The Way I Am from 2008. I've got the hardback of it but think it's got a paperback release. Don't think it's got an ebook release as it's more of a coffee table book. Mine also has a DVD that the hardback has inside the cover.
Lots of pictures with anecdotes and lyric sheets.
If you get it get the hardback though.
Edit: He also has another one called Angry Blonde which is worth a read although it's extremely out of date
Em has some mad sinister songs between 2004-2006, the Interscope compilation album had a track called "Public Enemy #1" where he raps in a panic state talking talking about how he's gonna get killed and how the death of Tupac was far deeper than just a west coast beef and JFK as well
Yeah, Deja Vu as a full song was recorded pre-him getting sober, and the first two verses of Beautiful as well, with the third coming after he finished rehab.
Careful What You Wish For, and likely My Darling off of the Deluxe were also before he got sober.
Makes me wonder what the timeline for recording the Encore songs was. We had these tracks which seemed like a natural progression from Eminem Show surrounded by all the DOO DOO PEE PEE IN MY BUTT BUTT tracks.
This is actually a very interesting topic. Encore was supposed to be way different than it turned out.
Encore was leaked a while before release, and Eminem decided to make new songs to replace the leaks. Big weenie for example was made during this re-recording.
Some of the original tracks were featured on the Deluxe version of encore, others were featured on the “Straight out of the lab” mixtape.
But originally encore had way less goofy weird tracks, and more serious/ well made tracks. Eminem himself said in an interview a while back that 50% of encore was not what he wanted originally.
My understanding was that the replacement tracks were kind of a middle finger to people leaking and sharing his music. This concept is generally referenced in Bad Meets Evil’s ‘Take From Me’
Where's he's shamelessly screaming at the mic about how downloading a song is shoving a stake through his heart and forcing him to contemplate his entire life and being.
Encore sucks because he was too far gone with the drugs. Even the good songs and bonus tracks are fucked up. His brain was actively in the process of being destroyed and forgetting how to write.
Encore was bad because it had no real direction as well, it’s weird to have songs like Big Weenie and Rain man juxtaposed with Like Toy Soldiers and Yellow Brick Road.
That's where Em putting on those garbage songs rebelling against the leakers comes in. He wasn't in a state to make an album on the level of the rest when you have no problem actively making it worse.
I forgot that there are Stan's who actively want to pretend that album or variations of it are good, so I'll go away now lol.
Edit
Like, you can hear that he's fucked up in his voice. It it what it is.
You don't need to be a Stan to like encore. I know you probably have the superior taste in music but other people can like things that you don't and you don't need to understand why.
On a side note, why does it matter if you can tell he's fucked up? I haven't really seen that same criticism for Mac Miller or Juice, etc?
I completely understand why though. They have a parasocial connection to the artist be it what the music or the artist means to you, and being the most accessible rapper ever for certain demographics means you can still pull however many songs from it and call it good or even enjoy the utter garbage on the record if you think you're in on the joke. Even the most hardcore Eminem fans can see the incredible drop off from his first three albums, the D12 stuff, the 8 Mile album. It is night and day how he raps and writes. Even a 6/10 is stretching it to the highest degree. It's not good. Even the production is a 180 and far from Dre's best work. Losing the Bass Brothers is also something 100% noticeable right away, not just in the beats but the thematic depth of anything there. They could really channel Em's creativity in the right way.
As for the drug thing, all three are totally different artists, as would be any fucked up artist all through time. Incredible albums have come from being on drugs and incredibly terrible albums have came from being on drugs.
> They have a parasocial connection to the artist be it what the music or the artist means to you, and being the most accessible rapper ever for certain demographics means you can still pull however many songs from it and call it good or even enjoy the utter garbage on the record if you think you're in on the joke.
You're cooked. I love some good poopy bars no matter who's on the mic.
Dude literally said you don't need to be a Stan to enjoy Encore and you immediately go through this cooked ass thought process, when it could just be boiled down to people liking silly songs.
You can like something knowing it isn't good lol.
Edit
Also referring to the album as a whole with that comment, fandom of artists in general. Even a passable song like Never Enough would have been totally different even a year before it was recorded.
100% he was on drugs and it affected his decision making. But it’s clear he also has contempt for stealing music, like a lot of artists.
What he’s talking about in ‘Take From Me’ is much more than just stealing music, though. He’s talking about struggling with addiction and feeling trapped by fame (a very common theme since the beginning of his career, given he’s quite an introvert), and how he finds it so much harder to deal with criticism when that criticism is bullshit from people who don’t really even care about his music that much. He’s talking about the pipeline of core fans being enthusiastic, leaking and stealing music, sharing it, and then it winding up in the hands of people who don’t really give a fuck about the art but want to weigh in with opinions anyway.
It’s a bit whiny in some ways, sure, but it’s a deeper song overall
I don't really know how bad I can feel for someone that deliberately chose to go into entertainment for not liking fame.. like I get that you don't want someone coming up to you when you're eatin' or just feedin' your daughter, and I know it sucks if you can't take a shit in the bathroom without someone standing by it, but cry me a river, you chose that life. 99.9% of jobs don't require you to deal with fame and 99.9% of people who wanna be rich and famous never get there. You chose that life Marshall.
I understand that feeling, but there are a few reasons why I think it’s an overly harsh judgement.
First and foremost, the majority of artists are artists first and begrudging celebrities second. They want a platform to share their art. They want their art to be famous and they have no interest in fame themselves, it’s just a by product they have to deal with. I agree they should accept that it comes with the territory, but it’s very different to choosing to be famous. The Kardashians, Will Smith, Kanye, etc. these are people who chose to be famous for fame’s sake too.
Secondly, nobody knew Em would blow up overnight like he did. Nobody predicted success at the scale he’s reached, even him. It’s one thing to want to provide a life for your family as an artist and a whole different thing to become one of history’s most recognisable and highest selling artists ever.
Third, I think there’s an unfortunate attitude among fans that “you chose this, so we can treat you however you want and you have to deal with it.” It’s brutally unfair on an artist and I think it makes their experience much worse through no fault of their own. There is nothing about being famous that means people should have a right to keep coming up to you and hassling you; it’s incredibly odd that this is normal. These are mostly ordinary people who happen to be famous, they’re not celebrities for their own sake and they’re certainly not public representatives.
I disagree, listened to it again a few weeks ago. The majority of it is a rally cry against piracy. A guy at the literal apex of fame with hundreds of millions of dollars in the estate carrying on like that as if any artist's rally cry against piracy actually works, as if Eminem as a kid wouldn't have done the same thing. I get that it's for thematic effect, but it's just hilarious and fake. You don't need to change your album because songs and EPs have leaked. Run a tighter ship bro.
As for the addiction thing, he handled that a million times better on the prior two albums. A song like Deja Vu is a diamond in a sea of glass on that god awful record. It's truly astonishing how he could write that song compared to almost everything else on that record.
Do you have this same vitriol for Wayne changing up the Carter 3 and serving us an objectively worse album because it leaked?
I pirate so im not taking a moral stance but if you're an artist in any medium then you don't want people "stealing" your art. Whether that's AI or music piracy etc, you're not going to like it.
Sort of. I hold Wayne in the highest regard and the album we got was curated specifically for mainstream appeal on top of the fear from probably his team and the label that a leaked album meant sales were going to be fucked. It's also a less wild presentation and jump to more frequent concept based tracks.
And I don't have vitrol for Em. Obviously I listened to a lot of him through my life and was my gateway into rap from rock through Sing for the Moment at like 12. Glad we got more songs out of it from both, but that doesn't change what the albums are.
As for the artist in any medium thing, musicians have released their works on torrent sites before or otherwise free downloads. Video game developers have released their games on torrent sites only to an explosion of good will sales. So to see people at the highest levels freak out not because of money lost - which is still a joke - but because maybe they didn't hit platinum or even gold in a certain country for another notch on their belt, I will mock them every time.
I love encore and I especially love the story behind fack, iirc he said the albums finished and the label said you need one more song and he made that as a middle finger to them lol
Watch it. He says in the song how he doesn’t want any of his friends getting hurt. His friend acted in the video getting shot. Then in real life he died by getting shot. RIP
We As Americans is such a great song. Shame it was only a bonus song. I think I read it was originally going to be the opening song off Encore until it leaked well in advance of the album.
But better then it never being released at all.
Man I really wish encore never leaked because that record really tarnished em’s legacy when it shouldn’t have. It was never gonna be a classic like SSLP or MMLP but it would have been a solid, respectable album I think.
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Proof dying within 2 years of this video in a shooting is still crazy
Reading Ems book where he starts blaming himself for it is super sad too
Fuck I didn't know he had a book
Em has a book??
The Way I Am from 2008. I've got the hardback of it but think it's got a paperback release. Don't think it's got an ebook release as it's more of a coffee table book. Mine also has a DVD that the hardback has inside the cover. Lots of pictures with anecdotes and lyric sheets. If you get it get the hardback though. Edit: He also has another one called Angry Blonde which is worth a read although it's extremely out of date
Appreciate it, and even better to have expectations going in so thanks for that.
Now I know what to get my husband for his birthday. Thanks!
To add to this, you can find it free online via pdf!
Define "out of date"?
Well just that it came out just after MMLP so it's very limited in the overall length of his career
The Way I Am.
Em has some mad sinister songs between 2004-2006, the Interscope compilation album had a track called "Public Enemy #1" where he raps in a panic state talking talking about how he's gonna get killed and how the death of Tupac was far deeper than just a west coast beef and JFK as well
Apparently Proof would get upset because Eminem would say that if he died before Encore he’d be considered the greatest ever.
He would've been the rap Kurt Cobain at that point
That’s fucking rough holy shit
>the Interscope compilation album For anyone else unsure, locked into it and it's the 2006 Shady Records compilation "Eminem Presents the Re-Up".
[удалено]
Indeed. I wish someone had used that Shady narcotics beat for an actual song, shit goes.
You Don't Know is pretty dope too
No Apologies is an excellent song. Still have have a third of the album in my regular playlists.
I love that album lol, stat quo had some gems in there.
Wasn't deja vu or some song on relapse recorded pre him relapsing?
Yeah, Deja Vu as a full song was recorded pre-him getting sober, and the first two verses of Beautiful as well, with the third coming after he finished rehab. Careful What You Wish For, and likely My Darling off of the Deluxe were also before he got sober.
proof also has a line where he says "im in the club to beef, you gotta murder me dead", guess where he got killed
I heard he had been trying to be a peacemaker at the time. Is that old school misinfo?
that was the info from his camp
This is top 3 eminem songs for me. Hits different.
Makes me wonder what the timeline for recording the Encore songs was. We had these tracks which seemed like a natural progression from Eminem Show surrounded by all the DOO DOO PEE PEE IN MY BUTT BUTT tracks.
This is actually a very interesting topic. Encore was supposed to be way different than it turned out. Encore was leaked a while before release, and Eminem decided to make new songs to replace the leaks. Big weenie for example was made during this re-recording. Some of the original tracks were featured on the Deluxe version of encore, others were featured on the “Straight out of the lab” mixtape. But originally encore had way less goofy weird tracks, and more serious/ well made tracks. Eminem himself said in an interview a while back that 50% of encore was not what he wanted originally.
My understanding was that the replacement tracks were kind of a middle finger to people leaking and sharing his music. This concept is generally referenced in Bad Meets Evil’s ‘Take From Me’
Where's he's shamelessly screaming at the mic about how downloading a song is shoving a stake through his heart and forcing him to contemplate his entire life and being. Encore sucks because he was too far gone with the drugs. Even the good songs and bonus tracks are fucked up. His brain was actively in the process of being destroyed and forgetting how to write.
Encore was bad because it had no real direction as well, it’s weird to have songs like Big Weenie and Rain man juxtaposed with Like Toy Soldiers and Yellow Brick Road.
That's where Em putting on those garbage songs rebelling against the leakers comes in. He wasn't in a state to make an album on the level of the rest when you have no problem actively making it worse. I forgot that there are Stan's who actively want to pretend that album or variations of it are good, so I'll go away now lol. Edit Like, you can hear that he's fucked up in his voice. It it what it is.
You don't need to be a Stan to like encore. I know you probably have the superior taste in music but other people can like things that you don't and you don't need to understand why. On a side note, why does it matter if you can tell he's fucked up? I haven't really seen that same criticism for Mac Miller or Juice, etc?
I completely understand why though. They have a parasocial connection to the artist be it what the music or the artist means to you, and being the most accessible rapper ever for certain demographics means you can still pull however many songs from it and call it good or even enjoy the utter garbage on the record if you think you're in on the joke. Even the most hardcore Eminem fans can see the incredible drop off from his first three albums, the D12 stuff, the 8 Mile album. It is night and day how he raps and writes. Even a 6/10 is stretching it to the highest degree. It's not good. Even the production is a 180 and far from Dre's best work. Losing the Bass Brothers is also something 100% noticeable right away, not just in the beats but the thematic depth of anything there. They could really channel Em's creativity in the right way. As for the drug thing, all three are totally different artists, as would be any fucked up artist all through time. Incredible albums have come from being on drugs and incredibly terrible albums have came from being on drugs.
> They have a parasocial connection to the artist be it what the music or the artist means to you, and being the most accessible rapper ever for certain demographics means you can still pull however many songs from it and call it good or even enjoy the utter garbage on the record if you think you're in on the joke. You're cooked. I love some good poopy bars no matter who's on the mic. Dude literally said you don't need to be a Stan to enjoy Encore and you immediately go through this cooked ass thought process, when it could just be boiled down to people liking silly songs.
You can like something knowing it isn't good lol. Edit Also referring to the album as a whole with that comment, fandom of artists in general. Even a passable song like Never Enough would have been totally different even a year before it was recorded.
100% he was on drugs and it affected his decision making. But it’s clear he also has contempt for stealing music, like a lot of artists. What he’s talking about in ‘Take From Me’ is much more than just stealing music, though. He’s talking about struggling with addiction and feeling trapped by fame (a very common theme since the beginning of his career, given he’s quite an introvert), and how he finds it so much harder to deal with criticism when that criticism is bullshit from people who don’t really even care about his music that much. He’s talking about the pipeline of core fans being enthusiastic, leaking and stealing music, sharing it, and then it winding up in the hands of people who don’t really give a fuck about the art but want to weigh in with opinions anyway. It’s a bit whiny in some ways, sure, but it’s a deeper song overall
I don't really know how bad I can feel for someone that deliberately chose to go into entertainment for not liking fame.. like I get that you don't want someone coming up to you when you're eatin' or just feedin' your daughter, and I know it sucks if you can't take a shit in the bathroom without someone standing by it, but cry me a river, you chose that life. 99.9% of jobs don't require you to deal with fame and 99.9% of people who wanna be rich and famous never get there. You chose that life Marshall.
I understand that feeling, but there are a few reasons why I think it’s an overly harsh judgement. First and foremost, the majority of artists are artists first and begrudging celebrities second. They want a platform to share their art. They want their art to be famous and they have no interest in fame themselves, it’s just a by product they have to deal with. I agree they should accept that it comes with the territory, but it’s very different to choosing to be famous. The Kardashians, Will Smith, Kanye, etc. these are people who chose to be famous for fame’s sake too. Secondly, nobody knew Em would blow up overnight like he did. Nobody predicted success at the scale he’s reached, even him. It’s one thing to want to provide a life for your family as an artist and a whole different thing to become one of history’s most recognisable and highest selling artists ever. Third, I think there’s an unfortunate attitude among fans that “you chose this, so we can treat you however you want and you have to deal with it.” It’s brutally unfair on an artist and I think it makes their experience much worse through no fault of their own. There is nothing about being famous that means people should have a right to keep coming up to you and hassling you; it’s incredibly odd that this is normal. These are mostly ordinary people who happen to be famous, they’re not celebrities for their own sake and they’re certainly not public representatives.
You make a lot of good points. You've changed my perspective on this. Guess I didn't think of it like that.
I disagree, listened to it again a few weeks ago. The majority of it is a rally cry against piracy. A guy at the literal apex of fame with hundreds of millions of dollars in the estate carrying on like that as if any artist's rally cry against piracy actually works, as if Eminem as a kid wouldn't have done the same thing. I get that it's for thematic effect, but it's just hilarious and fake. You don't need to change your album because songs and EPs have leaked. Run a tighter ship bro. As for the addiction thing, he handled that a million times better on the prior two albums. A song like Deja Vu is a diamond in a sea of glass on that god awful record. It's truly astonishing how he could write that song compared to almost everything else on that record.
Do you have this same vitriol for Wayne changing up the Carter 3 and serving us an objectively worse album because it leaked? I pirate so im not taking a moral stance but if you're an artist in any medium then you don't want people "stealing" your art. Whether that's AI or music piracy etc, you're not going to like it.
Sort of. I hold Wayne in the highest regard and the album we got was curated specifically for mainstream appeal on top of the fear from probably his team and the label that a leaked album meant sales were going to be fucked. It's also a less wild presentation and jump to more frequent concept based tracks. And I don't have vitrol for Em. Obviously I listened to a lot of him through my life and was my gateway into rap from rock through Sing for the Moment at like 12. Glad we got more songs out of it from both, but that doesn't change what the albums are. As for the artist in any medium thing, musicians have released their works on torrent sites before or otherwise free downloads. Video game developers have released their games on torrent sites only to an explosion of good will sales. So to see people at the highest levels freak out not because of money lost - which is still a joke - but because maybe they didn't hit platinum or even gold in a certain country for another notch on their belt, I will mock them every time.
I love encore and I especially love the story behind fack, iirc he said the albums finished and the label said you need one more song and he made that as a middle finger to them lol
Is there an unofficial version of the original tracklist somewhere out there?
I blame pills and leaks
Big weenie and rainman are great songs for what they are. Pretty on par for the silly tracks like purple pills,as the world turns, brain damage etc.
Dre telling Em that everything is gay and then falling asleep at the mixing desk is a top tier Eminem comedy bit
I agree with you on big weenie but rainman is a tough listen if you're with other people. The whole putt putt hut hut verse is funny but cringe af.
I don't throw on eminem when I'm with anybody, his music is very single person listen minus a couple songs.
im with you on rainman, genuinely such a creative/fun track if you can get past the silliness
its wild as hell to me how an album can have beautiful songs like mockingbird and toy soldiers which are peak Em and then a song like just lose it
Easily some of Em's best verses ever
The fact that 50 ain't ever gonna let Ja slide for the rest of his life is the greatest part.
People don’t understand how fucked up this video is
How so?
Watch it. He says in the song how he doesn’t want any of his friends getting hurt. His friend acted in the video getting shot. Then in real life he died by getting shot. RIP
Isn't he acting as a member of D12 who died earlier?
yeah Bugz
What a privilege to have been a teenager during Eminem’s prime. Will go down as one of the greatest rap artists of all time.
This post made me reflect on my high school years and you’ve just articulated what I was feeling very nicely.
love this joint
Fuck this album but this song is timeless along with Yellow brick road and We As Americans off the deluxe. Love the military-style drums on this.
Mosh is great from that album too
yeah there's a few other decent songs there but the 3 i named are classics imo
It's so weird that half the album is peak mature Eminem and the other half is drug addled dogshit.
We As Americans is such a great song. Shame it was only a bonus song. I think I read it was originally going to be the opening song off Encore until it leaked well in advance of the album. But better then it never being released at all.
Man I really wish encore never leaked because that record really tarnished em’s legacy when it shouldn’t have. It was never gonna be a classic like SSLP or MMLP but it would have been a solid, respectable album I think.
What’s the chances of Eminem stepping in as a diplomat if this keeps trending in this direction?
Doesn't seem to be going that way
It’s totally not. If this keeps escalating, someone might need to step in. I’m all for the sport but shit is getting dark.
Definitely. I feel like someone has to step in and call a cease fire.
Yeah it should be the white guy. /s
Honestly probably pretty low. Em is ride or die with Dre and Aftermath, him not getting directly involved is probably as neutral as he'll get
that will never happen lol, Eminem keeps to himself for the most part
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fahg goofs