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It may be a world that is as infuriating as it is intriguing, but it is without question his own, which is far more than most of his peers are able to accomplish at the dawn of a new millennium. On 1999's My Name Is, Eminem entered the public imagination with a mandate: God sent me to piss the world off. As an artist, he's supposed to create his own world, and with this terrific second effort, he certainly has. But, once you're in, Eminem doesn't care if you understand exactly where he's at, and he doesn't offer any apologies if you can't sort the fact from the fiction. Eminem is undoubtedly one of the most popular artists of all time, particularly when it comes to his icon status in the rap game. There may not be overpowering hooks on every track, but the album works as a whole, always drawing the listener in. The production is nearly as evocative as the raps, with liquid basslines, stuttering rhythms, slight sound effects, and spacious soundscapes. It's both funnier and darker than his debut, and Eminem's writing is so sharp and clever that the jokes cut as deeply as the explorations of his ruptured psyche. It is, however, a fairly brilliant expansion of his debut, turning his spare, menacing hip-hop into a hyper-surreal, wittily disturbing thrill ride. Eminem is all about blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, humor and horror, satire and documentary, so it makes perfect sense that The Marshall Mathers LP is no more or no less "real" than The Slim Shady LP.
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To Eminem's credit, he decided to exploit that confusion on his masterful second record, The Marshall Mathers LP. Many dismissed his considerable skills as a rapper and social satirist because the vulgarity and gross-out humor on The Slim Shady LP were too detailed for some to believe that it was anything but real. It's hard to know what to make of Eminem, even if you know that half of what he says is sincere and half is a put-on the trick is realizing that there's truth in the joke, and vice versa.