To call Eminem Hip Hop’s Elvis is correct to a degree, but it’s largely inaccurate. Certainly, Eminem was the first white rapper since the Beastie Boys to garner both sales and critical respect, but his impact exceeded this confining distinction. On sheer verbal skills, Eminem was one of the greatest MCs of his generation — rapid, fluid, dexterous, and unpredictable, as capable of pulling off long-form narratives as he was delivering a withering aside — and thanks to his mentor Dr. Dre, he had music to match: thick, muscular loops that evoked the terror and paranoia Em’s music conjured. And, to be certain, a great deal of the controversy Eminem courted — and during the turn of the millennium, there was no greater pop cultural bogeyman than Marshall Mathers — came through in how his violent fantasies, often directed at his mother or his wife, intertwined with flights of absurdity that appealed to listeners too young to absorb the psychodramas Eminem explored on his hit albums, The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP. (Bio by Thomas Erlewine, continued on Allmusic)

Tracklist:

1. My Name Is
2. My Fault
3. As The World Turns
4. Role Model
5. Kill You
6. Stan
7. The Way I Am
8. The Real Slim Shady
9. Marschall Matters
10. White America
11. Business
12. Cleanin’ Out My Closet
13. Soldier
14. Without Me
15. Say What You Say
16. Lose Yourself
17. Like Toy Soldiers
18. Mockingbird
19. 3. A.M.
20. Medicine Ball
21. So Bad
22. Love The Way You Lie
23. Rap God
24. Brainless
25. Untouchable
26. The Ringer
27. Greatest
28. Fall
29. Venom