It had been quite a while since Eminem had last released an album, and it wasn’t until after two years of releasing the The Marshall Mathers LP did Eminem finally decide to bring out his third and best remembered album amongst most fans, the one that sold 1 million copies in the first week. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to welcome you all to The Eminem Show.

The wait between albums proved to be irrelevant for Eminem as his album soared to the top of every chart within days. And, as a famous man once said, “The longer the wait, the bigger the comeback.” Wait, no one said that, I just made it up. Or maybe I read it somewhere… Anyway, it doesn’t matter, the point is that Eminem’s absence from the press and from the musical world worked greatly to his advantage when he released his this album. As an old school Eminem fan, I remember the excitement and the hype surrounded by this album. It meant he was back. Coincidentally, he was back only about seven or eight months after 9/11, when it was still a very sensitive issue., and when the American government and it’s policies on terrorism were coming into question.

It was quite fitting that Eminem should stage a comeback at this time, and in the video of his song “Without Me” he quickly made fun of Bin Laden and the recording Bin Laden released, mocking both relentlessly. But now to the album itself, and its opening track, “White America.” This seems to be a reflection on his impact on, as the title suggests, the white population of America. Unlike other songs that he has made discussing this impact, this one focuses mainly on the middle class, whereas the others tended to focus more on lower and upper classes, and the unjust gap between them. When reflecting on this impact he makes gender distinctions on what he has cleverly called Eric and Erica. The age bracket he deals with seems to be teens, with references to TRL and “little Eric” it also takes the piss out of Congress and the State in general. The song itself is, like almost all of the songs on the album, very well written and has a nice beat to go along with it and I’m happy to say that it meets the high lyrical standards, and it’s well composed, with Eminem raging about Congress and cleverly calling it a Democracy of Hipocracy.

Next up is “Business.” I hope you’ll excuse me if I continuously stress the lyrical talent and quality of the songs, but with Eminem it simply cannot be ignored. Another song with great lyrics, It doesn’t deal with anything in particular, it’s mainly just showing Eminem’s funner lighter side, and takes the piss out of rap in general, calling it full of clowns! However, “Cleanin’ out my Closet” is a much, much more serious song,. It deals with the loss of his father when he was just a baby, his relationship with his mother and his relationship with Kim Mathers.

Eminem goes from serious to funny again in literally about three seconds, with the song “Square Dance” hardly being considered his most personal song. It does however meet the high lyrical standard of the album, with the classic Eminem style beat in the background. And I suppose it does deal with 9/11 a little bit, but fails to make any real statement due to it’s lack of seriousness. Eminem goes back to serious with the song “Soldier.” It’s a great song, unbelievably underrated, the lyrics are brilliant. Definetly one of the best songs on the album. It deals with an incident that Eminem had with a bouncer involving his wife, how he thinks he’ll “never be Marshall again” and the effect that rap has had on him, as opposed to the effect of his rap on others. Eminem really pours his heart and soul into this great song, as he says himself towards the end; “Listen to the sound of me spillin’ my heart through this pen”.

Not much else to mention in the album until we get to “Without Me.” Despite being about, number 10. on the album it is largely considered his comeback song. And yes, you guessed it, following the seriousness of the songs before this one shoots right back to funny. Again, he shows his range in rap, with some brilliant lyrics. He really takes the piss in this song, from Batman to Moby, he tries to squeeze everyone into this five minute song. It really does have great lyrics, I even rewound some parts to the song to hear them again.

Then theres “Sing for the Moment.” Eminem’s album goes from funny back to serious again as if it suffered bi-polar. At this stage I’d probably call it ridiculous, only for the songs themselves are simply stunning. In this song he tries to talk about, and relate to, what he feels is his stereotyped listeners, He also discusses his influence on them and raps influence on crime and violence amongst youths. The track finishes with a top-notch guitar solo at the end.

The brilliantly written, slightly misogynistic, highly controversial and highly disputed song “Superman” (the video of which had been banned in several countries due to it’s obscenity) is the only mentionable distraction on the road to the second last track on the album. One of the best songs on the album and by far one of the best rap songs I’ve ever heard, “‘Till I Collapse.”

It’s just like “Soldier” only better, and shockingly even more underrated. The lyrics here are pure genius, absolutely incomparable to any other in perhaps the entire rap industry. Eminem shows why we missed him in the first place with an absolutely stunning song, often rhyming two words at once for long periods of time. It’s one of those songs you’d buy an entire album for, and I’m very disappointed it wasn’t released as a single.

But I suppose you can’t have all the tracks on an album released and with an album like this Eminem was spoilt for choice. If you have any interest in rap whatsoever this album is an absolute must buy, and one that will certainly be remembered long after many other great rap albums will have been forgotten.