Eminem - The Eminem Show

Any lingering doubts as to the depth of Eminem's skills or his potential for raw yet compelling honesty are dispelled on The Eminem Show's first track. Armed with a quicksilver flow and a thundering rhythm track (the record was exec produced by longtime mentor and partner Dr. Dre), "White America" finds Eminem ferociously mauling the hand that feeds him, lambasting his critics, the industry, and the racism that, in many ways, helped make Marshall Mathers more than just another rapper. "Let's do the math," Em sneers, "If I was black I would have sold half/ I could be one of your kids/ Little Eric looks just like this." After the bombast of The Marshall Mathers LP and Eminem's well-noted use of sexual epithets, this kind of material is made more controversial because it actually rings true. From a brutal retort to his long-estranged and equally troubled mother ("Cleaning Out My Closets") to a surprisingly tender ode to his child ("Hailie's Song"), Eminem examines his life, loves, arrests, addictions, failures, and successes with surprising insight, making this a funk-drenched hip-hop confessional well worth the hype.

1 Curtains Up (skit)

2 White America

3 Business

4 Cleaning Out My Closet

5 Square Dance

6 The Kiss (skit)

7 Soldier

8 Say Goodbye Hollywood

9 Drips

10 Without Me

11Paul Rosenberg (skit)

12 Sing For The Moment

13 Superman

14 Hailie's Song

15 Steve Berman (skit)

16 When The Music Stops

17 Say What U Say

18 'Till I Collapse

19 My Dad's Gone Crazy

20 Curtains Close