Relapse > The Eminem Show?

[Blu]

My friend (whose name will be disclosed) got me thinking today. Could Relapse be better than The Eminem Show? I will have to dissect this challenging argument one-by-one, so let's roll.


Relapse (released in 2009) on the left, The Eminem Show (released in 2002) on the right.

First off, let us discuss the beats. What's better: Eminem's own production, or Dre's beats?
I am glad that Eminem produced his own beats, and most of them were pretty good. Of the songs that he did produce on The Eminem Show, I feel like his strongest had to be "White America", "Cleanin' Out My Closet", "Superman", "Till I Collapse", and "Say Goodbye Hollywood". I feel like "Soldier" could have been on this list, but the beat was too simple. It could have been a lot more menacing since he sounded so angry on the song.

Now, what about Dre's beats on Relapse? Songs like "Same Song & Dance", "Deja Vu", "Crack A Bottle", "Underground", "3 A.M.", "Stay Wide Awake", and "Insane" have such a cinematic feel that it's beautiful. I kinda wish Em had the same type of "Underground" beat in place of the beat used for "Won't Back Down" on Recovery, but oh well.


Not those beats..

Let's move on to lyrics. Throughout The Eminem Show, Eminem's spitting real bars. Stuff with substance; meaning. On "Sing For The Moment", Slim raps ("They say music can alter moods and talk to you, well, can it load a gun up for you and cock it too?"). On Relapse however, his life was not the main focus. This gave him a switch of what he could rap about, and I guess in lyrical terms the albums cannot really be compared. You see, on Relapse Eminem took the role of a serial killer, nearly killing on every single track. There was a few however, like "Beautiful" and "Deja Vu" that talked about his personal life. It also seemed like on "Must Be The Ganja" that Em was rapping for the hell of it, and sometimes it's not so appealing to some people.


Get ready to spit some "real" bars...

Sorry for not fully elaborating on this whole topic, it's like 1 am over here so.. yeah. Feel free to vote!

[AbramIsaac]

Are you practicing to write for Cracked, or do you just like the format? Just curious.

The Eminem Show is most definitely the better album. While Relapse may have it beat in terms of lyricism and production (arguably), it's not really fleshed out. These are technical terms, that should complement the overall product, not be necessary to define it.

I'm sure there are people out there that prefer Relapse though...somewhere.

[Hopsinshadie]

In all honesty TES is better because he put his heart into it more. The only song on Relapse that resembled TES quality was Beautiful.

[Kill You]

TES is definitely better. It's not even about substance, or "putting his heart into it", it's just simply better. End of story. I do love Relapse though...I do agree that Relapse has a more cinematic feel than TES and probably a more unified sound as well, but that's the only thing Relapse beats TES in. Oh yeah, and his rhyming on Relapse > TES, but not the lyrics themselves.

[Jdubem]

Eminem Show is way better. On it you get the feeling that he was really being himself. Relapse he was trying too hard to be the old crazy slim shady character thing and it just felt forced this time.

[Mathers]

The Eminem Show without a doubt.

[Amaranthine]

I love Relapse, but I don't think there's any question that TES is better.

[EminemBase]

You can only compare like to like.

It doesn't make sense to compare these albums, to me. The themes and structure, and intent, are entirely different. One is primarily introspective, the other is primarily abstract and conceptual.

[trinell05]

Are you practicing to write for Cracked, or do you just like the format? Just curious.

The Eminem Show is most definitely the better album. While Relapse may have it beat in terms of lyricism and production (arguably), it's not really fleshed out. These are technical terms, that should complement the overall product, not be necessary to define it.

I'm sure there are people out there that prefer Relapse though...somewhere.

I called him out on that Cracked style of writing, too. It's cool on cracked, but annoying as fuck on here. Relapse? Relapse? RELAPSE? No. Hell no. No way in fucking hell is it better than The Eminem Show. If one of my friends said some shit to me like that, I'd cut them off for life. I already stopped talking to one bitch when she kept saying Eminem was ugly while at the same time she was dating a Carlos Mencia lookalike.

Don't get me wrong, Relapse is perfect in its own little way somehow, but I haven't figured it out yet. Marshall likes to challenge us. I once played Relapse over and over again for an entire day and nope, still didn't get into it, which is very telling about an album. I made sure to play "No Strings Attached" to cleanse my spirit, which is actually an amazing fucking album. But I haven't quite given up on it. One day it shall make an appearance, but not today or tomorrow. "Hello" was my favorite ringtone, though.

Janet Jackson's head is 10x bigger than her body now. Weird. So The Eminem Show is going to better than most of his albums because of the emotional substance and its ability to be relatable. Not to mention "Superman", anyone? Hot shit, there. Beats? Maybe it's the subtle beats that make the album so much better because you're concentrating on what Marshall is saying more so than trying to bang your head to some serial killer, intense beat-making bullshit.

So, that being said, I'll vote for The Eminem Show and for you to reevaluate your friend situation.

[Innovation]

The Eminem Show without a doubt.

[Blu]

I made this thread to spark a discussion, not just have one liners saying "TES is better."

EXPLAIN to me why The Eminem Show is better.

@Abram, I just like the style.
@EmBase, I pointed that out in the OP, but that is the best point so far.

[SoldierShady]

Troll thread? o.O TES is obviously better. On to the next.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

In all honesty TES is better because he put his heart into it more. The only song on Relapse that resembled TES quality was Beautiful.

Where do you people come from?

I do respect a person that likes TES more than Relapse,but that reason plus you putting the word "beautiful" my dick!

and yea im one of the few who'd LISTEN to relapse over TES anyday.

[MOD22]

[12characters]

Okay. I feel like Relapse had too much filler, with "We Made You", "Crack A Bottle", and "Old Time's Sake". There's not one song on TES that I can skip, and more songs on TES are in my top Eminem songs than songs from Relapse. I feel like Eminem put more effort into TES, and I like the beats on TES more.
Relapse has some great lyricism, flow is fantastic, and beats are pretty good, but I feel like as a whole Eminem tried a lot more on TES and it worked better.


All this is imo of course.

And again, I still love Relapse. I love all of Eminem's albums tbh.

Rex with them politically correct answers .