Jared's Thoughts on Encore

People hate this album, mainly cause it's different. But it's not that different, there are serious songs in the beginning and end of the album, while the middle of the album from My first Single to Ass Like That, are the funny songs people would expect to hear from Eminem, just not spread out like his other albums were. I don't think the backlash of this album could've been avoided, as if he kept his albums having the similar sounds his first three had, a lot of people didn't know a whole lot about Infinite until years later, they would have said that he had no creativity. He does something like this, people want to have his music be like it used to be. People either don't want change or don't want the same. He's evolving, and yes he was on drugs during this album, but still Eminem sounds a hell of a lot better than other artists on drugs when they make an album.
  The album, to me, has a similar sound of The Slim Shady LP from 1999, in the sense it's a mix of both goofy and serious songs. But unlike SSLP, Encore is structured with all the comedic songs are in the middle of the album, while the serious songs are the book ends of the album. SSLP mixes up the comedic and serious songs, so for a few songs on the album it's serious, then it'll get to a comedic song or two and so on. It's like a rollercoster. And that's fine, but the structure of Encore is really interesting and unique for an Eminem album. The first 3 major label albums are similar with the style of SSLP, but The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show have a more mature perspective than Slim Shady did. Encore is a follow up of The Eminem Show, hence the title. But since the entire middle section is comedy and not a mixture of some serious songs here and comedic songs there throughout like the other albums were, it seems to make the album automatically bad, as a lot of the criticism is with the middle section of comedic songs. He did something different on the album and it got flack for that. But this couldn't be avoided in my opinion regarding the backlash. It's his fifth album, overall fourth major label album, and his previous three efforts have somewhat of a similar tone, regarding mixing serious with comedy on his albums. He does something like this, that breaks the mold, the album sucks. But if he went with a similar style of his previous albums, he'd get flack for doing the same thing over and over. It was kind of a shitty situation if you will.
  At this point in his career, Eminem's albums have sold millions of copies, this one sold a lot of copies and even more than some of his previous ones for the time, and became 5X Platinum within a few weeks, which is something that happens a lot now whenever there's a new album by Eminem. But looking back, with grammys, multi-platinum albums, number 1 movie and an Academy Award, there was a lot of expectations for Encore, and as a result, Encore didn't live up to them.


 I think that Encore is Eminem's most underrated album. A lot of people are mixed with this album and overall, they don't seem to like it. I for one love this album. All of his albums are great in there own way, and this is no exception. The big complaints that people have is there's too much humor and that he doesn't have as much serious material. Let us brake down the album tracks with the serious and humorous songs and skits: 1-7 are serious as are 15-20. That means tracks 8-14 are the humorous songs/skits, which are 7 tracks, while the serious tracks are 13 songs/skits and this is excluding the three serious tracks on the bonus CD which would then make the album have 16 serious tracks.
Another thing that's said that this album sucks, is that he was high, which I mentioned earlier, due to the  the filming of 8 Mile, while doing the soundtrack and finishing The Eminem Show all during that time as well as having to go on tour after all that was done, he got addicted to sleep medication during the duration of the making of Encore. There have been many artists, musician's and others high during the making of albums and concerts and I think Eminem's album is the best album in the category of being high during the writing and recording of an album. Also there was one song, I think Crazy in Love, he was sober during the making of it, so in a way, only 99% of the album he was high on drugs. Another thing to mention is the album leaked before its November release and Eminem had to scrap a number of songs and write and record new songs in time for the release of his album, which I’m sure didn’t help his drug addiction at that time.
But still after all of this, this is my favorite album of Eminems, I love his older stuff but this is just as good as his older stuff. Relapse and Recovery he was coming back into hip hop and was doing some things different, evolving as an artist if you will, and now with his new album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, I think he's found a mix of his new and old sound. I just want to give my take on Encore by Eminem. I also think people want to just dislike something to dislike it and not have an informed opinion of their own, as they just go with the flow.  People hear about this album, so they just disregard it without giving it a chance. Also, Em said that in the song "Be Careful What You Wish For" that enough time hadn't passed yet for people to like it. But since that song, Eminem has pretty much ignored this album with the exception of a few songs. I don't think he should personally, but I understand why with his drug use during this time.
 I think this is a classic album. I understand that some don't like it cause he was high, that's fine, but if you think of what he went through, during this time, and you listen a lot of the great songs on there that get over looked over what a lot of people don't like, I think people can appreciate it more. I personally think this album is a classic, but perhaps this could be a Cult Classic album in others eyes. If there are Cult Classic films, why not albums? From what I've seen, it looks like people do like this album more and more as time goes on, and again this is my favorite Eminem album. Like Toy Soldiers is my favorite song off of it, it has a great message about why beefs in hip-hop need to end, also can allude to real life, with those that have problems with each other either at work, neighbors, friends etc. I like it because it's different and because of all the reasons I listed I don't think that's a bad thing. Encore, for some of you, may not be your favorite Eminem album, but when comparing it to a lot of other rap albums today, it is a classic album.