Day 0916 - The Marshall Mathers LP

 Eminem "The Marshall Mathers LP" (2000)

"The Slim Shady LP" (not the most original when it comes to naming albums) moved Em from underground rapper to international celebrity.   The fame and fortune didn't seem to bring happiness with it, as this album is more angry and seems to be working harder to offend (though I guess possibly he was just realising that this approach sold records so leaned into it).

Eminem hunkered down in the studio with Dr Dre and production team the Bass Brothers to work on the follow-up.   

To my mind the album is much more sonically interesting than its predecessor, with songs like "Stan", "the Way I am" and "Marhsall Mathers" being invested with a bit more musicality.

Mathers brings back his Slim Shady persona for "Criminal" and "The Real Slim Shady".   The former with it's slightly stuttered groove feels like it could have been on "Slim Shady LP".  He seems to relish in the fact that so many people/institutions hated him after his first album, name-checking and lashing out at various targets even as he runs his mouth with the usual combination of misogyny, homophobia and general crassness, baiting his critics and inviting their ire.

It's not all wink-to-the-camera trolling though, "Kim" is actually horror movie stuff.   It's Mathers playing out a scenario of confronting and murdering his wife but his passionate vocal delivery with voice cracking as he yells accusations at her, breaks down and then turns to violence makes it feel genuine.  It's disturbing, like the musical equivalent of a snuff film.    It almost feels like it could be from a hidden recording of a real domestic dispute.   I guess that's why people love/hate Eminem, whether it's his anger, his violence, or his twisted humour, it feels real.

 

Day 0893 - The Slim Shady LP

Eminem "The Slim Shady LP" (1999)

Eminem/Slim Shady/Marshall Mathers' story has already been told (in broad strokes) via the film "8 Mile":  Poor, working class white kid in a predominantly black neighbourhood, falls in love with hip-hop and builds up his skill in  underground rap battles.

Mathers released the relatively straight-ahead  hip-hop album "Infinite" which was a commercial failure and led to some DJs suggesting that as a white guy he should stick to 'rock'.   Mathers channelled his anger and frustration into a new persona Slim Shady, an angry-yet-mischievous alter ego who could and would say anything Mathers wanted him to say.

The character was a success, after an EP release, Mathers got to work with N.W.A.'s Dr Dre of whom he was a fan.   The pair worked well together, with beats by Dre inspiring Em.   The arrangements are mostly just stripped back to bass and beats while Mathers is rapping, but with lots of interesting bits and pieces going on in between.    

The album opens with a pretty hefty 1-2 punch of "My Name is" and "Guilty Conscience", both solid tracks that introduce the new anarchic, angry Slim Shady (his voice even sounds different than from on "Infinite") who was also an engaging storyteller.  

Where Will Smith released "Just the two of us" as a loving ode to fatherhood, Eminem's track "97' Bonnie and Clyde" previously also titled "Just the two of us" is a horror story of making his daughter unwitting accessory to murder.   The horror theme feels like it's continued on "Rock Bottom" the backing track of which sounds akin to old giallo soundtracks, maybe something from Morricone.

Mathers' first album sold around 1,000 copies.  Though he would come to largely retire the Slim Shady character as he matured, Slim helped him sell millions of copies of this second album and essentially put him on the musical map.

Day 0865 - You've Come a Long Way Baby

Fatboy Slim "You've Come a Long Way Baby" (1998) - got it

Following on from his debut "Better Living Through chemistry" (day 810) and drawing on his association with big-beat maestros the Chemical Brothers, Norman Cook pole vaulted the "difficult second album" hurdle.   He created a record that hit no.1 in his homeland of the UK, and became omnipresent worldwide via singles like "Rockafeller Skank", "Right Here, Right Now" and "Praise You".

"Rockafeller..."with its repeated vocal hook of 'the funk soul brother' kind of lays out what Cook is about here: Mixing sampled of funk and soul tracks with epic, booming beats and a whole lot of audio tweaking... dance music for the masses.

Day 0810 - Better Living Through Chemistry

Fatboy Slim "Better Living Through Chemistry" (1996)

Norman Cook was the bass player for an indie rock band called the Housemartins.  Following the breakup of that band he formed the electronic group Beats International, Cook already had a few years of clubbing and DJing under his belt by then.

Cook then adopted the moniker Fatboy Slim to begin his solo career proper.    

This first Fatboy Slim album features tracks already recorded and released by Cook at different times throughout his career, but, despite this and the mix and match of sounds, it's a fairly cohesive collection of fun and funky big-beat tracks.   It already has that Fatboy Slim feeling of mixing a little bit of old with a bit of new to create something fun enough to dance to, but universal enough it its appeal that non-dance fans can get in on it too.   

Pretty sure I recognised "Going out of my head" from different tv shows and/or commercials.   I'm guessing that that commercialism may have earned Cook some criticism.   Accusations of 'selling out' and all that.  Who cares though, when the music is good.

Day 0772 - Copper Blue

Sugar "Copper Blue" (1992)

After Hüsker Dü called it a day, frontman Bob Mould released a couple of acoustic-y solo albums that didn't fare too well.   His record company released him from his contract and he set about writing the music for what would become Sugar. 

Mould returns to his favoured style of distorted guitars with melodic vocals.  I'll be honest, his stuff doesn't do much for me.   It's generally listenable enough, and I can hear his influence on a few bands I know and like, but these songs really just passed me by without leaving much of an impression.  Same with much of the Hüsker Dü I've heard.

In interviews and press, Sugar were plagued by Nirvana questions and comparisons and whether the band was doing well thanks to the grunge scene.  All this despite Mould's former band having been a probable influence on many of the grunge bands, so that can't have been easy for Mould.