Tracks:
1. Curtains Up (Skit): 7/10 Eminem's done this before, but it continues to be a good way to start an album.
2. Evil Deeds: 7/10 while the flow is often disjointed and it's short on Eminem's typical crazy imagery, it's powerful in its bluntness and picks up in the last verse.
3. Never Enough: 6/10 this one feels pretty redundant since all it does is tell us stuff we've heard loads of times before, but it's hardly a bad song.
4. Yellow Brick Road: 7/10 this song is one long apology. It's an interesting one, although it's not always clear what's going on.
5. Like Toy Soldiers: 9/10 a thought-provoking, smart and genuinely depressing examination of hip-hop feuds which stands tall as a giant in Eminem's already impressive discography. Plus, it features possibly the best hook of his career and that is seriously saying something.
6. Mosh: 8/10 an interesting indictment of George Bush, although it's not until the end of the second verse that he even mentions Bush. However, since this lacks of the raw, dynamite anger of his other tracks, it feels like Eminem might actually be afraid of the censors for the first time.
7. Puke: 4/10 as if '97 Bonnie and Clyde and Kim, both of which were very intense tracks, weren't enough, we get another Kim song. Unfortunately, this one is just quite lazy and Eminem doesn't even sound that annoyed. He just sounds like half-asleep.
8. My 1st Single: 4/10 with lyrics more confusing than Justin Bieber's popularity, if this was someone's first single they'd have justification to throw a celebratory party if it even made it into the top 100.
9. Paul (Skit): 5/10 there just isn't really any need for this to be here, especially since the more controversial side of Eminem's music seems subdued here.
10. Rain Man: 7/10 alright, I definitely spoke too soon there. A pretty offensive song which isn't really about anything in particular, this is just loads of entertaining randomness.
11. Big Weenie: 5/10 this song, one of Eminem's angry ones, is curiously short on genuine anger but boasts some intelligent bars.
12. Em Calls Paul (Skit): 8/10 this skit is pretty funny, and boasts an interesting robotic voice.
13. Just Lose it: 7/10 gleefully insane, this one really does lose it, albeit not in quite as compelling a fashion as many of Eminem's previous similar (and better) songs.
14. Ass Like That: 4/10 it's kind of funny, but it's just a bit stupid to be brutally honest. It's not hard to see why many see this as one of Eminem's worst songs.
15. Spend Some Time: 6/10 this one is dubious, but it has interesting moments.
16. Mockingbird: 8/10 heavy-handed and sentimental, but it's very powerful and shows a side to Eminem we don't see that often.
17. Crazy in Love: 8/10 smartly written and genuinely entertaining, this is an album highlight.
18. One Shot 2 Shot: 6/10 on one hand as a narrative, it works. On the other hand, it doesn't feel like it means anything.
19. Final Thought (Skit): 4/10 a series of barely audible noises. As you do.
20. Encore: 6/10 apparently intended to possibly be Eminem's final song on his possible final album, this would have made a decent if unspectacular farewell.
Best song: Like Toy Soldiers
Worst song: My 1st Single
Summary: If this had been Eminem's final album, that would have been pretty depressing. It's got a couple of classics on here, but mostly it's full of mediocre albeit rarely bad material with simplistic rhymes, bland beats and rehashed, repetitive and predictable subject matter. Most of the songs on their own are perfectly good to be fair. However, when listening to them in one go on this album you start yearning for Eminem's better stuff. He's not bad here. He just sounds exhausted. He did just create 3 amazing hip hop albums in a row to be fair so who can blame him?
Final rating: 6/10
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