So, here is my little thread about my favorite Eminem album, the Marshall Mathers LP, for the first anniversary of this account.
A true masterpiece, often regarded as his magnum opus, and a true hip hop classic, the MMLP was released on the 23rd of May, 2000.

The album was firstly to be named 'Amsterdam', as its core and concept took shape following some of Eminem's first interviews with the Dutch journalists. He wrote four songs about them on the flight back home. The legal use of recreational drugs, also had an important role.

"Going there for the first time was a crazy experience. It just seemed like everyone was doing drugs-all the time, everywhere. I couldn't get over how everyone was so free about it. I referenced that in my music, and we even thought about calling the second album Amsterdam." -Em

The album perfectly encapsulates that moment in time, it captures Em's anger, his rage and his will to gift the world with the biggest 'fuck you'. The light of the album's ironic bars dances with the immense darkness of violence and spite of others, creating a true masterpiece.

"I’ve always been chasing the MMLP, because I know that captured a moment, you know what I’m saying? It’s kind of like a time capsule, when I look back at it. The times that it was back then and the turmoil in my life that was happening." Eminem in 2019

The title of the album ended up settling for The Marshall Mathers LP. This album was said to be a more personal tale by its author, as more personal were his attacks: against critics, against pop artists, against Kim, against his family, and, more thoroughly, against the world.

Needless to say, the album was surrounded by controversy, coming from all sides up to the US government. Even the first cover was deemed too controversial, as it depicts Eminem, crawled on the floor, pills spread around him. A tamer second cover substituted the first edition one.

The album kicks off with a PSA, mirroring the SSLP first track. This sets the pace of the next 72 minutes, covering with insults the listener. The skit closes with a premonitory 'Sue me!' (spoiler alert: they did).

"The whole idea of this song was to say the most fucked up shit. Just to let people know that I'm back."

K*ll you has Eminem rapping over an ominous beat his supposed hatred towards women, just to end with a honey sweet "I'm just playing ladies, you know I love you."

The song is nothing more than a mean to get under his critics' skin, show them how much worse than before he could get. And he clearly achieved it, as this song's lyrics, among others, were read in more than one US Congress hearing to ask for a more restrictive music labeling.

An complete change of pace leads us to Stan, a timeless influential classic that introduced a term in the Oxford Dictionary.

"It's kinda like a message to the fans, to let 'em know that not everything that I say is meant to be taken literally."

The track features (and samples) Dido in the hook, and has notoriously been performed by Elton John at the 2001 Grammys. Eminem was facing protests for his allegedly homophobic lyrics ahead of the performance, so him and Elton were truly 'playing career Russian roulette'.

Paul introduces us to what was meant to be the album's first single, Who Knew. Unfortunately (or not), Interscope wanted a radio friendly hit, not a track ridiculing America for making him every evil in the world's scape goat.

Damn, how much damage can you do with a pen?

"Use your common sense. There's some people who think that if you tell a kid to put a g*n to his head, that he's going to do it, but kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. I mean, I was listening to 2 Live Crew when I was 11 and nothing's wrong with me, right?"

Steve Berman now delivers the best skit on the album. On the notes of 'What's the difference', Berman bashes Em's record in contrast to Dre more radio friendly one. It symbolizes Interscope reception to Eminem's most controversial album to date, ironically his most successful.

The previous skit fades into the notes of The way I am. This marks Em's first full production credit. The song is clearly a response to Interscope wanting to substitute Who Knew with another pop song, similar to My name is, and was written on the flight taking Em to LA to record.

"On the plane, I got this piano loop in my head, and I wanted to rap right along with it. So that's how I ended up rhyming in that style. I tried a regular beat, and the rhyme just would not go with it, it didn't make sense."

"I am whatever you say I am. If you think I'm an asshole, then I'm gonna show you an asshole. if you call me a misogynist, I'm a misogynist. If you say I hate gay people, then I hate gay people."
The Way I Am is not only Em expressing his frustration against his label, but also

the media, the fans who cannot respect his privacy, White America, society as a whole. Em has a word for anyone who has ever stood in his way. The fury in his voice, his delivery, is what truly makes this song a standout in an album packed with classics. You can feel it.

"I wanted to make a song where I show that everybody has a Slim Shady in 'em." That's the purpose of the radio single Em had to give to his label. And even that had its fair share of controversy, due to his pop stars disses: "[pop music] is corny, not everybody is that happy".

The album now leads us to Remember me?, a track featuring RBX and Sticky Fingaz. According to the latter, Em rewrote his verse for two months, to make it just as hot as Sticky's.

I promise to fuckin critics I wouldn't say fuckin for six minutes!
Six minutes, Slim Shady you're on

And he doesn't use the word for the next six minutes. Remember me? transitions perfectly into I'm back, my personal favorite on the album. Another highly controversial track, especially due to its Columbine massacre lines, censored even in the explicit version of the album.

"What the fuck is the big deal with Columbine that makes it separate from any other tragedy in America?"

13 years later, the massacre was far in time enough for Eminem to rap the censored lines in Rap God.
I'm back is another song where Em unleashes his alter ego to speak his

wildest and most provocative thoughts.

"If it's on your mind, say it. If you're sick enough to think it, then you're sick enough to say it. I don't think there's really a limit to what I would or wouldn't say-especially if it rhymes good. I've got a huge set of balls."

Marshall Mathers, the title track. Looks like 2000 Em thought the f-slur was the greatest diss.

"I touched on everything: the newest trend in hip-hop (which I'm not really with), to ICP, to my mother, to my family members who don't know me and wanna come around."

"I wanted to just spit fire in each verse and have the soft-ass innocent chorus. I think it captures the whole 'front porch' feel on the album’s cover. When I recorded this I decided to call the album The Marshall Mathers LP.”

The soft guitar notes fade into the most traumatizing and disgusting skit, starring ICP and Ken Kaniff. Listen at your own risk.

Drug Ballad, Em's love song, very self-explanatory, very much in line with the Amsterdam theme.

"I wanted to touch on how last year I was always fucked up. Life was like a big party for me. It was the first year that I blew up and I did a lot of celebrating."

Amityville, the 14th track on the album, features Bizarre, but was meant to include Outsidaz members Pacewon and Young Zee. Dre chose to cut their verses, as the LP had already enough features. The two Outsidaz verses were possibly permanently deleted, a fact that caused tension

between the group members, that eventually led to Pacewon dissing Em.
The song draws a similarity between Amityville, city scene of numerous book and film adaptations on its 1974 massacre, in which a man m*rdered his family, and its consequent paranormal phenomena, and Detroit.

"My first verse and Bizzare's verse weren't really dealing with the theme at hand. I said ''Yo, we need to talk about Detroit''. So on the last verse I kinda summed everything up. The label was actually buggin off of Bizzare's verse. So I knew we did it right."

Bitch please II, sequel to the 99 track, features Nate Dogg on the hook, and verses from Snoop Dogg, Dre and Xzibit, who delivers an incredible verse. Em comes last, once again addressing critics, especially Timothy White, Billboard director, who dared calling him a bad father.

"White is trying to pass judgement, saying 'Oh, he really doesn't love his daughter and he's making fun of their relationship'. He really doesn't know what i went through with my personal life. So, that's just one more person that passes judgement."

Kim, the song the gave me nightmares of armed people chasing me down in the woods. Em delivers 6 minutes of extremely unsettling yells, switching between his character and Kim. I doubt Hailie didn't wake up at the beginning.

"You never would've thought but I played it for her once we started talking. I asked her to tell me what she thought of it. I remember my dumbass saying ''I know this is a fucked up song but it shows how much I care about you. To even think about you this much.

To even put you in a song like this''. I did the vocals in one take. The mood I wanted to capture was that of an argument that me and her would have, and judging from the attention the media has given this song, you can see that's exactly what I did."

The mainstream debut of the rest of the D12 crew: Under the Influence. This song introduces the public to the crew of Detroit rappers, displaying how their lyrics are just as violent and fucked up as Slim Shady's.

"Criminal was my new Still Don't Give A Fuck for The Marshall Mathers LP. That's why I did the same intro as I did on the Still Don't Give A Fuck. That's why-just like Still Don't Give A Fuck-it's the last song on the record. It sums up the whole album."

One of his most controversial songs, that regularly gets Em unsuccessfully cancelled, Criminal serves as the grand finale of the album, remind us all that: "Half the shit I say I just make it up to make you mad, so kiss my white naked ass."

"I think I countered everything that was said about me last year with the MMLP. Just like my next album will counter everthing the critics said this year as far as gay bashing and all that shit goes.

I just tried to make them look stupid and let them know not to take every fucking thing I say literally."

The End.

If you've made it this far, thank you hope you somehow enjoyed me gushing over the MMLP.