ryan loves it and he likes mmlp too so he's all sonning me now with this 'well ethan yes perhaps i'd allow you to give the marshall mathers lp a 10.0, i mean that particular record was perfect, but not this one' yeah well you were busy talking about at the motherfucking drive in back then so let me redeem your godawful site now. jeez unless he went back on his dumb-ass 'policy' theres a nine dot one up there but i promise you 'the eminem show' is really a ten, know that

oh my darling eminem! how i love you marshall, spittin shiny massive magnetic acrostics to fit the thrillest rhyme style ever invented (ugh yeah i'm trying not to explain his quote unquote flow in those meaningless autechre words like architectural and labyrinthine but SHIT) but yeah although em's lyrics arent usually quotably evocative for rock reviews like wu or jay here i'm not even going to try, you have to hear him spit at it live or on record

that said he's playing the same old marshall vs shady real-or-fake game as usual (stage-y red curtain album cover referencing 'smarmy' faux-soul masterpiece lexicon of love!?!) and its as interesting and complex as it ever was but that wasnt what i came to the shady table for in the first place and you know all about it anyway from spin so lets pretend not to care

instead

let me tell a story

this one time i was listening to eminem, and

haha no

he's complicated you know

eminem i mean

but no no no this is more than usual like he pukes up the nastiest song about mother mathers ever but loves hailie lots and meanwhile metamorphasizes into a grown-ass woman 'on the rag and ovulating' making us listen to queen and aerosmith and and AND THEN him and dre have been 'fucking with hats off' all along!! (after this ahem revelation dre deadpans 'suck it, marshall')

uh

in a normal pfork review there would be some more bullshit here all like 'ha ha he makes fun of that stupid trl but he's on it!!' or like 'his rapping style is a direct copy of gab from blackalicious' like yeah dude timbaland is biting aphex twins white ass too haha i dunno fuck it here are some more bullshit things about the actual record like right on schedule pfork review style

ahem

track one

white america

after a tender orchestral prelude (lexicon of love again) these like big silver jets fly overhead and lame linkin park riffs rev up and eminem 'finally' addresses the race issue telling us a bunch of shit we already knew about in his labored 'the way i am' style (with only a marginally better chorus than that grr)

haha later he gets crunk and actually says 'whodi' on the bounciriffic everlast-dreams-about-the-big-tymers 'superman'!! (fake southern accents are the new black italiano you know)

also on hailies song he sings and its not great but like better than mos def

first in a series - people your fake indie ass will mention in a lame rock critic attempt to legitimize eminem: screamin' jay hawkins

'business' is cartoon-beat chase scene batman & robin like all the early singles but this time he's actually talking about batman and robin!! (a running theme of the entire record for some wonderful reason)

i adore the plasticky genital mutilation pornography and hilarious cronenberg AIDS horrors of 'drips' and anxiously await the obie trice record

but more than that i love hailie jade on 'my dad's gone crazy' which is like this saccharine-sweetened lemon incest gone faggy (eminem may have finally torn down the old gangsta wont-touches of mama and jesus off the wall to beat the shit out them both but dude still loves his baby girl!)

and the sleazy disco of 'without me'

'the press' wet dream like bobby and whitney'!

'cleaning out my closet' takes the childhood hell of 'all i've got is you' and turns all that emotional vunerability into righteous articulated fury at his 'goin though public housin systems, victim of munchausens syndrome'(!!) mama.

hey

a thought

eminem is gay

proof:

the him fucking dre thing

dyeing your hair and wearing earrings thing from the aerosmith song

or hailie being 'the only lady he adores'

sleazy disco

little eric and erica

dre is batman and he's the burt ward robin

etc

okay at this point i'm just gonna put in shit to see if ryan will really not edit this like he said so like if you're reading this sentence then wow i really got an unedited review on pfork

haha i bet he cuts my columbine refs

uh in conclusion....

Ryanpitch4k : ethan, i'm gonna edit it anyway, you're lucky i'm gonna go over it with you
et HAN P2 3 : lets not be some fucking review factory ryan
Ryanpitch4k : ethan you know as well as i do that it IS a factory, which is why it gets no respect from industry/"real" journalists

but later...

Ryanpitch4k : what? ok, i'm an indie pussy. i consider the music i listen to "above" and "better than" pop music. that's MY opinion

and then....

Ryanpitch4k : look, ethan, you know what? i just have a feeling we're not going to agree about this. i think it's fine for us to not agree, but i don't think you would like changes i would want to make. you're really incredibly high-maintenence as reviewers go, and i'm not completely sure it's even worth it

and yes finally....

Ryanpitch4k : ethan you act like i don't know what you're capable of
et HAN P2 3 : but what would be the worst that could happen
et HAN P2 3 : what am i capable of??
Ryanpitch4k : you'll get away with anything you can
Ryanpitch4k : the more you get away with the happier you are

eminem is great!!

-Ethan P., June 4th, 2002