The Marshall Mathers LP

"Won't the real Slim Shady please stand up?" Eminem asks on "The Real Slim Shady," the wickedly catchy first single from The Marshall Mathers LP. On his second album, the artist sometimes known as Marshall Mathers further muddles the line between first and third person in another series of cultural rants projected through his twisted eyes. Or is it through Shady's?
Back in the fold is producer and mentor Dr. Dre, who handles the production with cohort Mel-Man on about half of the album's tracks. The magic that comes with Dre's producing Eminem is old news. Of particular interest here are the half-dozen tracks that Em produced or co-produced. With The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem is every bit as comfortable within his own soundscapes as Dre's trademarked pulsing front seat rhythms of guitar ("Kill You"), bass ("Who Knew") or whatever's handy (check out the harpsichord on "Slim Shady"). While Eminem's angrier production arrangements don't have the same relaxed, driving-with-the-windows-down groove that lodge Dre's melodic formula into your head, he still is quite adept at putting a track in your face. "The Way I Am," with its haunting chorus church bells, is a fierce plea for privacy and provides a textured contrast to Dre's laid back funk-stylings. And on "Kim" he puts aside his Motor City motor mouth style to sing over a Zeppelin-esque drum loop; it's (as is often the case) a bloodbath of a tune peppered with plenty of anger, obsession and, of course, throat cutting. As for said lyrical targets, Eminem's interests know no bounds, but they're nicely summarized in the skit "Steve Berman." "Do you know why Dre's record was so successful?" a character asks. "He's rapping about big-screen TVs, blunts, 40s and bitches," he tells Em. Eminem is far more interested in what's on those big screen TVs. On Mathers he fires away and pokes fun at 'N Sync ("these fucking brats can't sing . . . gimme back my $16"), Insane Clown Posse (a slurpy minute-long skit in which Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J swap turns sucking Ken Kaniff's dick), Jennifer Lopez ("If I stuck it to any woman in showbiz, it'd be Jennifer Lopez, and Puffy you know this") and the much-publicized Christina Aguilera cum Carson Daly and Fred Durst musing, in which Em, Daly and Durst "argue over who she gave head to first."
But that's the upshot of having a Slim Shady. Though Eminem was quick to separate himself from the character Shady on his last, the title of the second album makes such a distinction a little more difficult, as Mathers makes at least as many appearances as his whacked-out counterpart. But why bother? For the many objectionable qualities that surface on an Eminem album, there's still a style unique to rap and music in general. Should the real Eminem please stand up? Nah - so long as he shares sound space with Shady, we can laugh along with a crooked eyebrow that shows we know the difference between real and make-believe.