They test him and his audience, who may not want to hear sincerity and psychological probing. Whatever calculation may be involved - basically, it's the old sad-clown trick - these are still among the album's most penetrating moments. Like Madonna, he's learned the value of surprise and reinvention, and what could be more surprising than Eminem earnestly crooning - not rapping - lines like ''It all makes sense when I look into her eyes''? Then there's ''Hailie's Song,'' his pledge of love and devotion to his 6-year-old daughter. In the creepy-crawly, mesmerizing ''Superman,'' he depicts himself as both sexual predator and commitment-phobic single guy. The song is both fragile and furious, and the syncopated music-box arrangement matches it in tension.Ĭan you accept Eminem's personal side? Talk about it on EW.COM The unhealed scars of his childhood are pored over in ''Cleaning Out My Closet'': In the chorus, he apologizes for making his mama cry, but in the verses, he lashes out at her (''you selfish bitch'') and vows to be a better dad than his own absentee father (''I wonder if he even kissed me goodbye'').

The album is like a therapy session in which the shrink becomes a human beatbox. The playful, if dated, humor of the single aside, the largely dark ''Eminem Show'' focuses more on agonized confessionals than dis-a-minute one-liners (although there are plenty of those). What's most shocking about him, he's saying, is that he's not such a shock-value guy after all.

On the rest of the album, the monster - Slim Shady - stays off stage, and Eminem reveals the supposedly real Marshall: embattled entertainer, fervent defender of the First Amendment, and, yes, devoted father. ''I've created a monster, 'cuz no one wants to hear Marshall no more,'' he whines, partly in jest, in the beat-crazy single ''Without Me.'' The early word on ''The Eminem Show'' was that it would be the most personal of his three albums, and the report appears to be true. (Entertainment Weekly) - Eminem has been messing with our collective heads so long now that we expect to be confused: When is he in character, when isn't he, and when does he mean what he says? Just when we thought we had him figured out, he jerks our chain a little harder.

The eminem show songs