Monday, May 12, 2008

2002–2003: The Eminem Show


Eminem's third major album, The Eminem Show, was released in summer 2002 and proved to be another hit for the rapper reaching number one on the charts and selling well over 1 million copies in its first week of release.
It featured the single "Without Me", an apparent sequel to "The Real Slim Shady", in which he makes derogatory comments about boy bands, Limp Bizkit, Moby, and Lynne Cheney, among others. The album reflected on the impact of his rise to fame, his relationship with his wife and daughter, and his status in the hip-hop community. He also addresses the charges he faced over assaulting a bouncer he saw kissing his wife in 2000.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide felt that while there was clear anger present on several tracks, this album was considerably less inflammatory than The Marshall Mathers LP.
However, L. Brent Bozell III, who previously criticized The Marshall Mathers LP for perceived misogynistic lyrics in the album, noted The Eminem Show for its extensive use of obscene language, giving Eminem a nickname of "Eminef" for the bowdlerization of motherfucker, an obscenity prevalent in the album.
In 2003, "Weird Al" Yankovic was denied permission to make a video for "Couch Potato", his parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself".
"Last year, Eminem forced me to halt production on the video for my 'Lose Yourself' parody because he somehow thought that it would be harmful to his image or career." For the Poodle Hat Al TV special, Yankovic raised the question of artistic expression in a false interview with Eminem. As Yankovic has always done for his Al TV specials, he edited the footage of a previous Eminem interview and inserted himself asking questions to give the impression of hypocrisy on the matter of an artist's right to free speech.

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