So MTV edited out Eminem being a bitch...

Damn it tiassa! Will you stop pulling me back into this thread...

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First, my post was in response to Q's comments, not yours. Second, the artists I listed are just a few that I named off the top of my head. I'm really not sure why you have the need to deconstruct each artist, just to try and say that I'm blinded by pop culture.

Screw it tiassa, your right... I'm nothing but a pawn of pop culture..

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Being a fan of artists like John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis, the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Doors, Ramones, Public Enemy, and Outkast, shows just how blinded by pop culture I am...

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How could I have musical tastes that differ with tiassa's, what was I thinking???????

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*Static wanders off, not realizing the fascinating, fun, enriching, enlightening experiences within music, that he's missing...*

P.S. - This is without a doubt my last post in this thread....

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As long as you recognize it

As long as you recognize it. Of course, even by your own descriptions of the pop culture, I'm left to wonder what's so distressing to you about it. You seem to enjoy its merits while I have a problem seeing the merits clearly.

Don't resent yourself for what you are. If it's that problematic, change is easy. Especially like this. Go to an independent record store and buy something you've never heard of before. It might suck, as is a natural occurrence, but it's sometimes nice to decide that without Spin magazine's say-so.

thanx,
Tiassa

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(PS--It has been a fun go-round. I thank you for that.)

 

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i just read all your new posts, and i really got some things to say again hehe

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but i got no time right now, its my birthday today yay!! but dont think i gave up on this thread

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, i'll be back

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and comment soon when i got time

 

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DAMNIT!! i just made this whole big post with all my comments, then my puter freezes up arghhhhh i lost it all

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, i have only a little part because i copied and pasted that to word..but i lost the rest of it..i will post up what i still got and maybe if i still feel like typing the rest i will do that some other time..im to pissed of right now to do it again..

i get it, but lots of people use that kind of expressions, just like you said something is 'gay', it just unfortunatly grown into society to say things that way...

seems like you think eminem gave up his style and has been turned into something different by dr. dre? is that what you believe? well i want you to take a look at this then:
slim shady ep track list, (click here for the link):
Intro
Low Down Dirty
If I Had...
Just Don't Give A fuck
Mommy (Interlude)
Just the Two of Us
No One's Iller Than Me
Murder, Murder
If I Had [radio edit]
I Just Don't Give A [radio edit]

slim shady lp, tracklist (click here for the link):
My Name Is
Guilty Conscience
Brain Damage
Paul (skit)
If I Had
97 Bonnie & Clyde
Bitch (skit)
Role Model
Lounge (skit)
My Fault
Ken Kaniff (skit)
Cum On Everybody
Rock Bottom
I Just Don't Give A fuck
Soap (skit)
As The World Turns
Im Shady
Bad Meets Evil
Still Dont Give A fuck


now read this (link here ):
Dr. Dre was so impressed after hearing Eminem freestyling on a Los Angeles radio station that he put out a manhunt for the Michigan rhymer. Shortly thereafter, Dre signed Eminem to his Aftermath imprint and the two began working together. Thoroughly impressed with Eminem's previously released independent Slim Shady EP, Dre said they would include many of the EP's tracks on the album.
After being thoroughly disappointed and hurt by the response Infinite received, Eminem began working on what would later become the Slim Shady EP -- a project he made for himself. Featuring several scathing lines about local music industry personalities as well as devious rants about life in general, the set quickly caught the ear of hip-hop's difficult-to-please underground.
"I had nothing to lose, but something to gain," Eminem says of that point in his life. "If I made an album for me and it was to my satisfaction, then I succeeded. If I didn't, then my producers were going to give up on the whole rap thing we were doing. I made some sh*t that I wanted to hear. The Slim Shady EP, I lashed out on everybody who talked sh*t about me."

as you see, the slim shady ep was BEFORE dr dre even knew eminem, eminem came up himself with slim shady, NOT dr dre. As you see, 3 of the songs from the slim shady ep, were also released on the album (with dr. dre) slim shady lp. the 3 songs are: if i had, just the two of us/ 97 bonnie & clyde (same song, check out the lyrics, you'll see) and just dont give a fuck... the song murder murder (remix) on the Next Friday soundtrack, was the orginally murder murder song from the slim shady ep..(link
here as you see eminem didnt have to change himself, or give up his style to be signed to dr. dre...dr. dre let him be his own self eminem aka slim shady and didnt change him into something else or forced him to write his lyrics differently than he already did...

of course we will never know the answer to this question, because it happened this way..but if you realise that he already was getting bigger and bigger before dr dre found out about him ('By presenting himself as himself, Eminem and his career took off. Soon after giving the Rap Coalition's Wendy Day a copy of the Infinite album at a chance meeting, she helped the aspiring lyrical gymnast secure a spot at the Coalition’s 1997 Rap Olympics in Los Angeles, where he won second place in the freestyle competition.', link here, as you see not only dr. dre saw something in him, there were lots of people who saw his talent) you can think that it was only a matter of time that someone big would find out about him..but we will never know how it would have been without dr. dre and really thats not something worth thinking about it..

i really dont care what one review says..its what i think of it..reviews are there to read other peoples opinions, and you can agree with it or not..its not there to be taken over blindly and put your own opinion to the side..i absolutly dont agree with what this review says..although its true he got more serious, but is that a bad thing?? i think its not..it just shows something different..and you say 'there is some question about that genius' , actually the review said nothing about that...it doesnt even give any constructive good arguments to back up his opinion..

and what i think is very funny that you quote this part of me: AGAIN you didnt read my post before...i will quote it for you again, and maybe you can do your absolute best to read it...AND remember it this time..here we go, this is about the song you had took the margot kidder line from

and answer like this:
From the looks of the review on the page you offered, it seems that there is some question about that genius

hmmm that what you said had absolutly nothing to do with what i said...i was talking about the margot kidder line, being from a really old song..and you start about him being a genius..doesnt make much sense??

the first link you gave, this one i think is really not a bad review?? i know its an album with lots of controversy...it was meant to be that way..the album is about their city detroit..'devils night' refers to the night before halloween in detroit, which is called (how surprisingly

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) devils night..thats when people come out of their homes and trash the whole city, burning down cars..stuff like that..so yea the city is full of controversy BUT the review seem to be positive too:
'But to dismiss the album strictly because of its themes would be unfortunate. As challenging as it may be for many to stomach the constant and incredibly explicit sex, violence, and drug references, there is a stunning album lurking beneath that deserves recognition' and it goes on..'In fact, Eminem's beats often contest the few equally impressive tracks that Dre contributes. Besides the remarkable production, Eminem also showcases his blossoming genius on several of the song's hooks, bringing a pop-rap approach to hardcore lyrics'

now the other .review you gave:
'The D12 boys drop rhymes like: "Niggas want pussy and I want cash / So Ma, get out there and start selling your dirty ass'..this line is from the member bizarre..he has less talent than the rest of the 5 members..its just obvious he likes to shock and be funny at the same time..but he doesnt really got good rhyming skills nor rap skills like the other 5 members do..

 

Justme

Perhaps you missed the point. If I use words like "faggot" and "homo" as insults, it's a little like calling a guy a woman to insult him. Being a faggot or a homo or a woman is intended to be a derogatory state.

Nope. I was pointing out that Eminem had an easier route for him. Most bands don't have a Doctor Dre on their side. It's easier, incidentally, to get your "style" through the record-company grinder if it's commercially viable. As with EMI/Capital Group and the Floater story. The record company didn't believe that you or the next fan, or even I who followed this band knew what we liked. They wanted to sign a band that people liked, and then form the band into something it isn't because commercial viability is more important at that level than artistic integrity. If I accept into consideration your implication that Eminem did not "give up his style", we can see that it is commercially viable, a state of being that is separate from "good" or "having artistic integrity". After all, Tiffany, Christina Aguilera, and Wreckx 'n' Effects were all popular. In fact, the latter toned down their single for commercial success, and remade the video. What's that? A rap outfit after sales and not artistic integrity? But WnE are beside the point, technically. Floater recorded once with Drew Canulette of Dogfish Mobile, who also recorded for Soundgarden. If we were to draw a parallel story, then, and say that Rob, being a strong vocalist, conceptualist, and songwriter, was "taken under the wing" of his Dogfish connection, that is, taken under the wing of Chris Cornell, and walked through A&M records, Floater, too, could have their albums promoted to the legions of fans just awaiting the next proclamation of who's cool enough listen to.

The music is more important to them. It's why I buy their albums and go to their shows. They know they'll do fine without the major-league record industry. In the meantime, they're progressing in leaps and bounds, far outshining their major-label cousins (e.g. System of a Down once opened for Floater).

And Soundgarden, on A&M, were getting bigger and bigger with minimal promotion. Yet you'll notice that the band that didn't play ball was the one of the last major Seattle bands to the charts. How did that happen? I mean, even Mudhoney got pushed onto MTV before Soundgarden and, as I noted earlier, the movie Hype! features an MTV crew tracking down a band that hadn't played for a couple of years, something they could manufacture into a ratings ploy.

I'll tell you a little bit about how its done: Don't bow to the record companies, produce the best album possible, thrill the fans who like your music, and when you get your chance, as Soundgarden did, blow the new fans out of the water. Essentially, what happened is that Soundgarden opened for a number of bands, including Guns 'n' Roses, with the effect of outperforming the headliners on a regular basis. We have somewhere a bootleg of a Soundgarden Badmotorfinger concert opening for GNR; you can just see the fans getting blown away. They had no idea what they were seeing. I mean, when you stop and think that Candlebox was called a Seattle band before Soundgarden earned proper recognition, it becomes quite apparent that the record company thinks in terms of profits. The reason Eminem is so available to the crowd is because record companies made him so. (Watch, starting about 1994, 1995, how Soundgarden treats MTV; strangely, you'll notice that Queensrÿche, a band that definitely profited from payola and other record-company hijinks, behaved similarly. It's the way we feel about music up here. The record companies are an unfortunate reality, but at some point they're going to blow it (as they're presently doing) by foisting crap onto the fans and they'll be forced to play ball. When Virgin records announced a contest in 2000 or so for the "best single", the prize for which would be a recording contract, people were stunned; Virgin, one of the dirtiest, sleaziest record companies out there, seemed to have gotten the message. The whole point was they wanted to market your album straight from your hands. It was their way of trying to figure out how to release an album without tampering with it or the market. We were all impressed, but I have no idea who won the contest or where the album actually is. I'll check into that; I don't recall that anyone I know who was watching that corner ever figured it out.

Point being, you cannot convince me that Eminem's career path is the same as "just any other" musician of the quality some allege Eminem to be.

Incidentally, one of my favorite songs of the 1980s is called "Echo Beach", and is by a band called Martha and the Muffins. I heard the song in 1986 or thereabout, and it would be 15 years before I permanently possessed a copy of it and knew the name of the artist. Looking back, with 15 years' retrospect, I can't figure out why the song wasn't #1. The answer is because the record company didn't care. It had bigger game to pursue, and invested its efforts in other bands, raising them to success for the profits of record sales.

Seriously: the record industry tells you when a song is a hit, often before it comes out. The nearest thing I can get to that among more legitimate quarters of the recording industry is Mojo magazine's positive speculation about the coming Supergrass record, which goes (approximately): It's new, it's different. If you're a Supergrass fan, you'll probably love it.

But I don't expect to see a company-sponsored advert in the middle of prime time telling me that the song nobody's heard and won't be out for two weeks is already a hit.

That's the sad thing about reviews. They're oriented now toward consumer priorities, and not artistic priorities. The "critics" of the modern day are mere shadows of their former selves. In other words, it used to be that you could expect a critic to have something more than an opinion to offer.

That's the nature of modern criticism. How many pages would you have preferred the critic spend on it?

•_"He and Dr. Dre are starting to repeat themselves."
•_"The Eminem Show lacks the overwhelming, single-minded force that The Marshall Mathers LP had."
• "The best moments feel unique, yet somehow isolated from one another ...."

So, if opinion is what makes something popular and, apparently, therefore, good, what is so invalid about a critic's opinion? Mr. Cawn even lists tracks for reference, and I'm not sure what, short of a beat-by-beat discourse, you would like for him to back up his opinion. He's speaking consumer-speak, and this is about the necessary depth of it.

Of course, he could write a monograph for a review, and then Marshall would have someone to pick on for the next album ....

Actually, I did. See, what I think is funny is when we put the two and two together and expect four, only to find that we have two and three. After all, people keep telling me about his lyrical genius. While that talent is not apparent in critical perceptions of the music, I find it even more interesting that my question about the validity of Eminem's lyrical genius is answered by the notion that he's not a lyrical genius.

That's fair enough for me. I just wanted to make sure. It seems to me that the reviews demonstrate that the lyrical genius may not be as apparent as some think. If the lyrics were bad on Infinite and they seem disconnected, or rehashes of old ground (per the page you provided), I'm having a hard time seeing the trend that lends toward his lyrical genius or lyrical talent or lyrical knack or lyrical whatever.

Fair enough. I mean, when your lyrical talent shines against a backdrop of juvenile shock-rap, how can I possibly argue?

thanx,
Tiassa

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(PS--regarding the troubles you had with that post--are you writing in the browser window or into a text editor? Are you using a Windows machine? Try your Notepad or Word Pad. I've found them to be much more stable composition tools than an input window on a php page running on Internet Explorer on any platform. I was posting at Sciforums for a year before I finally broke myself of the habit of composing in the browser window.)

 

something totally of topic first..any of you have the same problem as me, that if you log in and then type out your post and you press on the submit reply or preview reply button, that it says you are not logged in? while you are? and that if you push the back button then that most of the time your whole post you just typed is totally gone? this is so annoying..i always copy and paste it to word lately, but its still annoying..

Ok now, ill give it another chance..i will go further with where i lost it last time…

this review you mentioned:
- ‘Consider the evidence. In 'Cleanin Out My Closet', he unleashes an astonishingly corrosive torrent of hatred towards his parents, saying "I've got some skeletons in my closet/and I don't know if no-one knows it", but the fact is we've heard the story repeated for years now.’

This is actually nonsense..eminem never made a serious song about his mother before..he always used to diss her in a funny way, and would just mention her in like only one sentence. Example:
Song: my name is: ‘I just found out my mom does more dope than I do’
Song: Role model: ‘Mother.. are you there? I love you.. I never meant to hit you over the head with that shovel’
Song: kill you: ‘When I just a little baby boy, my momma used to tell me these crazy things She used to tell me my daddy was an evil man, she used to tell me he hated me But then I got a little bit older and I realized, she was the crazy one But there was nothin I could do or say to try to change it cause that's just the way she was’

He never made a song before about what actually happened, or that was so serious as cleaning out my closet, in this song he really tells his personal story..so what the reviewer said is nonsense to me..

Well yes the critic took eminem a bit to seriously here..eminem explained in several interviews that he wrote the song ‘say goodbye to hollywood’ in a time that he was going through a lot of shit..it was just a moment in time that he felt that way, and thats when he wrote it..most of the time he doesnt want to quit and he says he wouldnt be able to stop rapping because hiphop and rapping are his life, and he loves it, although there are downsides to the fame, he wouldnt want to quit..

Reviewer: ‘The world he inhabits is a twisted, cruel, horrific place, even if what we see of it is simply entertainment. On 'When The Music Stops', he outlines the perks of the position: "no laughs, no friends, no girl, just the gin you drink".
Well this sentence shows a lot to me..it shows me something veryy interesting..you know what it shows me? (im sure tiassa dont know because tiassa is just like the reviewer is)..it tells me that the reviewer didnt even hear the eminem show..probably just glanced through the lyrics..do you know how i know this? Because eminem doesnt rap that sentence in ‘when the music stops’, that part of the lyrics is from a member of d12, kon artis, and not by eminem..

‘And on 'When The Music Stops' he reaches the only possible conclusion pointing the gun to his own head and pulling the trigger.’
Now i am sure that he didnt listen..that wasnt eminem putting the gun to his head..that was another member of d12..bizarre..if you as reviewer not even know this..then why should i take the review seriously?? He uses these sentences to back up things about eminem, while eminem didnt even write the lyrics…shows me enough of how seriously the reviewer took a listen..

‘On 'Superman', his attitude towards women is appalling, but this isn't dumb, kneejerk sexism, it's ingrained, full grade misogyny. He f**king hates, mistrusts, undervalues and fears every girl on the planet save his daughter, always haunted by his mother and ex-wife. At times, he sounds like Norman Bates. At others, he is unforgivable: "I'll put anthrax on your tampax and slap you til you can't stand."
This song is about the groupie girls that hang around eminem and want him to sleep with them, or they only want to be with him because he’s famous, or only want his money…

‘Marshall Mathers has the talent and sheer force of personality to rap his shopping list and diary of business appointments during the last tax month of 2002 and still we're hooked. We've heard it all before, we know the punchline, we've bought into the joke, but still we want the delivery again and again.’
I think this is nonsense, all the albums of eminem are different…they arent the same at all..i wonder if he even listened to the slim shady lp or marshall mathers lp, knowing of what he said about the eminem show i think not..

Well no its not over one year later…moby said some stuff about eminem like a month ago, in august, about hailie growing up and dating an abusive guy and it being eminem’s fault, because he says this is ok..so not a year ago..

If this is true..that eminem chased moby around and said that..then i think he went way to far..and i do consider that as a treat of violence..BUT i really dont know if i should believe this. i tell you why..it says one source..one witness…come on!! the whole vma was packed with people!!! And just one witness seen this?? Thats just to ridiculous..then it must have happened in the commercial break..a commercial break is from 3 to 5 minutes..so ok mtv says: we are going through a commercial break now..eminem chases moby in commercial break..eminem threatens moby..the whole audience must be going wow whats happening here..commotion is happening in the audience by seeing this..and then mtv comes back from the commercial and NOTHING shows that something just happened there..that people are stunned and shocked by what they just saw happening..it just sounds very unlikely to me..and then when should this have happened?? after that eminem received his second award he didnt go back into the audience, so it should have happened before the puppet dog..i really doubt it..BUT if it is true (i rather would hear it from the source mtv itself, or from a lot of artists being at the vma’s who saw it and can confirm it), then i think eminem really went WAY to far..

Static76:

me:

No you obviously dont get me: i said: 'i actually listened to his albums and you didnt and still you think you owe the absolute truth and know everything about his songs and lyrics.'
I will give you an example..I never listened to one song of Alicia Keys..but still I would go on a message board, tell people that she has absolutly no talent at all..that she absolutly isnt a part of making the music..that she obviously is a racist because people accused her of this, while I didnt listen to her songs or saw any of her interviews, but if someone says she is, it probably is true, right?? Because people NEVER gossip or talk out of their ass so all you hear around you is true..for the rest i dont like her songs at all (while i never listened to a song)..they are stupid pop and she cant sing or rhyme..so nah she sucks..and oh yea people only buy her music because she looks so hell good and all the guys want to fuck her..

Do you get my point?? I cant possibly say those things if i never even heard her music..well you can say it..but it shows that the points that are being made arent valid, because you didnt research it..you are not taking the time out to listen to someone seriously, but still you think you know everything and you think you can tell people that did listen to it are wrong because they are not intelligent..THIS is what i meant, and not that you should buy eminems music because you will think differently, im just saying listen to it seriously, and then come back and tell me what you think and i might listen to you seriously and think your points are valid because you researched what you are talking about..

(just a little note with this: no no one ever said alicia keys is a racist, but it was just to make my point)

Oh my god, we really going in circles..i told you that his first album wasnt his best..that he showed he had talents..but still had to grow..is that so hard to understand?? Look you can start playing the piano and it is obvious you got talents, but you still have to practice to get to the level that you are really good..it was like that with his first album..he showed he had talent but often used to put words together that really didnt make sense together..but his rhyming skills grew and his lyrics got great meanings..i will show you a few examples later (see my next post)..
So about the margot kidder line, i really dont know what he means..i told you that he wasnt at his best in that time..sometimes what he did was just put words together, which didnt really make sense..i dont really like his work from the absolute beginning, i mean i realise it is not his best..and i wont say it is either..

Sure you got all these experiences with groupie girls wanting to fuck eminem..but the thing is you dont want to open your eyes to other fans who are not like that..i am not like that..but still you keep clinging to that image of his fans, while there is someone right here (HELLO RIGHT HERE!!) that is not like that image you have of his fans..so everyone who doesnt fit in that stereotype you have of his fans, are well?? What are we really? Not intelligent? Stupid?? Or secretly we are all lying and we do want to fuck eminem?? I said i know there are female fans who only like eminem because he’s hot..i never said your experiences didnt happen or are ridiculous, because i know there are girls like that ( look at what i said (what you quoted): so your stereotyping of eminem female fans doesnt fit to all female fans, maybe some are like that, but every artist has a couple of fans like that, they surely arent ALL like that). If you are saying they are ALL like that then it is stereotyping, thats just what the word means..so i would like to know if you think that all the female fans are like that?? Or only a part? if you dont think they are ALL like that, then its fine by me and i will get of your case about the stereotyping...really even very talented bands or groups or singers have groupie girls like that, it doesnt say anything about the talent of the person..

Its very funny you turn this around to an argumentation out of eminems view(threesome), while we were talking about the lesbian girls view (not feeling offended)..this girl is pro homosexuality of course…thinking guys have the right to love guys and girls have the right to love girls..she is not offended by his lyrics and doesnt see eminem as homophobic, but well that she thinks this doesnt mean anything because eminem would prefer a threesome (???). that is a strange argumentation..
(homophobic by the way means afraid of all people that sleeps with someone of the same sex (so girls and guys),

Another thing that i see is that you say: 'would marshall object to having homosexual intercourse??' I would like to know what you mean by this, because to me it seems like your argumentation goes like this: marshall objects having homosexual intercourse..this makes him homophobic (??) Or what you mean exactly here?? Because the argumentation makes no sense..

Lets drag up our old quotes where this all started with:
Me: 'really the funny thing is actually that i got a gay friend and that person likes eminems music and doesnt feel offended and im a woman and i dont feel offended by his music either'

Tiassa: ‘I'm aware of the phenomenon. But the consistency with which the women I know who like Eminem like him because they think he's cute and it doesn't matter what he says (so much for the artistic vision) and with which the gay men I know who appreciate Eminem want to f@ck him, I'm not sure the phenomenon really speaks to Marshall's benefit.’

Ok let me show you what i think you are saying in steps, you can correct me if im wrong:
1. eminem is a misogynist, hates all women and is degrading to them..
2. women think eminem is cute and therefore it doesnt matter what he says
3. women dont mind eminem being a misogynist, because eminem is cute
you can take this argumentation even further:
4. women dont mind guys being misogynists, if they are cute

now about gays:
1. eminem is homophobic
2. gay guys want to fuck eminem, therefore dont feel offended
3. gay guys dont mind eminem being a homophobic, because all they want is to fuck him
taking this argumentation further:
4. gays dont mind someone being homophobic, if the person is fuckable to the gay person

uhmm doesnt make much sense does it?? you can clearify this if you want..because this really sounds ridiculous to me..

oh well you’re not going to be the one that have to decide to hire me anyways, so see if i care

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No i didnt miss the point, i just pointed out that it is what many people use, so you cant put this all on eminem..even you used the word ‘gay’ to say that 'the song without me' sounded ‘homosexual’ and so you used it in a derogatory state..well that just only shows how it grown into society to say things like that..

__

Oh yea eminem was really out of his mind, to sign a record deal with a very respected rapper and producer in the rap business, and take his big chance when it was in front of him without even having to change his style around and the record company letting him be himself..yea what was he thinking?? He must not care about the music or hiphop at all!! This totally shows he doesnt have any quality!! (hint hint: im being sarcastic). and i was not trying to convince you that eminems career path was harder than anyone elses..me and static76 only have pointed out for you that eminem was respected in the underground scene for years before dr. dre signed him..

I never said that, dont know how you got that idea..



to Christ Crusher, you made me sick with that picture..you are fucked in the head you know that..go do everyone a favour and jump of a high building please..


to static76: to bad that you dont want to post in this thread anymore (although i see tiassa keeps dragging you back

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), but it was nice to have this discussion with you, and it was nice to read your posts, especially because we agreed with eachother most of the time

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ok an example of eminems song that he does got talents:

the song the way i am, from the album marshall mathers lp:

I sit back with this pack of Zig Zags and this bag
of this weed it gives me the shit needed to be
the most meanest MC on this -- on this Earth
And since birth I've been cursed with this curse to just curse
And just blurt this berserk and bizarre shit that works
And it sells and it helps in itself to relieve all this tension dispensin these sentences
Gettin this stress that's been eatin me recently off of this chest and I rest again peacefully (peacefully)..
but at least have the decency in you
to leave me alone, when you freaks see me out in the streets when I'm eatin or feedin my daughter
to not come and speak to me (speak to me)..
I don't know you and no, I don't owe you a mo-therfuck-in thing
I'm not Mr. N'Sync, I'm not what your friends think I'm not Mr. Friendly,
I can be a prick if you tempt me my tank is on empty (is on empty)..
No patience is in me and if you offend me I'm liftin you 10 feet (liftin you 10 feet)..
in the air I don't care who is there and who saw me destroy you
Go call you a lawyer, file you a lawsuit I'll smile in the courtroom and buy you a wardrobe I'm tired of all you (of all you).. I don't mean to be mean but that's all I can be its just me

Chorus:
And I am, whatever you say I am
If I wasn't, then why would I say I am?
In the paper, the news everyday I am
Radio won't even play my jam
Cause I am, whatever you say I am
If I wasn't, then why would I say I am?
In the paper, the news everyday I am
I don't know it's just the way I am

Sometimes I just feel like my father, I hate to be bothered
with all of this nonsense it's constant
And, "Oh, it's his lyrical content -
- the song 'Guilty Conscience' has gotten such rotten responses"
And all of this controversy circles me
and it seems like the media immediately
points a finger at me (finger at me)..
So I point one back at 'em, but not the index or pinkie
or the ring or the thumb, it's the one you put up
when you don't give a fuck, when you won't just put up
with the bullshit they pull, cause they full of shit too
When a dude's gettin bullied and shoots up his school
and they blame it on Marilyn (on Marilyn).. and the heroin
Where were the parents at? And look where it's at
Middle America, now it's a tragedy
Now it's so sad to see, an upper class ci-ty
havin this happenin (this happenin)..
then attack Eminem cause I rap this way (rap this way)..
But I'm glad cause they feed me the fuel that I need for the fire
to burn and it's burnin and I have returned

chorus

I'm so sick and tired of bein admired
that I wish that I would just die or get fired
and dropped from my label and stop with the fables
I'm not gonna be able to top on "My Name is.."
And pigeon-holed into some pop-py sensation
to cop me rotation at rock'n'roll stations
And I just do not got the patience (got the patience)..
to deal with these cocky caucasians who think
I'm some wigger who just tries to be black cause I talk
with an accent, and grab on my balls, so they always keep askin
the same fuckin questions (fuckin questions)..
What school did I go to, what hood I grew up in
The why, the who what when, the where, and the how
'til I'm grabbin my hair and I'm tearin it out
cause they drivin me crazy (drivin me crazy).. I can't take it
I'm racin, I'm pacin, I stand and I sit
And I'm thankful for ev-ery fan that I get
But I can't take a shit, in the bathroom
without someone standin by it
No I won't sign your autograph
You can call me an asshole I'm glad

this song has meaning too..you see he's not rhyming just to rhyme and just putting some words together..it makes a lot of sense, and i think it is a great song..not only for the lyrical skill he shows in it, and for the flow he has when he raps this song..also for what he is actually singing about..(mentioning the school shootings, people bothering him on the streets, him getting nuts of the critics and questions and so on)

now lets look of the vanilla ice song- ice ice baby, because i remember you mentioned him before and compared him to eminem:
Ice Ice Baby, Ice Ice Baby
All right stop, Collaborate and listen
Ice is back with my brand new invention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly
Then I flow like a harpoon daily and nightly
Will it ever stop? Yo -- I don't know
Turn off the lights and I'll glow
To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal
Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle.

Dance, Bum rush the speaker that booms
I'm killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom
Deadly, when I play a dope melody
Anything less than the best is a felony
Love it or leave it, You better gain way
You better hit bull's eye, The kid don't play
If there was a problem, Yo, I'll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it

Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla
Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla

Now that the party is jumping
With the bass kicked in, the Vegas are pumpin'
Quick to the point, to the point no faking
I'm cooking MCs like a pound of bacon
Burning them if they're not quick and nimble
I go crazy when I hear a cymbal
And a hi hat with a souped up tempo
I'm on a roll and it's time to go solo
Rollin' in my 5.0
With my ragtop down so my hair can blow
The girlies on standby, Waving just to say Hi
Did you stop? No -- I just drove by
Kept on pursuing to the next stop
I busted a left and I'm heading to the next block
That block was dead

Yo -- so I continued to A1A Beachfront Ave.
Girls were hot wearing less than bikinis
Rockman lovers driving Lamborghinis
Jealous 'cause I'm out geting mine
Shay with a gauge and Vanilla with a nine
Reading for the chumps on the wall
The chumps acting ill because they're so full of "Eight Ball"
Gunshots ranged out like a bell
I grabbed my nine -- All I heard were shells
Falling on the concrete real fast
Jumped in my car, slammed on the gas
Bumper to bumper the avenue's packed
I'm trying to get away before the jackers jack
Police on the scene, You know what I mean
They passed me up, confronted all the dope fiends
If there was a problem, Yo, I'll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it

Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla
Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla

Take heed, 'cause I'm a lyrical poet
Miami's on the scene just in case you didn't know it
My town, that created all the bass sound
Enough to shake and kick holes in the ground
'Cause my style's like a chemical spill
Feasible rhymes that you can vision and feel
Conducted and formed, This is a hell of a concept
We make it hype and you want to step with this
Shay plays on the fade, slice like a ninja
Cut like a razor blade so fast, Other DJs say, "damn"
If my rhyme was a drug, I'd sell it by the gram
Keep my composure when it's time to get loose
Magnetized by the mic while I kick my juice
If there was a problem, Yo -- I'll solve it!
Check out the hook while Deshay revolves it.

Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla
Ice Ice Baby Vanilla, Ice Ice Baby Vanilla

hmmm what shall i say..what you see with him that its most of the time a rap like this: AABBCC; meaning that only the end of the last word of the sentence rhymes with the last word of the next sentence, and so on..there are hardly any rhyms in the sentences itself..it just doesnt flow well..and what the hell he rapped about i really dont care one bit..i fell asleep after 3 sentences..toooo boring..it kinda reminds me of songs from britney spears with the rhyming technique:

(song: you drive me crazy)
Baby, I'm so into you
You've got that something, what can I do
Baby, you spin me around, oh
The earth is movin, but I can't feel the ground
Everytime you look at me
My heart is jumpin, it's easy to see
Loving you means so much more
More than anything I ever felt before

same rhyming basic: AABBCC..no rhyming skills whatsoever..every three year old can make a rhyme like that..therefore i think eminem is really different than this, he got rhyming skills and i happen not to fall asleep after the first 3 words...if you need more examples i be glad to give them to you..

 

Glut

Ah, so his mother has little to do with his career. Okay. Didn't someone point out Munchausen Syndrome to me a little while ago? What is it that you want me to go through and drag up your posts and Static's just to wonder why you sound so contradictory.

Well, why is momma part of the deflection of accusations of misogyny?

That's official. It looks like the discussion is over and settled.

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Well, it's worth pointing out that "grunge" was criticized for its self-indulgent lyrics; yet very few people who were actually paying attention didn't wonder about the lyrics of In Utero. Retrospect tells us we should have taken it more seriously. I would hope the Eminem flap doesn't go so far as to compel him to stick a shotgun in his mouth.

What about all the other sentences in the review?

. Actually, silly, if I don't know it's because I'm not you.

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Are you kidding? It was a year before I noticed that the lyrics inside Streets: A Rock Opera (by Savatage) didn't match the actual songs. In other words, reviewers listen to albums only a couple of times and, sometimes, they go through the liner notes simultaneously. However, after listening to the album once or twice, the reviewer probably turned to the lyrics.

What you're implying is a serious breach of the social contract of being a critic of anything. The reviewer's name is Ian Watson, and you can click on his name at the bottom of the review and e-mail him. I suggest you do, and you ask him to please listen to the albums before he reviews them. If you state your problem clearly enough, he might even respond. He probably got a flood of e-mail from people who didn't like his review, but an honest inquiry regarding the credibility of his methods would deserve an answer.

Then e-mail him. It appears he's transgressed legal boundaries here. I mean, the amount you charge people with doing illegal things to Eminem is a little bit amusing.

And? I mean, have you ever heard the song "Diamond Girls" by Neil Diamond?

Eminem does not exist in a vacuum, as is obvious by the flak and hubbub his histrionics raised. He is not particularly groundbreaking either within the rap form, or even between his albums. Critics also consider those kinds of factors. For instance, I know that some people like the band Godsmack. Whatever. Their sound isn't new. What they're doing isn't new. Hell, their name isn't even new. People can talk all they want about how much they like it, but I prefer the sound the first time I know that praise of Eminem is the only acceptable outcome for you, so why should it matter that you think it's nonsense that a critic acknowledged Eminem's pop-culture sales power? Or is "pop-culture" success bad?

Cool enough. Would you be so kind, though, as to point me to the random press conference he held to bash Eminem, or would this be one of those things he said in response to someone's (like a music or pop-culture journalist) question? Since you're the expert here, I'll let you tell me.

That's dumb if only for the fact of a Bush story from a while ago. It seems that Mr. Bush attended a concert in his honor, early in his term. The performer walked out, sat down at the piano. George Bush waved. The performer did not acknowledge him. Bush continued to wave. Someone leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Mr. President, that's Stevie Wonder. He's blind. He cannot see you."

In the article I read, one witness was quoted as saying, "I knew I shouldn't laugh but it was funny."

Should we conclude, as such, that only one person aside from the whispering advisor saw Mr. Bush waving at Stevie Wonder?

For instance, how many witnesses should the reporter have stopped to ask? How many gave coherent responses? Should the whole article just be comprised of a bunch of quotes from witnesses?

Well, Conan O'Brien did do us the favor of replaying the bit with the comic dog. It doesn't speak well for Eminem's behavior or his intelligence. Maybe he was just frustrated by thoughts of his mother or something. Because when Conan said Eminem looked like he was scared of a hand puppet, I figured it would be your usual late-night sewing of file segments together to make a pseudo-drama. The kind of hack filler late-night is infamous for. But no, they showed the actual tape and yes, Eminem looked sketchy. I would imply cocaine, but I've seen the symptoms enough without it. But yeah, he looked scared of a comic dog and the same guy identified earlier in this topic as a member of D12 played bodyguard and started harassing the puppet. That was when they called for Christina Aguilera.

Award shows are not documentaries. Their job is to fit into the allotted airspace, to look dignified, and nobody ever sees the number of people flat running back and forth around the room to make things happen. Since I never see that happening on the air, should I presume that the last-minute rushes of live production are nonexistent?

Judging by the audience reaction to the comic dog incident, I think they thought it was all part of the show.

Fair enough. I'll never stop someone from holding MTV as a journalistic standard.

I'll laugh about it all day, but I won't stop you.

Fair enough. If I follow your citations, I should be able to respond with one of my own:

All I wanted was for someone to say, "This is the best example." After all, for every problem I find, someone can say, "Well, you should look at better songs." Which I find interesting in the context of the lyrical issue, but I see you're at it again shortly, so I'll get to it there instead.

You're so right, Justme. All those times I heard Eminem in bars or in friends' cars or on the radio when I happened to be near it, or when I sat through it on MTV ... I wasn't actually paying attention, was I? Come on, you know the answer to this question, I'm sure, since you seem to think you know everything in the Universe. I mean, in addition to the appearance of naïvete about the recording industry itself and pop culture, you seem to have too high an expectation of newspaper journalism. (How many witnesses would you have preferred, and how much column space should that have taken in the printed edition? I mean, since you obviously know ...?)

The problem with your argument here is that I have heard listened to Eminem's songs before. Or is "listening" that process of lying on my back in my room, playing Eminem on the stereo while staring at the ceiling and wishing I could be as cool as him?

Depends on the lyric in question.

Duh.

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Well, some people, like Eminem, make a living from gossip and talking out of their ass.

Vocalists of her quality are, technically, a dime a dozen if you're a record company. I'd say you're quite correct when you say people like to buy her music because she looks good and guys want to fuck her. I've heard plenty of vocalists I would rather stick in a studio with a production team behind them, but not all of them would look as good in tight, revealing clothes. To the other, as I go from CD site to CD site, I'm finding it hard to get the production credits. Hmmm ... oh, well. I saw mention in fan reviews of songwriting, and I want to make sure her contribution to the songwriting is more than, say, Tiffany's.

I won't disagree.

Too bad I've already heard one of her songs at least and have failed to be impressed by her talent. I just blew your experiment. Sorry 'bout that.

Oh, you're still talking about Marshall.

Um ... just look up a few paragraphs. I won't bother repeating myself.

I will pause to say that you're making it easy for me to hold an essentially untenable line. It doesn't actually matter what Marshall says on his albums until he lets it bleed over into real life. But when the best you can do is charge people with violating the law and therefore violating Eminem, and set argumentative conditions such as the present point about Ms. Keys that have no bearing on the present discussions by proxy of their necessary boundaries, you make it very easy to be critical of the results of pop culture.

Hint ... when the PMRC began criticizing music in the 1980s--in response to Purple Rain by Prince--the fans responded first with an overwhelming wave of profanity and hostility. And then they figured it out, and tried to play ball. By the time we got to Anthrax's profane explosion all over Tipper Gore, the bands had "played ball" long enough. I'll worry about the "persecution" of poor Eminem when he gets hauled before a Senate subcommittee the way the headbangers of the 1980s were. Things generally better, though, if the kids' responses to their concerned parents were something a little more appropriate than F--k off! Their profane responses suggested a lack of education and civility, the two worries of the censors. For me, who worries about the seeming numbskullery of the pop-culture catchall crowd, the lack of cohesion marking your approach to this topic suggests a lack of something. Or perhaps an abundance of something, as I have stated before that I find your perspectives on the institutions (e.g. pop culture, journalism) rather naïve.

I don't judge fans solely by the music they choose. Rather, I measure their expressions of it. My judgment of the fans is based solely in observation and experience.

I'm also reminded of an occasion in which Riki Rachtman of MTV infamy interviewed Soundgarden on "Headbanger's Ball" during the Superunknown days. Rachtman asked, "Do you notice a difference in the fans you saw before as compared to the fans you see now?" Cornell stumbled, trying to be polite. Thayill, already a couple sheets to the wind, muttered something to the effect of "credit-card carrying jock poseurs". Cameron smiled. Shepherd fell out of his chair laughing.

Some bands know.

And there's an example of artistic response, in fact. Soundgarden. Now, it would have been easy enough to cuss MTV out lyrically for banning the video for "Jesus Christ Pose" after one airing. However, Soundgarden one-upped that kind of childish revenge. On the release of Superunknown, Soundgarden released their first video after JCP--"Spoonman". The entire video consisted of footage of Artis playing his spoons and still shots of the band from former promo shoots. It made a great statement: Why make a good video if you're not going to play it?

(You'll notice that another video from the album, "Fell on Black Days" is an anti-video as well, featuring concert footage and short-film footage shot by bassist Ben Shepherd's brother Henry.) And then you'll notice that Soundgarden, having made their statement, went on to make more participatory, artistic videos again: "Black Hole Sun", "Burden in My Hand", and "Blow Up the Outside World".)

Artistic responses should be subtle. That story just occurred to me.

What constitutes seriously? The presumption of quality before listening?

And it's a wonderful point aside from being irrelevant and non-applicable.

No it's not, but it's also a point that tarnishes the idea of his lyrical genius, which is necessary to justify the idea that his continued success is not pop-culture mindlessness. Is that so hard to understand?

Well I would hope not to record an album in the guise of a professional pianist until I could warrant the label.

Is that particularly difficult to comprehend in any way? In fact, I should play "Chopsticks" as a background track over a simple beat extracted from a Casio keyboard and then talk bad about all the people who have pissed me off. It might sell, but I'm not about to call myself a musician if I do that.

In other words, he's like other rappers who "show talent".

Look, I have plenty of bands on my shelf that, by the standards I describe in this topic, I should not. But therein lies part of the point. It doesn't matter that we own or listen to such performances. I just find it very dishonest to inflate the performance into something it isn't.

A short list of those, not all-inclusive:

• Live: Throwing Copper--the whole album smacks of pop-delerium. While I like the premise, for instance, of "Lightning Crashes", there's no denying it's a whiny song bent to the faux-poetic pop-culture evident in its day. There are only two standout tracks on that album, and one of them is the "bonus" track.

• Flotsam and Jetsam: When the Storm Comes Down--the first F&J album after Newstead left for Metallica. Really only one standout track by today's terms, and that just barely. It's an affinity.

• Scott Thomas Band: California--a strong debut album, but hardly innovative. It suggests songwriting talent, but whether that talent ever blossoms is another question. Not offensive at all to listen to (sonically, I'm not thinking of lyrical-moral offense), but this album won't be forgotten because nobody will ever notice it; I got it for free from a guy handing out promo discs in a coffee shop.

Well, let's see ... I've seen minimization of an event, redefinition of terms related to that event, assertions of his lyrical talent combined with admissions that his talent isn't as evident in some places as in others ... what am I to think of this topic? There is very little here in Eminem's defense/praise that strikes me as distinctive. That you choose to represent yourself in the manner you do is the primary factor in my assessment of, say, you individually. That it doesn't seem to reach any higher than the usual rap-related discussions is hardly my problem. Rather, I think it's yours.

Nonetheless, none of your tirade changes the fact that it seems like you're asking me to lie and say yes, I have witnessed a condition that, in reality, I have not.

I used to say of Christians that the "real" Christians (as opposed to the political activist charlatans like Wildmon, Mabon, and their flocks) are either nonexistent or smart enough to keep their mouths shut. Watching Christian evangelists go forward in the world is sometimes a very bizarre notion, and when you're left wondering how it is that such a diverse religion exhibits such narrow and restrictive conditions, the answer is because the "other" Christians are leaving the fight to them. They're not speaking up because the debate hasn't reached a level where they can contribute. It is problematic, but it's the best answer as to why such a diverse religious paradigm as Christianity is so ill-represented in the United States.

Likewise, if we distinguish "intelligent" Eminem fans, I'm wondering where that intelligent discussion is. I've known incredibly intelligent people, for instance, who because of their religion viewed the world from a horribly moronic point of view. (One of them is in town this weekend campaigning for the surrender of my unborn child to Chrisitanity, incidentally, but that's technically beside the point.) And I've also known very quiet Christians who were only moved to speak when the discussion transcended balbutive because they felt any contribution before that point would be detrimental. In the end, the direct comparison says that I would like to see more intelligent discussion out of Eminem's fans. Defending threats of violence, minimization, spotty calls about lyrical quality, and rampant accusations of torts against Eminem are not selling me on the central question of the quality of the pop-culture product he presents.

And some of them fight this instead of depending on it. Think of the Soundgarden tale I related above, about "Headbanger's Ball". On the one hand, it was risky to criticize fans like that. To the other, Soundgarden did not appear to really want those people at their shows ruining the experience for others. Furthermore, it is doubtful that the credit-card carrying jocks Thayill was so critical of realized they were being criticized.

And, again, I'm left to think of Neil Diamond. "Diamond girls, is there anybody there at the end of the night?"

Will you try something for me? You can post the results here, or in a PM, or even email me.

For the next several occasions that you see this friend, if you have cause to speak ill of anyone, take Marshall's model. As you see people that you might criticize--That was dumb, or What's their f--king problem, and so on--refer to them by different words. Call all the women you disapprove of dykes and all the men you disapprove of faggots. Even the ones hitting on you. Do it on several consecutive occasions and if she says nothing to you about it, I'll stop worrying about it. Did someone cut you off in traffic? Say, "Fucking stupid dyke." And the woman who stepped into the street against the light: "Serve the dyke bitch right if she gets her ass mowed." And the guy making inappropriate passes at you? "What a f--king homo."

Wow, so those guys who will hate you because you're a gay man but who love watching lesbian intercourse aren't homophobic? Cool!

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I think at the time I was referring to lyrics about anal sex. You see, I find it interesting that he talks about homo faggot pussies but doesn't say much about dykes. I wonder why he hasn't turned a lesbian into a general negative word. After all, bitch no longer means woman, homo no longer implies a gay man, and faggot no longer has anything to do with a stick, a cigarette, or a gay man.

Academy English, vol. 1, by Marshall Mathers III?

I just love the premise, though: I don't want to make sense but you all are stupid for not understanding when I don't want to speak to you coherently and want to make up words and tell you what they mean.

1. All women is a stretch. People claim he has affection for his daughter. Time will tell.

2. This is my common experience. Either that or the women don't like Eminem at all and don't make a point of listening to his product.

3. Again, this is my common experience. And, again, the alternative is the women I know who don't listen to Eminem at all.

(Of that crowd of women who don't make a point of listening to Eminem, I must say that several of them have said that the "offensive" content wouldn't matter if was presented with more artistic vision. In that case, I believe the implication to be that it wouldn't matter what Eminem said if he wasn't such a self-centered f--k about it.)

4. Again, this is my common experience. The flip-side is, again, those women who don't listen to Eminem.

1. If Eminem is just making up words, why "faggot" and "homo"? Why not "rabbit" and "balloon"? Because his "wimpy" definition is based in the insult of the word "faggot" being a derogatory word for homosexuals. When you call a man a faggot as a general insult, you are calling him homosexual and implying that there is something wrong with it. If Eminem doesn't want people pointing at the insults he uses, he ought to find better insults. See point 4 below.

2. Threefold: (A) many don't listen to him, (B) those who do want to fuck him generally say so in a mildly-sarcastic fashion--they think Eminem would enjoy it; (C) when gay men go out dancing, many of them get horny--DJ's in gay clubs do occasionally play Eminem specifically for the political statement of getting a bunch of homo faggots horny. Eminem may find the conditions of homo faggots something to speak disapprovingly of and use as the basis for insult, but he is contributing to their behavior.

3. Actually, I've found that the gay men I know do find Eminem bothersome. But they'd rather pervert Eminem's homophobia into something more constructive. They're just a little more easygoing when it comes to what to do about it.

4. My experience is twofold. The majority of gay men I know don't bother with Eminem because it sucks. Of the controversy, well, I would say that among those men, I have a point: they're tired of hearing people say "faggot" this and "homo" that, constantly putting the words into different contexts. I mean, George Bush must be frustrated with all those women in the UN. And that stupid woman Saddam Hussein needs to be bitch-slapped.

In addition, many gay men I know extend certain sympathies and empathies to Eminem. The prevailing opinion among gay men I know is that Eminem is, in fact, a severely closeted, neurotically repressed homosexual.

Well, when you present idiot-simple schema such as these, it's not supposed to make much sense.

The world needs another lawyer like Kurt Cobain needs another shotgun.

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Actually, I explained exactly what I meant, which is more than we can say for either you or Eminem:

• But it sounds ferociously homosexual, diva-arrogant ... it really reminds me of a trannie pageant.

•_I think the whole atmosphere was dragged down by a pompous, queenie primadonna yelling all over the place.

• I don't like using gay as a dig, but I don't think the word can be applied in any complimentary sense

•_I mean, even if I was legitimately impressed by the quality of the primadonna bit, I don't think Marshall would appreciate it.

Do I really need to explain that? Here, I will. It can be summed up rather simply:

• While I have no problem with primadonna queens, nor with "gay" sounding performances, I really don't think that such a compliment would settle well with Marshall.

I mean, Without Me is screaming balzac queer.

Big deal. From there, it's all up to perception.

Obviously, you seem to find gay a disparaging way to qualify the sound of the single. Why? What's wrong with it sounding gay? Other than the fact that I don't think that's what Marshall was after?

Why go introducing this kind of issue now? After all, the implication that he's out of his mind comes from his repeated excusing of himself because of past abuses and troubles while continuing to behave like a moron. But I hadn't brought it up because it didn't seem that important.

Well stop trying to tell me he made it to the top wholly on his own merit. He didn't. Easy enough?

And I don't see how that changes anything. There are, as I have said, many bands who don't have someone like Dre stiffarming executives for them. Like I said, if Cornell had taken, say, Rob Wynia under his wing in the same way, Floater would rule the pop charts.

Well I keep asking about his lyrical quality. And when I raise the Margot Kidder issue, the answer is, "Well, that album wasn't very good." Some lyrical genius.

Sorry, kiddo. The only egotism you can blame on me is my own.

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thanx,
Tiassa

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Self-indulgent personality cult

On the whole, it's self-indulgent tripe. I don't see anything particularly bothersome in there except for the fact that it's on par with Papa Roach's self-indulgent tripe. However, in the tradition of rap, it's not even groundbreaking in its arrogance.

What's actually funny is that I do have an mp3 of Vanilla Ice as Rob van Winkle rapping with Bloodhound Gang. It's not a particularly good song, but I have a specific affection for it: the DAMN clan of Rainbow Six players released a map that featured the song in the background. The song is "Boom". It is, in fact, AABBCC, but that isn't as much of a trait in the lyrics as the tendency toward self-inflation by the MC.

And I see that same self-aggrandizing crap in Eminem's lyrics.

All artists talk about themselves; it's part of being an artist. But rap has a nasty tendency to muddle about in self-indulgence. I mean, compare the self-indulgence characteristic to rap and compare that to, say, "Fishin' 4 Religion" or "Mr. Wendal" by Arrested Development, both of which do involve the first person, but both of which focus on other people in a generalized social perspective, as compared to directly juxtaposed to the self. Here, I'll remove Eminem from it and give you an example:

•_Sir Mix-A-Lot Awarded at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards

Salient points:

- There is a lyrical exposition of "The Jack Back", from Mack Daddy by Mix-A-Lot. If you look past the violence, look at how many times he refers to himself. Look at how the whole thing is about him versus other people.

- As the article notes, On his 1988 solo album, Sir Mix-a-Lot boasts that he makes a lot of money, has great wealth as a result, and has many women begging to be his wife. He says that outraps other rappers, and he uses violent imagery to describe how he would kill other rappers should they challenge him. He says that he is being "serious" when he says that his "intention is to overthrow the rap government," "to take over the rap land." A sexual song is put on the album, and so is a track that labels and describes a type of women that he finds to be ugly. On the track "Iron Man," he says that he is "too black to tan," that he had a hard life in the ghetto, growing up and fighting there, and that he does not use drugs. On the track "Hip Hop Soldier," he says that he will kill blacks who challenge him, and, as some kind of proof of his commitment, he rattles off names of various caliber's or models of firearms. . There is a mass of self-indulgence in it.

Now, let's look at your examples.

Eminem's example seems very indulgent. "Me, me, me." I'm actually thinking, also, of "Without me" in this vein.

I mean, do rappers ever stop boasting about themselves? If I look over to the likes of Arrested Development, I see the presence of "I" in the lyrics, but it's not the same thing. It's not constant comparison to other individuals and self-reinforcement. It is, in fact, an attempt to translate personal perspective into something more general. This, in fact, is closer to the essence of art and, while it's not the most musical album, 3 Years 5 Months is a hell of a lot more musical in its conceptualization and execution than most rap.

One irony I found in the lyrics you presented:

Actually, where are the parents? They, like others, are getting ripped by Marshall for worrying about his lyrics.

Self-indulgence is one thing, but self-induglence to the point of hypocrisy is a betrayal of the self.

And another one, just for kicks because I love it:

I was going to stop with the last simple demonstration because it's not a huge point to labor on. But here's one that I can't resist because it speaks to the nature of art:

This is a tragedy, and I do feel for pop stars and celebrities at this point, but that's part of the price of running on a personality cult instead of on musical merit. I mean, there are people who have sold more records who don't have quite the same problems he has. Why? Because if you're Paul McCartney, you're known for being in the Beatles and defining rock and roll. If you run England's most prestigious arts academy, if you play a host of instruments and score various styles, if you're fluent with music and not just your own genre, if you create an album that stands on its musical merits, you generally don't have the public eye squeezing you so tightly.

I see a lack of artistic vision, but I'm not sure that matters or makes sense to you. It's self-indulgent tripe.

As it is, my downloads of "Guilty Conscience" and "Cleanin' Out My Closet" are done. I'm having a hard time taking these productions seriously. (Really, I'm trying.)

thanx,
Tiassa

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you go ahead, drag up all our posts, you will find out that the munchausen syndrom was mentioned in the song CLEANING OUT MY CLOSET, where my post was about, saying that that was his first really serious and personal song about his mother, its actually the first time ever that he mentioned in a song that his mother had this disease..so no contradictory here..just you not paying attention again..

i guess critics dont like it when eminem says: momma, are you there? i love you..i never meant to hit you over the head with that shovel

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well it would be nice if you would have something substantial to say to it..but well you didnt..instead of that you said the quotes i shown above, that only shows you really didnt get my point at all, because you are to busy to find contradictions in my posts..oh well..

its even mentioned in the lyrics that its not eminems part, but kon artis part..i just think it shows that if he uses that part of the song to show that eminem thinks he lives in a horrible place, that its a very stupid mistake of the reviewer..

YOU are the one who start about charging people all the time..i never mentioned it once..you come with a review and i tell you what i think of it..i tell you that the reviewer was wrong somewhere..and you start oh yea how amusing you want to charge all the people doing illegal things to eminem..see tiassa you make no sense to me, you really dont..it seems like you want to turn things around on me all the time..like YOU come with a review that the reviewer shows a stupid mistake by making his point about eminem using someone elses lyrics, i point that out you, because well i was supposed to give my opinion about the review..and then you go that its amusing of ME that i want to charge all those people, while i didnt even mention that..come one tiassa..and you are saying that i cant come with good argumentation in a discussion huh, you better look at yourself first..

and? and? what the hell do you mean with that? and what the hell does neil diamond got to do with this..i was talking about the reviewer saying that eminem hates on all the girls in that song, EVERY single woman on this planet, did you fail to see that? and i pointed out that its a song about groupie girls..thats all..so what the hell you mean with and??

uhmm huh?? i wasnt talking about pop-culture sales power whatever..the reviewer said about eminems albums that they are all the same..but still everyone wants to buy it..so i said no they arent all the same, they are all quite different..no one mentioned pop culture sales power..??

well what does this proove anything about eminem and the vma?? waving to someone is totally different than chasing someone and threaten someone..waving is a lot more not noticable you know..and do i really have to explain to you that one witness can also lie?? just to stir up the fire maybe or just because the person thought its fun to overexagerate things?? because you dragged bush to this, i will give you a different example:
'In the following article, Kathy Kelly refers to the testimony before Congress some ten years ago given by a woman named Nayirah.

You probably heard about her testimony. She was the volunteer nurse who said she witnessed Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and tossing them on the cold floor to die. She told of witnessing other horrors as well.

parts of her testimony:
'I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor. It was horrifying.'

oh god, thats really bad isnt it? thats what the usa thought too: 'This story was a key piece in the campaign to paint Iraq as totally evil--and to portray the U.S. war against Iraq as a mission to "rescue" Kuwait and "restore democracy.'

the united nations and the American congress gave permission to perform desert storm..well sounds reasonable doesnt it? look at what they did to those poor babies!!

but: 'It is interesting that no one – not the congressmen in the hearing, or any journalist present – bothered to find out the identity of the young woman. She was the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States, and actually hadn't seen the "atrocities" she described take place. (When later confronted with the lack of evidence for her claims, the young woman said that she hadn't been in the hospital herself, but that a friend who had been there had told her about it.)'

Nayirah's entire testimony was fabricated. Not a word was true. Nayirah was actually the daughter of Kuwait's Ambassador in Washington and she had been in her family's palatial home in Washington during the period described below. She never left the U.S. There was no vacation in Kuwait, no sister with a newborn baby, no volunteer work in a hospital. There were no leaflets seized by Iraqi troops; there were no Iraqi troops. There were only stories, products of imagination - hers and the people who coached her.

links: http://rwor.org/a/v19/940-49/944/lies.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0906-01.htm
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/kelly/what.htm

you probably heard of this story..maybe you didnt well then you do now..but it is a very very strong example that you shouldnt believe everything you hear..especially not with just one witness who the press fails to screen..i know this is a very strong example and a real conspiracy..im not saying that it was like that with eminem...i dont want to imply that moby set this whole one witness thing up

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, its just to show that the press can investigate more and search a little deeper to see if things are true in the first place..but unfortunatly they smell a story that will sell and will print it without checking it out further..

in the eminem case, they could have been less vague..i see one witness, one source..but no names are mentioned of that witness..they could have investigated if this story was true..like just pick up the phone and ask mtv if this truly happened? they are the ones who should know..or maybe ask around with some artists there who were in the audience?? they should know too..

first of all, eminem has been clean for the longest time, he has probation which includes also being drug and alcohol free, they test his blood regularly and he decided to turn his life around and stay clean..second of all that wasnt a member of d12 i think, i know that obie trice took the notes of the dog and tossed them in the air..but well really maybe the puppet dog should file a complain againt harrassment hehe

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come on tiassa..that was a bit sad even for you to say..you know that the vma's were organised by mtv..so yes of course they are the people that should be the ones that can confirm this had happened!! but no you thought i got justme here..shes holds mtv as a journalistic standard!! but duh it happened with their event..i didnt hear one bit about it though..and i think they would have told it if it actually happened..because its news..and they love news like this..thats why they put the whole dog puppet in the show talking about the eminem-moby thing in the first place...because they know viewers like this...just like they loved to put that picture up of eminem holding up his middlefinger to moby on the mtv site..so why no word about this whole chasing incident??

well you said before that you never listen to the radio, or look at mtv..you said you always turn the radio off when eminem comes on it..you never even heard the song without me before, you had to download it..but ok lets say that you did listen to his singles..and you can say they suck of course..but did you hear anything close to racism in those singles?? im very curious..because you said moby must be right about this when he says so...and you claim to have listened..did you hear anything to confirm this?? im sure you didnt..why believe moby then?? look you can hear a song on the radio and say it sucks, i have that all the time..but to claim things like that he only sits and do nothing with the production of the music..or that he is a racist because moby said so is something totally different..you wouldnt be able to know by just listening to a few songs of him on the radio..

no tiassa i dont know everything in the universe and i dont pretend to think that either..im just expressing my opinion here..and thats all there is to it..and sorry its not the same as yours but thats just how life is right..

oh tiassa...sorry but you do EVERYTHING to proove the things i say are ridiculous..and im sure you knew this wasnt about alicia keys..it was just an example where i picked another artist than eminem that im sure of we both knew..i really dont give a flying fuck what alicia keys does or not does..i liked that one song from her (fallin') but that was all..it was just nice and i wasnt to impressed either..although she wrote the song herself and she can play the piano so she does got some talents..but that isnt even important because it wasnt about alicia keys in the first place..it was just abou that you dont know everything about a person by watching one video of the person..

it isnt idiot-simple..its actually something i learned out my law study..its a easy way to show what actually has been said..break the argumentation down to small and easy bits to show what argumentation has been followed..and because i wasnt to sure about what you meant i used this method and asked you to clearify..which you did..

that album (infinite) didnt sell..lol you seem to keep thinking you made your point now but it just shows again that you dont get it..his first album was only released in detroit and it didnt sell..so yea they didnt recognise his lyrical genius just yet because he still had to develop it..you wont be able to buy the album by the way, you can only download it from the internet..his debut album was the slim shady lp, it sold unbelievable much and that album shows lyrical 'genius'..i think genius is a bit of a strong word though...its just very good..what makes someone a genius?? thats hard to say..

well lets see..i've seen exagerating a speech on the vmas, taking words out of proportion...making assumptions about an artist you know nothing about..stereotyping fans..what am i to think of this topic? there is very little here in eminem's attack that strikes me as distinctive. that you choose to represent yourself in the manner you do is the primary factor in my assessment of, say, you individually. that it doesnt seem to reach any higher than the usual critics on eminem is hardly my problem. rather, i think it's yours.

i have been discussing here with you for all this time now..though you dont want to see i make good points..i came up with good argumentation and i know i did..but still you keep your eyes shut and say that i havent had an intelligent discussion here..no of course YOU are the intelligent one here..and thats just so obvious, because you are right..and i am wrong..so therefore i didnt give an intelligent discussion..well to bad then, you waste all your time posting here to participate in an unintelligent discussion

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i can understand that they get tired of it..but to blame it all on eminem is something i think is wrong..its something that have to change in the society..eminem is just someone as so many other people growing up hearing faggot as a diss word and then start to use it to..i think there are better ways to show the society things have to change then demonstrating at the grammy awards, while eminem is performing with elton john on stage :rolleyes

open minded and not biased that it doesnt matter what you are going to here, because you already think its shit and nothing is going to change your mind..and no not necesarily a presumption of quality..

uhmm huh??? did you miss beatlemania?? paul mc cartney has been in the public eye, just like eminem, young girls screaming their lungs out for the beatles, trying to get in their houses, press following their everywhere..strange you think that artists that sell lots of cd but that stand on its musical merits wont have this problems...read this (link here :
'But there was a downside to this phenomenal rise to fame. While the Beatles were on tour, they were confined to their hotel rooms, only to have fans climb up drainpipes to get into their windows. When they were in London, they were mobbed in the streets, and fans would sneak into their homes to steal their personal effects. Paternity suits mounted, and jealous boyfriends of female fans even took pot shots at them. Their every word was repeated, interpreted, misquoted, and often misunderstood. Reporters bombarded them with personal, insulting, or just plain stupid questions.
Everyone, it seemed, wanted a piece of the action: Fans expressed their adoration, businessmen sought their endorsement for products, and musicians imitated their haircuts. The Beatles found themselves at a the center of a cynical bid for political support when British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, on October 26, 1965, awarded each Beatle the prestigious MBE (Member of the British Empire), an honor usually reserved for war heroes. The fans were delighted, the Beatles embarrassed; several prominent MBE-holders returned their medals in protest. What had begun as an adolescent whim, a chance to dress up in leather and sing favorite songs in front of a dancing, sweating crowd, had in many ways become a cage.'

you still think they werent so much in the public eye as eminem?? actually i think you could make a comparison here..the press and everyone was just as much all over the beatles as with eminem, trying to twist their words around, groupies all over them, critics all over them too...

you dont see it..i do see it..thats what art is all about you know..one think something is crap, the other loves it..that is taste..i know eminem raps about himself a lot, i totally see your point there but the thing is i dont mind this, i can understand if someone do mind but i just dont..i like it so much better than rapping about jewelry, money, cars and fucking bitches, like a lot of other rappers do..i like eminems style..i like how he talks about his life in his songs and makes it interesting in a way, the songs give a lot of emotions..to me that is art..he raps about his life and you can actually feel the emotions coming through your speakers..and sometimes hes just clowning around and get me laughing no matter how cranky i am that day..we just dont agree on this and thats no problem..

 

So sue me

• Most of the time he used the word "bitch", he was reffering to his mom and she may fit the bill of one (Static, 9.04.02)

• The funny thing though, is for the most part when he's not playing a character, he's saying bitch to a man and not a woman. Or to his mother who IMO deserves the label.(Static, 9.06.02)

• but it was nice to have this discussion with you, and it was nice to read your posts, especially because we agreed with eachother most of the time Justme to Static, 9.15.02)

You never did disagree with Static about Eminem's mother, you know. Apparently, as we see from 9.04.02, we cannot simply erase past albums and start examining Eminem's lyrical relationship with his mother at the present album. It obviously starts before "Cleanin' Out My Closet".

If Eminem didn't have such a hard time separating the artistic beast from the human beast, nobody would have a problem making that separation on his behalf. As was pointed out: Eminem was not in character at the VMA; that was Marshall speaking, and it seems to me that the tough attitude and lack of civility is more than a mere artistic front.

Well, your opinion that something is nonsense settles an argument. My opinion that something is nonsense is unfounded?

Cheap, second-rate, and childish, Justme.

So Eminem, in making his own albums, is not responsible for what is on them?

Seems to me that's a key part to making your assertion valid.

Seems to me that's a cheap lie.

• Have you not expressed that a critic has improperly libeled Eminem, criticizing him for what he did not do?

•_Have you not asserted that B&N (Barnes & Noble) libeled Eminem by misrepresenting the production credits?

•_Well? Did Moby libel Eminem or not?

I'm more interested in the first two, which are definite breaches of the law. Ask Static, who lives in LA and knows far better than you or I about the struggles of today's actors. There are very strict rules about how people are credited in show business.

And in the end, I would hope you would have some better response than a critic committing libel or a retailer illegally misrepresenting an artist's work.

Well, after a while, the everybody is wrong and sucks because Eminem is right line just lacks the necessary bite. Give it some teeth. Flesh it out. Show some substance.

I've long-known I'm holding an essentially untenable line in this argument. But you've made it so easy to do so. People like Eminem generally escape comment until they do something worth commenting on. Had he made a tremendous album, I would acknowledge that. Unfortunately, he used his celebrity status as a platform for a threat of violence. To borrow a line from Mix-A-Lot: that's the wrong move, Jack.

It's another about the groupie girls that hang around (Neil) and want him to sleep with them, or they only want to be with him because he’s famous, or only want his money. And it doesn't have to rely on "genius" rhymes like anthrax on your tampax or language that involves the need to slap you 'til you can't stand. We see in his regard for the situation some about the value of people.

That's why I like the "Diamond Girls" comparison. It's a straight comparison: compassion versus macho vitriol. It's just a nifty comparison. I've known "Diamond Girls" as a song since I was four or five. And, frankly, when people are offering me a possible benefit out of their own desperation, my general attitude is a little more compassionate than slapping them 'til they can't stand.

And there's part of the crux: I can't believe people actually get off on this kind of stuff. I mean, what people like is well and fine, but don't expect me to respect it as intelligent.

Some art with extreme messages actually affects the ways people think. Often, this comes through either imitation or extrapolation. The extrapolation of Eminem's music as an artistic statement is dire in its weakness. Imitation would be downright scary, so we continue to hope against it.

An interesting question:

• Eminem notes the difference in his skin color compared to what he would be paid
• This either overlooks rappers of prior fame and infamy, or else acknowledges Michael Jackson's charges of record-industry racism and points out that he is willing to capitalize based on skin color.

I've already apologized for not being slobberingly obsessed with someone I don't care about. I'll try to me more vigilant about marking down the dates randomly obscure things occur to me that I don't expect to have any future bearing. After all, I would hate to be rude to future generations.

To the other, I did hear an Eminem interview once upon a time and I do recall that he said something that ticked with me in the sense that He might catch some shit for that from the Jewish lobby. Moby may have been overstating the case, but frankly I, too, remember that edge. Problem is, though, that I now see that if Eminem actually did employ an anti-Semitic phrase in that interview, I realize that it's not because he's a Jew-hater, but that he's too stupid to know the difference.

Do you know why I don't use the phrase "shit from shinola"?

And yes, if I went on television and said someone didn't know "shit from shinola", I would expect to hear it from a few civil rights groups.

But do you know why?

I believe I actually started with the following:

I never said he did nothing. If he did nothing, there would be no album. Duh.

Or, to rehash my initial response to your lamentation of that part:

It's not like Tiffany did nothing. She still had to show up at the sessions. She still had to sing. She still had to tell her producer what she wanted it to sound like, though in that case I think her producer probably told her what it should sound like. Eminem, I'm sure, had much say in his album, but look at the number of people necessary to make it happen. Again, I don't bag on the idea of other musicians; they're necessary. But that was a crowded booth at the studio.

Here ... listen to Eminem's albums in order.

Now, listen to Def Leppard's albums in order.

And then listen to Tesla's albums in order.

Now, listen to Pearl Jam's albums in order.

And then listen to Soundgarden's albums in order.

Listen to the Screaming Trees' albums in order. And make sure you intersperse that chronologically with the Purple Outside side project as well as Mark Lanegan's solo albums. What's great about this particular comparison is that the Trees undergo a quality evolution, Purple Outside is a stylistic freeze-frame from one part of the band, and Lanegan's solo albums are stylistically and qualitatively different from either Screaming Trees or Purple Outside. Lastly, once that's all settled in, give the new Queens of the Stone Age album a listen; Lanegan sings on a few tracks there.

Now: hard rockers who liked Def Leppard in their High & Dry days rubbed their eyes and said, "What?" when the band settled into its post-Pyromania malaise. The sound never really changed, only got more fluffy. Tesla? Three studio albums, no stylistic evolution?

What about the difference between Pearl Jam's Ten and Vs.? Flash forward to Yield? Or compare the evolution of Gossard and Ament: listen to the different sounds going on in Mother Love Bone and Pearl Jam. You can tell it's the same minds, but they're evolving.

Soundgarden? Louder Than Love changed rock and roll in its own quiet way. (Pop-metal press raved about the "new sound" when they heard Louder Than Love, though it should be mentioned that the A&M debut for the band came after they received a Grammy nomination for Ultramega OK, a minor-label/indie release. Compare Soundgarden's early albums--Screaming Life/Fopp and Ultramega OK to their later, Superunknown or Down on the Upside. Do you hear it? These songs don't sound just like the last songs we bought from the band? Although Soundgarden is considered seminal to grunge, would you say that "Blow Up the Outside World" or "Head Down" are grunge songs?

When a reviewer says we're not getting much new from an album, it means that stylistically--within the genre as well as the artist's library--we're getting rehashes and variations of old news.

Well, the paper only quoted one direct witness. From what I can tell of your regard for newspaper reports, this means the incident never happened.

Nonetheless, we can conclude based on the principles you've expressed that President George W. Bush never tried to wave to Stevie Wonder.

My cousin was the only witness once to a motorcycle crash. He had nightmares for years about the guy laying there, twitching as he died. He even described it for the newspaper.

I feel so badly for him now, having nightmares over an incident that never happened

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Considering that MTV censored the incident from subsequent broadcasts, I'll leave that to you.

Nah, I think Triumph's thirst for vengeance was satiated when Conan played the tape. I mean, really--Eminem looked like he was scared of a puppet.

I find the fact that MTV removed the segments in question from subsequent broadcasts a clear indicator of their willingness to discuss the incident. You may wait to hear it from MTV, but they're already trying to scrub the incident. You might as well ask the Chinese government if it was true that the Tiananmen protesters were really being peaceful.

Um, Justme, did I fail to mention that MTV is trying to scrub the entire event? They cut it from subsequent broadcasts, you know, in order to present the VMA as if the ugliness never happened at all.

I don't listen to commercial radio. I don't pay close attention to MTV. But answer me this, please: What would you think if you invited your friends over for drinks and the first thing, after walking in, without saying hello, they walk over and turn off your stereo because you're playing Eminem? A little rude, don't you think? Now then, should I flee a bar where I have money down for a drink just because Eminem is in da howse? Should I leap out of a car moving seventy miles an hour? Really, your recommendations, please?

For some reason, I addressed this point above, out of order. I have no idea why.

Like I said, apparently your opinion settles the argument.

Don't blame me for the natural result. I mean, if you don't want me to regard things as ridiculous, stop saying so many ridiculous things.

You're right I knew it wasn't about Ms. Keys. That's why I pointed out the errors of form in your comparison. If you would like to make an allegorical, metaphorical, or analogous comparison, I would ask that you please make it functionally relevant.

Do they really teach you in law school to misrepresent and exaggerate that which you're attempting to argue against? Maybe there is a reason so many Americans think of lawyers as useless piles of shite.

Writing intentional mischaracterizations for simple argumentative presentation is referred to as "sound-bite culture" in American television media. It's called lying elsewhere.

Hey, you had to be the one who mischaracterized. If that's a matter of your frustration, fine. But if you expect to get away with that as a lawyer, well, I hope you understand why so many people think Hell was made for lawyers.

Repugnant and characteristic of small-minded politics. You ever realize how much people restate each other's positions on those "Crossfire"-type "news shows"? It's because, like you, they have no real position to effectively combat the point, and therefore must redefine the point before responding to it.

Slim Shady was a 1999 Interscope release. Hell, I don't see a label for Infinite, but that's just because nobody's listing it (Web Entertainment?). That would make Slim Shady the major-label debut.

The simple difference? Screaming Life and Fopp were Ep's released by the band (SubPop). Ultramega OK was Soundgarden's debut Lp released on SST. Louder Than Love was their major-label debut on A&M records.

Infinite is listed as an Lp.

Given that I have no idea why you would discount Eminem's debut Lp, except of course to raise the status of what you make the debut Lp, I shall leave it at that.

I think "genius" is a stretch, as well. But more to the point, if he was signed on merit, what was that merit? His lyrics? His ability to recite them in rhythm? After all, part of my point is that I don't see the merit, in the present or in the past.

One of the things that makes an untenable position easy to hold is when the opposition fails to raise any substantive objection. Overall, throughout this topic, I have seen people defend Eminem's actions, his behavior in general, and respond to charges of inappropriate perspective with inadequate and sometimes contradictory counterpoints. Come on ... you'll notice that I won't say he shouldn't do it because that's not the point. Eminem has every right to make a moron of himself publicly. I just don't see any obligation to respect the intelligence of a position that advocates such behavior. And I don't see any obligation to respect the intelligence of poorly-asserted qualitative arguments.

That's definitive.

Look around. Take a look at the state of pop music. I'm not wrong on any of that, by my perspective. I just don't understand why people want to separate Eminem from the market he's in. I have appreciation for plenty of artists who have benefitted from the crooked record industry, but there's a difference between having an opportunity and making the best of it.

Well you do make an untenable position quite easy to hold and defend.

You may be perfectly intelligent. In this discussion, though, you have failed to show that.

No, where I assert a lack of intelligent discussion is in the absence of any intelligent opposition to what, as I have repeatedly noted, is essentially an untenable position. You'd think it would be easy to knock that one down.

Think of weight training. You can lift high weight, low rep for mass over the long term, or you can lift low weight, high repetition for muscle definition. That's hardly a definitive summary of weight training methods, but it's specific enough to make the point.

And it's proving very educational to me to be in this discussion. It reminds me that I still tend to give more thought to things I don't have any real appreciation for than many of the people who do appreciate such things. That's a very vital piece of insight.

Blame what? Is there something wrong with examining someone's contribution to an ongoing situation? After all, as Eminem said of the word "faggot" and of hitting bitches, he's not the first.

Diss words? Now, just stop for a moment. First off, I learned a lot of diss words in my time, and I generally don't abuse their value. "Bitch" is a word I will use frequently, with full knowledge of its severe implications, and with intent to exploit those implications either directly or indirectly.

Nonetheless, take a look at how much of the popular culture lives for diss words. It's pretty freaking sad, when you stop and look at it. I mean, the greatest indictment of the diss culture is to simply say, "Well, at least we know what's important to them."

Mayhaps there is also a better way of showing one's displeasure with another than by using celebrity as a platform to threaten? Eminem's behavior gave his critics much legitimate ammunition. Someone noted that he wasn't playing any charcters, or, at least, why should he? It would be better for his reputation if he was. At least then he has something resembling an excuse.

Not necessarily a presumption of quality? Under what conditions is a presumption of quality part of openmindedness? Because then my presumption of a lack of quality is not necessarily a part of openmindedness, either. But that necessarily leaves conditions where it can be. Even by your own position you leave me an opening for propriety.

That's part of what I mean when I say you make it easy to hold an untenable position.

Although it is worth noting that the first time I heard an Eminem song, back before the controversy broke, back when I didn't know the words Slim Shady ... the first time I heard an Eminem song, I thought, "What is this shit?"

And then I set about trying to ignore it. Which I was doing just fine until Eminem had to go and draw that kind of attention to himself.

Well, I wasn't alive for it. But nobody was standing around to get a shot of Sir Paul taking a shit. In the modern day, press scrutiny is part of the package when you become a celebrity. That's why it's always good to have your celebrity based on something substantive. Otherwise, pinching a loaf is about all the news that's worth it.

And, hey, as much as I dislike news organizations, the present business model says ratings, ratings, ratings; other than that, I don't care who pinches a loaf when or where, as long as it's not on my porch.

Yet, strangely, the Beatles never publicly resorted to profane castigation of the people who they perceive to be annoying them. I'm suddenly in mind of Little Richard insisting that he had won the Grammy, a most shameful tantrum indeed. But he had better credibility for that. And when people gave him the ration of shite he deserved, he pretty much took it. He didn't threaten or menace.

A key difference. As compared to what had begun as an adolescent whim, a chance to ... what? Eminem has asked for this fame, he has acknowledged it, and he has excoriated the criticism. It's all fair but if he doesn't want it, he shouldn't ask for it.

It's not so much that they weren't in the public eye. Such exaggerations of the condition are not a necessary part of the discussion so please try better to leave them out. (See prior notes about mischaracterization.)

But I don't think you can compare the press then to now. I don't think you can fairly compare the Beatles to everyone who tried to reproduce their success. It's a different world now, and Marshall knew what he was stepping into when he chose to speak as he did.

Which speaks nothing of artistic merit.

Here's a contrast: listen to Band of Susans. I'm thinking of their interpretation of Rhys Chatham's "Guitar Trio". It's just one note for thirteen and a half minutes, but that's the point. It's not supposed to be anything other than an interpretation of a minimalist exploration of tone. All variations within the tone are planned, and precisely executed in order to create a structured exploration of one note (the notes are picked and struck in various ways at various points on the string). It's a artistic exploration not designed to sell millions of copies, and it fits very well with the rest of the portfolio in which it is presented, an album called The Word and the Flesh, which is intentionally one of the most monochromatic albums ever recorded.

Or try My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. There's a track on there called "Soon" which is an incredible artistic accomplishment; the engineers were recording almost blind and entirely deaf. Their only sense of what was taking place was to watch the needles on the desk and to push the start and stop buttons at the right time. The song is so massively layered that it took very deliberate and careful calculations to create the final product. If I could explain "glide guitar" easily, I would, but the point was to cut hard sounds out of the guitars--you can always hear the pick strike if you listen carefully enough. Or MBV's cover of "Map Ref 41N 93W", originally by a band called Wire. There's a story about Kevin Shields breaking an unbreakable component in the studio, and the most common speculation is that recording "Map Ref" was too much for the equipment at hand.

Now another studio tale. The legendary Syd Barrett, declining into insanity, was brought to the studio to record tracks for a solo album. The tracks were rough, and difficult to record, with Syd unable to finish the production. Over time, other musicians were brought in and additional music removed from Syd's plans was recorded and the Barrett sessions were mixed together with these. Pink Floyd fans generally appreciate these albums because they are our last words from Syd before insanity swallowed him, but nobody pretends the horns in the background are part of Syd's genius.

What is important about artistic vision is that it is a testament of the artist. We see in art what is important to the artist; when Roger Waters sings, O can you see it all makes perfect sense expressed in dollars and cents, pounds, shillings, and pence, it's because that is an aspect of the living experience he finds important. And that's part of the problem I have with Eminem's artistic expression:

Well, at least we see what is important to the artist. I mean, it's well enough to keep saying, "me, me, me", but Eminem isn't really making that expression relevant. It's still all about him and what he sees and how it makes him feel and so forth. Other people have made great artistic expressions about the same internal factors but without making their own selves the most important thing in it.

And at that level, it's not bothersome at all. What is bothersome is that people continue to buy it. It's a pretty sad reflection of people when they raise the artistic value of such pointless selfishness.

Frankly, I don't see the difference. It's all about the self and what the self has, does, or feels. A better artistic vision would also attempt to communicate why such things are important. This is one of my vital criticisms of rap. While I do appreciate some rap for its humorous value, best credibility for rap will come from the less self-obsessed rappers.

Which emotions?

Although, I do think that what you've pointed out here is exactly the dirty joke aspect of Eminem's career. People listen to Eminem and chuckle about bad metaphors, foul twists of tongue, and sympathize with empty rage. It is rather like those who made Andrew Dice Clay popular. Many people who thought he spoke gospel truths resented the implication that their sympathies toward such humor reflected on those factors they found most immediately important.

I mean, hell, I like porno and bad comedy as much as the next person. It's just that I don't call it high art. There is a difference between Girls Gone Wild and The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love.

Side Note:

I happened to catch a few minutes of one of the MTV stations last night. A VeeJay sat with several of the young generation, mod hipsters of the Old Navy generation. She introduced an video by a British up-and-comer and told how the single got picked up from an indie compilation to become #1 in England. She asked the assembled studio guests if they thought radio airplay made a song popular or if it was the merits of the song itself. One said that video was more important than airplay. Another said something about how video made the radio package whole. Nobody said anything in defense of music. I found that a very interesting testament to the popular culture: asked directly about airplay and musical quality, nobody chose musical quality.

Perhaps a cinematic comparison? I just watched a creepy film. It was about a little boy who got locked in a schoolhouse cloakroom and watched the ghostly reenactment of horrible acts being visited on a little girl. Obsessed with the mystery, the young boy is twice nearly murdered by a serial child killer while dodging ghosts and suffering evil pranks at the hands of malicious "friends". It's got everything--ghosts, Catholic comedy, serial child killing ... but it beats most horror films produced in recent years because it doesn't bother overstating the unnecessary. Sure, the special effects aren't particularly special. But that's not the point. Far worse films get far better acceptance because of their candy coating. Yet this simply-filmed, no-frills film keeps everyone I know who watches it riveted. Why? Because Lady in White is a well-made film that doesn't need sixteen layers of carnuba wax to shine. But it wasn't flashy enough so people looked past it in favor of the next well-styled neon sign, regardless of what it promised. I well understand that well-made films aren't as popular as films designed to pander to what people already want and expect of a movie, but that's just part of it. Art is not a service industry. You do not pander to people that way. As much as I enjoy Star Wars, I can't help but recognize the absolute pandering to the audience taking place in the current trilogy. Otherwise, Lucas would have learned after the Ewoks. Spielberg? He makes great films, but I think the historical revisionism he pulled for Amistad was really rather cheap and uncalled for. It was a simple point, but it leaves the impression that the United States figured out the right thing to do a lot more easily than it did. Or Disney? Why didn't I like Pocahontas? Because the story doesn't really have a happy ending. It portrayed the situation far too nobly and far too simplistically. After a while, the process of pandering to the market's craven needs becomes sickening to watch.

I saw videos by Aaliyah, Ashanti, Puddle of Mudd, and TLC last night. They all drove me nuts. What was really funny was at one point, three stations showing videos showed the same Ashanti video overlapping (two) and consecutively (switched from one to the third at the end and suddenly the same video was beginning on the third as I had just watched on the other two). I mean, come on ....

The sad thing is that TLC has impressed me vaguely in the past. I can't say as much for what I saw and heard last night. I won't start on Puddle of Mudd.

The pop culture is a a sick wreck. That much is certain. Perhaps that's how little art means to people, but there is no doubt that one's artistic self speaks volumes about what one finds important in the Universe. And looking at the broad public manifestations of such priorities, I'm left to wonder why people who do care about whether or not they are regarded as intelligent put so little effort into giving reasons for that regard. You're in law school; you have to be somewhat smart at the very least to get there. But beyond that it's hard for me to say because in our interaction is limited. However, of what we have discussed in this particular debate, I don't find a whole lot of merit to the argument. Is it rap or is it rock and roll? Either way, really. It doesn't much matter. In either case, Eminem is, musically, mundane at best. I don't care that people like it. I do care though when people's opinions of Eminem cloud their judgment of right and wrong. And I do care when I see people annihilating common sense and ideological integrity in defense of their own fancy. Fancy as you wish to fancy, but don't bend principles just to accommodate fancy; that's dishonest to oneself. And I do care when people wish to exaggerate the artistic vision of a commercial product in order to assuage their own consciences when nagged by that feeling of selling themselves short.

So sue me.

You're the lawyer, after all. Or, not yet.

thanx,
Tiassa

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ok let me see what we had said before:
justme reacting on reviewer who said: In 'Cleanin Out My Closet', he unleashes an astonishingly corrosive torrent of hatred towards his parents, saying "I've got some skeletons in my closet/and I don't know if no-one knows it", but the fact is we've heard the story repeated for years now.’

tiassa said this in response:

my reply to tiassa:

now tiassa's reply on this:

your last reply really has nothing to do with what we were talking about before..i never denied he never mentioned his mom before, i even gave you some quotes from previous songs of eminem where he mentioned her in..but cleaning out my closet is different than these other songs..its not mocking around anymore, its dead serious and he tells what really happened to him..which he never told in detail before in any of his songs..so to me what the reviewer said isnt right..we never did hear the story before in his songs..
again lets see what we all have said:
me:

you said:

i said:

then you reply with:

look at how that doesnt make sense at all..i said something was nonsense to me, thats my opinion about it yes, doesnt mean something is officially settled and that thats the end of everything..but you reply to me like i was acting like the discussion is over and settled just because i said it was nonsense to me..so i respond back that it would have been nice if you would have reacted on it, why you would think it isnt nonsense..then you reply saying that i think that if you say something is nonsense is unfounded? and that if i say something is nonsense that that settles the argument? i never said that...and if you think i meant that it wasnt how i meant it at all..and then you go that its childish of me?? i really dont understand..

it is kon artis part..the song is a colleboration with d12..and no eminem doesnt write the lyrics for them..so if kon artis raps in his part about having no gurls and so on then its about kon artis..and its not about eminem..to me that doesnt seem to be so hard to understand..

i never said i want to charge them, you keep bringing that up..about B&N i said that dr. dre is the executive producer and not mark and jeff bass, but i already apologised for being slightly wrong there..then the critic? which one do you mean? the newspaper or the reviewer? the newspaper part might be right or might be wrong..the reviewer made a stupid mistake yes, did i ever mention charging him? no you were the one saying that..i just pointed out that he made a mistake and never said anything about wanting to charge him for this..why keep bringing that up while WE are having the discussion here? its not a discussion between me and the reviewer..and you mentioned that review and i told you that it wasnt such a good review because he made a few mistakes..so dont start about charging people because i NEVER EVEN ONCE mentioned that..

never said that everybody is wrong and sucks because eminem is right..thats what you are making of it..if i see that a reviewer make a mistake should i not point it out then? should i shut up about it while i see that he made a mistake? why is that so wrong to point out? we were talking about the review right, so why not mention it??

oh you are still not over that one line what he says in white america i see...how sad of you to twist that into racism..if you look at what people say about eminem most of the time it contains these words: white boy, white rapper...eminem keeps on getting questions in interviews about him being white (this is driving eminem crazy) ..so its pretty obvious the hype around eminem is a lot about him being a white rapper...he doesnt overlook other rappers prior fame..he mentioned that sentence in his song because he knows that him being white has helped the hype..he was 'new', he was 'different', he is THE white rapper to many..

actually i dont know..i never heard that expression before..actually english isnt my first language..its dutch..i live in holland..i learned english through tv

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, but i tried to look it up, and i got this: http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/meanings/114000.html Meaning
Someone who has poor judgement or knowledge.
Origin
Shinola is a brand of shoe polish available in the USA.
im not sure if you were referring to that though..

did you? no? then dont start to me about that you know if eminems albums are different or not different from one another..

never said that..i said you can have your doubts with it..things arent always true..it can be true but its not enough to say with an absolute certainty that is true..in the end its just a paper who wants a good story and claims that another paper reported that one witness saw this and that..it seems all very vague to me..

tiassa, you know this has nothing to do with what we were talking about..im sorry for your cousin..i never said that one witness is never true, of course there are many times that a witness have claimed to see something happening and that it actually happened...but still you always have to be careful with what you believe what people say..like jennifer lopez was supposed to be pregnant for like the 5th time now in 2 years i think?? there is a lot of hype around eminem...a lot of stuff what they write about celebrities is not true..they just like a good story because it sells, anways we were talking about the piece in the paper..and i never said its absolutly not true, i said there is a possibility it is true, and if it is i think eminem went way to far..but there is also still this possibility that it isnt true..

yea mtv usa did this..but you are forgetting i live in holland..we have mtv holland...they never added anything here, in the repeats they showed everything, the puppet dog and the speech of eminem, actually since we got mtv holland eminems vids arent censored anymore either...we had a vj from holland at the vma's, she was reporting from there..we have our own news section reporting..they didnt mention it though..they did mention the booing part and they did mention the puppet dog..but not the chasing..no one mentioned it..no artist mentioned it..if i see tomorrow an interview from an artist who was present at the vma's(and i dont mean especially on mtv) who claimed to have seen the chasing happening i will believe it..but now all we got as proove is a newspaper thats claiming there is a witness not saying who the witness is though and not trying to check if it really happened

infinite was only released in detroit and maybe like 10000 copies in total were printed..

you dont, i do..

to bad you think that, i see it differently..

sure whatever you say, you know exactly what ithought about and what not

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really dont see what you mean here..

sure not, the press and fans left themso totally alone in their private lives that they had to flee to india to find peace and get to unstress

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i didnt say that you said they werent in the public eye, i said this: you still think they werent so much in the public eye as eminem? because you were the one saying this: 'you generally don't have the public eye squeezing you so tightly.'

lots of emotions, sad ones, happy ones, angry ones...(example songs like: rock bottom, brain damage, kim, the way i am, hailie's song)

i agree on most things you say about pop...it sux, lots of people with no talents and only nice bodies and sweet faces..being shaped by their record company into something they are not, giving them a certain image, give them a few dancing classes and some singing lessons and you are ready to be the next n'sync..i dont like these kind of artists..

why?? for having a discussion??

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i see no reason to keep this discussion going and going..we think differently and thats ok, but im getting tired to post to discuss with you while you are saying they arent intelligent after all...i think they are and i really dont see why i should keep reacting to someone who think i dont make any intelligent points..plus it takes me a lot of my time to write these whole 'books' of posts..i didnt see eminems speech as a treat of violence and you do..i think eminem is talented and you dont..lets leave it to that..

 

So does this mean we're finally done?

To cover the whole of your review, I can say this:

• I find it absolute bullshit to excuse Eminem's misogynistic lyrical regard for women because he's mad at his mother.

Easy enough?

Like you pointed out: diss culture. Apparently the paramount expression, that of the highest priority, is to diss people.

As to that whole spiel, yes. It seems to me that you have an issue with my position that the whole Eminem worship-culture is nonsense. You also seem to have a problem with my perception of the nonsensical aspects of popular taste and culture.

The end point apparently being that Eminem is not responsible for the albums he lets his name be attached to?

Stop. Right now.

Here's the problem: Your defense of Eminem includes assertions of errors which amount to crimes against Eminem.

So write his organization, advise them of repeated libels against the organization, and ask them if they intend to do anything about it.

So stop lamenting the "crimes" against Eminem. At some point, you're going to have to deal with two facts: (A) this is how some people perceive Eminem, and (B) if he doesn't want to be perceived that way, he should put more effort into how he wants to be perceived.

Easy enough?

Now, if you can deal with it, fine. If not, stop claiming conditions which equal offenses against Eminem which can be corrected in civil and criminal courts.

There's a difference between mentioning it and calling it nonsense. There's a difference between mentioning what you dislike about a review and saying that the reviewer has committed an offense which has legal repercussions.

Easy enough? I thought you were the law student.

Okay ... fair enough. I'm hearing enough interpretations of the song that I can't keep track of it, and it's not worth it.

Excellent. You are correct that this is what I'm referring to. History lesson now: Al Jolson was a white man who dressed in "blackface". That is, he would smear his face in black shoe polish and then go out singing soft parodies of "Negro music". That someone doesn't know shit from shinola means that someone doesn't know shit (a black man) from Shinola (a white man in shoe polish).

I don't see a tremendous evolution over time. List the songs that best mark that evolution.

For instance, compare Soundgarden's "Fopp" to "Beyond the Wheel" to "Loud Love" to "Drawing Flies" to "Head Down" to "Zero Change". That's chronological order from the Fopp Ep, Ultramega OK, Louder Than Love, Badmotorfinger, Superunknown, and Down on the Upside respectively. They're all definitively Soundgarden songs when you first hear them, and they're all stylistically different from one another. As you go through the catalog, you see maturity occurring musically and lyrically.

Even Savatage, the mediocre champions of 80s metal evolved from Fight for the Rock through Hall of the Mountain King into Gutter Ballet and Streets: A Rock Opera, eventually hitting moderate success with Edge of Thorns.

The evolution of rap music usually has to do with how much effort is put into the backtrack. Example? Compare Mix-A-Lot's Swass to Seminar to Mack Daddy. Mix doesn't change much, but gets angrier and more forceful. In the meantime, the backtracks get marginally better. The difference between the Beasties' License to Ill and Hello Nasty reflects a lot of the lessons learned with Paul's Boutique and Check Your Head. Show me the Eminem evolution. So he wasn't that good with Infinite? What came next, stylistically? Show me the evolution and I'll give you my two cents on it.

I see. Do you hold this standard for things that aren't on your favorite list? Personally, I think you're just making poor excuses to avoid dealing with the fact that Eminem, despite all the candy-coating, is nothing more than an arrogant neanderthal twit who is making money by being abusive toward people and gets away with it because people like you are willing to put such effort into obfuscating. You're welcome to have poor taste, it's a human right that I exercise on a regular basis. Just stop trying to dress it up like a Barbie doll.

Actually, it does. Only one witness. Seems rather vague to me whether there was a motorcycle accident. At least, by your standard.

Which is what's strange to me about Eminem bitching about how much attention he gets. What, was he too stupid to realize this when he started?

Eminem went too far, period. I just don't understand why people wish to make excuses for him. Is the power of celebrity really that important to you?

Again, your defense of Eminem equals the condition that someone has committed what amounts here to a severe libel.

I mean, come on. First you complain because I'm telling you that you're charging criminal acts and then you follow up by leveling another charge, this one more severe than the last?

Consistency would help your argument a great deal.

And? That's a reasonable debut pressing. Some bands only get 500 copies for their debut.

I only wish you could do a better job of showing me that merit.

Maybe it's a language barrier. But try this: go out and look for information on the band The La's. There's a band that was almost ruined by its label. The record company pulled the album from the band before it was finished, and equalized it for radio play. The album sounds okay, but once you've heard the demo tracks from that session, it becomes quickly apparent that the label should not have equalized for radio play. They tried to bank on commerce instead of artistic merit, and they blew it. The La's disappeared into frustrated obscurity and now have an incredibly loyal fan base that regularly digs up material we've never heard before. There's a song called "Doledrum" that wouldn't make it on the radio according to the Lp release, but when one hears a properly-equalized demo track, the song steps up about four notches.

One of the end results of this disaster is that My Bloody Valentine got to finish their album Loveless. Having sunk a bunch of money into the album, the label dared not pull early, despite its frustration. In the end, the album wasn't a huge commercial success, but it was a technical tour de force that flattened its nearest competitors for production value.

To go back to my original slam of Eminem's studio presence, I just don't see the same degree of art going into rap that I see going into other music. It's pretty easy to flip on a drum machine, and relatively easy to cut and paste sample loops from other songs, and you can say what you want about how hard it is to rap. But it's not the same as building sounds from musical instruments. When working in the common rap environment, the sounds are already built and need only be cut and pasted together into a collage. Listen to Rick Springfield's "Jesse's Girl" and you'll hear what happens when you C&P a musical performance--you get rough seams no matter what you do.

Now, perhaps this will help clarify a couple of things:

• When rap first became popular, it was said to be "black art", that is, an expression of black people in black urban neighborhoods. In that sense, the bare-bones sound is reflective of the conditions.

• As rap became popular, a number of things happened. White kids started speaking "gangsta" dialects, and the reason to listen to rap was that it was macho and it made great bass sounds. As Mix rapped: The 808 kick drum makes the girlies get dumb. The point of buying this artistic expression of black culture was because white kids felt macho with thundering bass. I knew a guy with a six-thousand dollar car, a four-thousand dollar stereo system, and a ten-thousand dollar alarm system. Why? Because the 808 kick drum makes the girlies get dumb.

• The market reacted. Rap became "commercial art", a preplanned commercial package defended as an artistic effort.

• Now that rap is challenging its condemnation as commercial hype, I would hope to see more of an effort toward musicality, artistic viability, and away from capital considerations. If you make the art the focus, you can make a good run of it. If you make money the focus, you can make a good run of it too. In one case, what is remembered is the art you produce. In the other, what is remembered is the celebrity you achieved.

• Now when I see middle-class white kids (my classmates) changing their dialects to be cool, obsessing over their LFE's and passing gang hand signals across classrooms, what am I supposed to think? This was high school for me, in an upper-middle-class Eurocentric private high school. I mean, come on--what am I really supposed to think of this mentality?

• And it hasn't changed much. Adults of my generation still walk into the work place and ask, "What's up beeotch?" and still threaten to "put a cap in his ass" when they're upset.

Now, maybe rap is a different phenomenon in other countries, I'll grant that possibility. But take a look around the US and you'll see exactly what the problem is. I grant anything that claims to be art that status. But shock-rap is art on par with pornography in this country. I don't protest the making of it, but it's a wasted effort in general. I'll grant the artistic merits of the world's largest gangbang, but I'm not about to pretend it's high art.

To compare the art of most rap to the art of, say, Brian Wilson, the latter seems to be something on par with Van Gogh, while rap seems to be a little like going down to the swap meet and buying those hand-painted spoon-holders for your kitchen. I'm not going to call the little old lady I see hawking spoon holders and ceramic potholders non-artistic, but neither am I going to pretend this Li'l Bo Peep coaster is Guernica.

Part of art is in the communication. Machismo rap like Eminem's seems to be of an odd genre that requires the audience to assume what the art means; it makes no attempt to communicate in common vernacular. Take, for instance, the play Lips Together, Teeth Apart, which seems high-minded and bizarre in its time-freezes and so forth. But everybody was able to understand when the character yelled, "Go ahead, break my fucking arm!" Bhardawaj's Closet Land seems really abstract except for the fact that it is punctuated by very simple declarations of what is taking place: "You can break my body but you cannot break my mind, violence is the method of tyrants." Eminem makes many simple declarations, but apparently we need to have the Marshal Mathers Unabridged Dictionary on hand to understand what he means. At some point, he really needs to stop being so damned selfish and think more about communication. If he's frustrated at the people who misinterpret him, he ought to try compassion and make it more clear. The burden of communication lies with the party attempting to communicate; it is the communicator's obligation to communicate in terms understood by the audience, and well, it seems that the audience does not understand, and all Marshall can do is get more and more angry at them.

Like I said: it reminds me. All I can go by is what I see.

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Why, oh why do you try to change the terms like that?

Okay. I'll chalk that one up to "intelligent discussion".

Yeah, but taking a shit? In all these years, I never heard anyone tell me that they wanted to see Sir Paul pinch a loaf.

Part of what you're missing is that Beatlemania was a fairly unique occasion when it happened. Perhaps you've missed the last thirty years of the record industry, trying hard to create the same effect. Did you know that when you introduce a "boy band" there are girls in the audience paid to scream uncontrollably? The effect works, as evidenced by NKOTB, Backstret, N'Sync, &c.

The public eye was different then. By simple merit of technologies available, it's different. The Beatles may not have expected what they got. If Eminem aimed for success and did not expect this, he's a moron. If he can't deal with it any better than he does, he ought to consider whether this level of fame is what he wants. And, it seems, he is aware of that. However, at the same time, his continuing arrogance does not encourage me to receive his artistic vision kindly.

Fine. I'll buy albums, invest in the production of his next one, and work to perpetuate his career in order to be unbiased.

Because we see the basis of his fame. You see emotions, I see a lack thereof. However, we do see what is important to him: himself. That's the problem. If those other emotions were of greater importance, he would devote more effort to expressing them and less to the kind of sensationalist tripe designed to sell albums.

Eminem, in terms of artistic expressions, would do well to do what they do with books to make sure people don't take them too seriously. If you look on a novel sold in the US, the word "fiction" usually appears on the cover.

Just like I don't like "artists" who rely on drum machines and samples of other people's music without showing other musical merit. In the meantime, what will you say to someone who takes issue with your condemnation of these kinds of artists? That Eminem is a better artist?

I've tried to explain to you why I think making a rap album like Eminem's is easier than making a musical album, but you now place the weight of condemnation that you rejected on Eminem's behalf onto another. Technically, I agree with you, but in doing so I'm holding a consistent position. You, on the other hand, haven't quite the grounds for that condemnation. You owe them the same consideration you demand I give Eminem. You need to go buy their albums, listen to them with the occasional presumption of quality, and if you don't like it, just assume that you don't get it.

It was a law-school joke. After all the things you've said which equal the allegation of people treating Eminem poorly in ways that violate the law, I must have crossed that line ages ago.

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I am perfectly happy to leave it at that.

Thank you for so effectively demonstrating my point.

thanx,
Tiassa

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