rhyming patterns and flows, getting into the Shady character and at the same time showing how shit his life was. It's an extension of the SSEP, and quite comparable to the mindset Em might have had when he began to formulate Relapse. Whilst Relapse was a come-back album, the SSLP was Eminem's last chance to get into the game, so he really had to set himself apart from other rappers. The MMLP, meanwhile, is a reactionary album, and I really don't see the need to describe the differences because they're plain to see. The underpinning orientation is completely different to the SSLP, so this really refutes your proclamation that
you can only really compare like to like. The SSLP and MMLP are alike only in title. Eminem stated that he was going to call the MMLP
Amsterdam before he realised that using his real name would fit the nature of the album: coming back and showing that he was more than just Slim Shady. That's not what the SSLP was about at all.
Eminem albums need to be taken seriously to a certain degree. If his best 10 tracks were put together on an album the album would be poor because the tracks wouldn't connect. Apart from TRSS, the MMLP works well because the tracks are beautifully orchestrated to fit together well. A story is told. I actually think this could be improved if Eminem really worked on how the album sounds if you listen to it throughout. Take MBDTF: the production is amazing in so far as how Kanye makes the tracks flow together. It's more than a journey: it's an experience. You almost can't listen to it on shuffle, whereas I can listen to all of Em's albums on shuffle and still have a similar experience as I would if they played in order (the skits do help piece his albums together).
This is why Recovery is one of Em's worst albums for me. As a form of art it appears rushed and careless; haphazard and disconnected. Hopefully his next work will show that a lot of thought has been put in to really lift it to something special.
