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“Eminem, Encore - Without doubt the most compelling...”

written by Kevin Unitt on 23/11/2004

Good Points
Yellow Brick Road
Toy Soldiers
Mockingbird

Bad Points
My 1st Single
A** Like That
Crazy In Love

General Comments
Eminem, Encore - Without doubt the most compelling album Eminem has ever produced, Encore is also his most confusing and amusing. On first listen you cannot help but be shocked by the monotone beats and the rambling and at times pointless lyrics. But then, when you remember the artist has always proved himself smarter than his haters, you realise that this is precisely his intention.

This album is meant to showcase the new-found boredom which has engulfed his life, and the fact that he's run out of things to say and people to take shots at. Everyone loves him, and he is showing how it's destroying a career built on battles, both imaginery and real, both against himself and the outside world. Yet despite the lack of fire in his voice, the album still has truly great moments and proves this man doesn't have to threaten, insult and fight to make an entertaining record.
For example, Toy Soldiers, which cleverly distinguishes his beef with Ja Rule by rising above it and not cussing his opponent, is the album's best song. It is quickly followed by Mosh, by far his most mature and politically aware lyric yet. Yellow Brick Road and Mockingbird, the album's other two brilliant tracks, remind us how difficult his past, and present, private life really has been.

This album is not very pleasing on the ears, but then this man's music rarely is. It's what he has to say that's important. And in not once threatening someone, and not once mentioning drugs, this is what makes it so new and so enthralling, and shows the artist has evolved.