The Slim Shady LP

Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, began rapping at age 14. In 1996, he released his debut studio album, Infinite, which was recorded at the Bassmint, a recording studio owned by the Bass Brothers. The album was released under their independent record label, WEB Entertainment. Infinite was a commercial failure and was largely ignored by Detroit radio stations. This experience greatly influenced Eminem's lyrical style: The failure of Infinite inspired him to create the alter ego Slim Shady: "Boom, the name hit me, and right away I thought of all these words to rhyme with it." ==Recording==

The Slim Shady LP was recorded at Studio 8 at 430 8 Mile Road in Ferndale, Michigan. Eminem, who had idolized Dr. Dre since listening to his group N.W.A as a teenager, was nervous to work with him on the album: "I didn't want to be starstruck or kiss his ass too much ... I'm just a little white boy from Detroit. I had never seen stars, let alone Dr. Dre." However, Eminem became more comfortable working with Dr. Dre after a series of highly productive recording sessions. The recording process generally began with Dr. Dre creating a beat and Eminem using the tracks as a template for his freestyle raps; "Every beat he would make, I had a rhyme for", Eminem recalled. He later said: "Every time I sat down with a pen, everything was just like 'fuck you, fuck this, fuck them, fuck that, fuck the world, fuck what everybody thinks. Fuck them.' " On the first day of recording, Eminem and Dr. Dre finished "My Name Is" in an hour. The song "Guilty Conscience" contains a humorous reference to an occasion in which Dr. Dre assaulted Dee Barnes. Having only known Dr. Dre for a few days, Eminem was anxious about how he would react to such a line, and to his relief, Dr. Dre "fell out of his chair laughing" upon hearing the lyric. "Ken Kaniff", a skit involving a prank call to Eminem, featured fellow Detroit rapper Aristotle. After a falling out between the two in the wake of Eminem's breakthrough success, Eminem instead played Ken Kaniff on skits on future albums. Ken Kaniff would end up appearing in more Eminem albums over the course of his career and was last heard in The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) (2024). Another skit, "Bitch", is an answering machine message in which Zoe Winkler, daughter of actor Henry Winkler, tells a friend that she was disgusted by Eminem's music. He met and had dinner with her in order to get permission to use the recording on the album. During the mixing process of The Slim Shady LP, at the same time, Kid Rock was recording his fourth studio album, Devil Without a Cause (1998); being friends with Kid Rock, Eminem asked Kid Rock to record scratching for Eminem's song "My Fault"; in return, Eminem delivered a guest rap verse on Kid Rock's song "Fuck Off" for Devil Without a Cause. Production The album's production was handled primarily by Dr. Dre, the Bass Brothers, and Eminem. "Cum on Everybody"; which features guest vocals from American singer Dina Rae contains an upbeat dance rhythm, while "My Name Is", which is built around a sample from British musician Labi Siffre's "I Got The...", features a prominent bassline and psychedelic-style keyboards. Eminem's vocal inflection on the album has been described as a "nasal whine"; Jon Pareles of The New York Times likened his "calmly sarcastic delivery" to "the early Beastie Boys turned cynical". Writing for the Chicago Tribune, columnist Greg Kot compared the rapper's vocals to "Pee-wee Herman with a nasal Midwestern accent". A skit entitled "Lounge" appears before "My Fault" featuring Eminem and the Bass Brothers imitating rat pack crooners. Jeff Bass came up with the line "I never meant to give you mushrooms" for the skit, which in turn inspired Eminem to write "My Fault". ==Lyrical themes==

Many of the songs from The Slim Shady LP are written from the perspective of Eminem's alter ego, Slim Shady, and contain cartoonish depictions of violence, which he refers to as "made-up tales of trailer-park stuff". The rapper explained that this subject matter is intended for entertainment value, likening his music to the horror film genre: "Why can't people see that records can be like movies? The only difference between some of my raps and movies is that they aren't on a screen." Some of the lyrics have also been considered to be misogynistic by critics and commentators. Eminem acknowledged the accusations, and clarified, "I have a fairly salty relationship with women ... But most of the time, when I'm saying shit about women, when I'm saying 'bitches' and 'hoes', it's so ridiculous that I'm taking the stereotypical rapper to the extreme. I don't hate women in general. They just make me mad sometimes." Later in the album, a skit entitled "Paul" features a phone call from Paul Rosenberg to Eminem telling him to "tone down" his lyrics. "Guilty Conscience" is a concept song featuring Dr. Dre. The song focuses on a series of characters who are faced with various situations, while Dr. Dre and Eminem serve as the "angel" and "devil" sides of the characters' conscience, respectively. "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" features Eminem convincing his infant daughter to assist him in disposing of his wife's corpse. It is an epilogue to the song "Kim", although "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" was released first. Eminem wrote the song at a time in which he felt that Kim Scott was stopping him from seeing his daughter. Although many of the lyrics on the album are intended to be humorous, several songs depict Eminem's frustrations with living in poverty. When discussing The Slim Shady LP, Anthony Bozza of Rolling Stone described Eminem as "probably the only MC in 1999 who boasts low self-esteem. His rhymes are jaw-droppingly perverse, bespeaking a minimum-wage life devoid of hope, flushed with rage and weaned on sci-fi and slasher flicks." Eminem was inspired to write "Rock Bottom" after being fired from his cooking job at a restaurant days before his daughter's birthday. In the song, he expresses his irritation with fitting the "white trash" stereotype. ==Critical reception==

Upon its release, the album was met with critical acclaim. Erlewine gave the album five stars out of five, praising the rapper's "expansive vocabulary and vivid imagination", adding that "Years later, as the shock has faded, it's those lyrical skills and the subtle mastery of the music that still resonate, and they're what make The Slim Shady LP one of the great debuts in both hip-hop and modern pop music". Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone enjoyed the record's comedic nature, writing "Simply put: Eminem will crack you up", but also felt that the misogynistic lyrics grow tiresome, noting that "the wife-killing jokes of '97 Bonnie and Clyde' aren't any funnier than Garth Brooks', and 'My Fault' belongs on some sorry-ass Bloodhound Gang record." Mike Rubin of Spin noted that "his scenarios are so far-fetched the songs almost never sound as ugly as they actually are." Reviewing for The Village Voice in 1999, Robert Christgau called the record a "platinum-bound cause celebre" and, despite succumbing to "dull sensationalism" toward the end, Eminem shows "more comic genius than any pop musician since", possibly, Loudon Wainwright III." Accolades At the 42nd Grammy Awards in 2000, the album won Best Rap Album, while "My Name Is" won Best Rap Solo Performance. Rolling Stone ranked The Slim Shady LP number 275 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and 33 on its list of the "100 Best Albums of the '90s". In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked The Slim Shady LP as the 352nd greatest album of all time on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. NME ranked it number 248 in its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Blender ranked it number 49 in its list of The 100 Greatest American Albums of All Time. "Ken Kaniff" was listed as number 15 on Complexs "50 Greatest Hip-Hop Skits" list, while the "Public Service Announcement" introduction to the album, along with the "Public Service Announcement 2000" introduction from The Marshall Mathers LP, was listed as number 50 on the list. Spin later included it in their list of "The 300 Best Albums of 1985–2014". It also won Outstanding National Album at the 2000 Detroit Music Awards. In 2015, it was ranked at number 76 by About.com in their list of "100 best hip-hop albums of all time". Christgau later named it among his 10 best albums from the 1990s. In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked The Slim Shady LP number 85 in their list of "The 200 Greatest Rap Albums of all time". In a 2024 ranking of Eminem's 12 studio albums, Damien Scott of Billboard magazine placed The Slim Shady LP second, writing: "Vacillating between improbable fantasy and stark realism, The Slim Shady LP gave glimpses of a gifted songwriter who studied the rap greats the way Kobe studied Jordan. The wild swings in emotion, sentiment and subject matter are startling." Scott highlighted the tracks "My Name Is", 97 Bonnie & Clyde", and "Rock Bottom". ==Commercial performance==

In the album's first week of release, The Slim Shady LP sold 283,000 copies, debuting at number two on the Billboard 200 chart behind TLC's FanMail. The record remained on the Billboard 200 for 100 weeks. It also reached number one on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, staying on the chart for 92 weeks. On November 15, 2000, the album was certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA. The single additionally peaked at number 18 on the magazine's R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, 29 on the Pop Songs chart, and 37 on the Alternative Songs chart. By November 2013, the album sold 5,437,000 copies in the United States. on the weekly Canadian Albums Chart and remained on the chart for twelve weeks. The album was also certified double platinum in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number ten on the UK Albums chart and remained on the chart for a total of 114 weeks. In Australia, the album peaked at number 49 on the ARIA Chart, and was eventually certified platinum in the country. The album had also peaked at the number 20 and 23 chart positions in the Netherlands and New Zealand, respectively. It was certified gold in the Netherlands and platinum in New Zealand. ==Legacy and aftermath==

, Germany in October 1999) into an international celebrity. After the success of The Slim Shady LP, Eminem went from an underground rapper to a high-profile celebrity. Interscope Records awarded him with his independently-owned record label, called Shady Records, where the first artist Eminem signed was a rapper and his best friend Proof. Eminem, who had previously struggled to provide for his daughter, noted a drastic change in his lifestyle: "This last Christmas, there were so many fucking presents under the tree ... My daughter wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth. But she's got one now. I can't stop myself from spoiling her." He often played a show in the afternoon on the Warped Tour, and then drove to another location to perform at a hip-hop club at night. He recalled that the stress of his newfound fame led him to drink excessively, and reflected, "I knew I had to slow it down. The fall was like a reminder." However, after receiving medical attention, he was well enough to travel to New York the following day for a performance on Total Request Live. Eminem also became a highly controversial figure due to his lyrical content. He was labeled as "misogynist, a nihilist and an advocate of domestic violence", and in an editorial by Billboard editor in chief Timothy White, the writer accused Eminem of "making money by exploiting the world's misery." During a radio interview in San Francisco, Eminem reportedly angered local DJ Sista Tamu due to a freestyle about "slapping a pregnant bitch" to the extent that on air she broke a copy of The Slim Shady LP. The rapper defended himself by saying, "My album isn't for younger kids to hear. It has an advisory sticker, and you must be eighteen to get it. That doesn't mean younger kids won't get it, but I'm not responsible for every kid out there. I'm not a role model, and I don't claim to be." ==Lawsuits==

On September 17, 1999, Eminem's mother, Debbie Mathers, filed a $10 million lawsuit against him for slander based on his claim that she uses drugs in the line "I just found out my mom does more dope than I do" from "My Name Is". After a two-year-long trial, she was awarded $25,000, of which she received $1,600 after legal fees. In September 2003, 70-year-old widow Harlene Stein filed suit against Eminem and Dr. Dre on the grounds that "Guilty Conscience" contains an unauthorized sample of "Go Home Pigs" composed for the film Getting Straight by her husband, Ronald Stein, who died in 1988. Although the album's liner notes state that the song contains an interpolation of "Go Home Pigs", Stein is not credited as a composer and his wife was not paid royalties for use of the song. == Track listing ==

Notes • signifies a co-producer. • signifies a pre-production. • On the clean version of the album, "Bitch", "Cum on Everybody", "Just Don't Give a Fuck", and "Still Don't Give a Fuck" are respectively retitled "Zoe", "Come on Everybody", "Just Don't Give", and "Still Don't Give". • Some online platforms (such as Myspace) include an alternate clean version of the album which completely removes the song "Guilty Conscience". ==Personnel==

• Jeff Bass – writer, producer • Mark Bass – writer, producer • Melvin Bradford – writer, producer on "Role Model" • Marshall Mathers – writer, producer, artist • Denaun Porter – producer on "Just Don't Give a Fuck" • Dina Rae – artist on "Cum On Everybody" • Andre Young – writer, producer, drum programming == Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts == Certifications and sales ==