THE 50(ISH) GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME
Peanut Eminems
Album #37 : Eminem — The Marshall Mathers LP
Controversial opinion: Peanut M&Ms are disgusting.
Another controversial opinion: People who pretend to care about things like which way round the toilet roll goes in the holder need to get a life.
See, it’s easy being controversial. But, clearly, it’s difficult to do it well. That is, it’s difficult to do it like Eminem. Eminem does controversy with… not quite charm… but with humour and wit. Whilst they may be outrageous, some of the lyrics in this album are genuinely laugh out loud funny.
It is mad that we have had twenty-one years since this record and some people haven’t learned the difference between controversy and offensiveness, between the polemical and the belligerent. What shock jockeys like Katie Hopkins* don’t get is that there’s more to it than just being outrageous.
(*Author’s note: it is a genuinely proud moment to admit I couldn’t remember this women’s name and had to Google it).
For example, Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle has made a living of being controversial, but he is also incredibly smart. There is depth to it. That’s what the current generation of twitter-celebrities, people like Lee Hirst or Jim Davidson, don’t get. Twitter interactions are not the only barometer of success. Broaching controversial topics isn’t just “saying what nobody else will dare to.” There’s a reason ‘nobody else says it’, and that reason is usually because it’s something only a tosser would say.
There is an interesting phenomenon amongst ‘comedy Twitter’ especially which is people carving out niches as ‘the edgy one’ (even though there’s loads of people saying the same thing). It only leads one way, which is that they end up reaching so far for laughs that they forget to add the joke.
I saw a tweet (irony) once, from user @WhenIsBirths, that explained it perfectly as:
“Thing about ‘provocatives’, as Andrew Lawrence from the mid-noughties and Lee Hurst from 1997 are both discovering, is that you only have cachet (for want of a better word) if you keep going more and more extreme. And then one day, you go too far and you’re not even joking.”
The difference, then, seems to be the level of skill involved. What Eminem does is pummel you with such an assault of skilled lyricism, crafted music and genuine feeling that, often, the moment has passed before you realise just how disgusting and puerile his content can be. What I am saying is, and this is not a controversial opinion; Eminem is very good at what he does.
That said, he does cross the line. Some of the raps on The Marshall Mathers LP are blatantly homophobic, even if they are eloquent. And, sure, some of the ‘beefs’ seem quite dated now — there’s various mentions of Fred Durst, Tom Green, N*SYNC and a long running feud with Insane Clown Posse — but it is telling that Eminem is really the only one that is still relevant.
Even at the age of 48, he is still making records and putting people’s noses out of joint. You don’t last that long without knowing what you’re doing.
Thanks for reading — over the course of 2021, I’ll be reviewing 50(ish) of the greatest albums ever recorded. You can see the list here:
There is also a playlist featuring the best song from each album here.
