Eminem was a cultural phenomenon from 1999 to 2003, taking rap music to a new level of mainstream success, breaking records, and sparking high profile debates about violence and homophobia in music.
After taking a hiatus between 2005 and 2009, he returned as a commercial giant between 2009 and 2014, but didn’t garner nearly the same amount of headlines. Most of his music post-8 Mile has been received poorly by critics, but throughout this period he regularly topped year-end charts for sales and streams.
Today, he still has a huge fan army, regularly selling out stadiums abroad and headlining music fests. After taking a recent dive into Eminem’s “Standom,” he seems to have a disproportionately large fan following in Eastern Europe, The Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Early next year he is headlining the Super Bowl with Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg.
Why isn’t Eminem talked about more frequently in conversations about pop and commercial music? Is it the bad product, e.g. the screaming vocals, stale themes and bad production? Or is something else afloat?
As a sidebar, is there any artist throughout history that followed a similar career arch as Eminem?
Very very very few artists are able to stay relevant in the same way throughout their career. As artists age they inevitably leave their moment, and many of the very best reach a sort of equilibrium where they’re still relevant to the people who listened to them when they were big and continue to get new fans but are no longer charting or getting radio play in the same way. Madonna, U2, Mariah Carey, Paul McCartney, artists like that are all still relevant and putting out new music decades after their popular prime. Eminem is in that group. He’s relevant because his name will still get clicks, his classics still get spins, he’s still an influence on newer artists, but him releasing a new album is no longer a seismic music event like it once was
I feel like a lot of hip-hop music can get dated really easily, considering that pop culture references are an important aspect of the genre. As long as it doesn’t take too much away from the music, I can give a lot of that kind of stuff a pass. The Low End Theory is a great album even if some of the lyrics and references are a bit dated (like I don’t hear people talking about the Arsenio Hall show anymore). And I think context with the time period matters: Straight Outta Compton is somewhat tame for today’s standards but back then it was revolutionary in the hip-hop scene. Nowadays it’s easy to hear a lot of the shit Eminem said back then and just pass it off as annoying and pointless, but when those first few records came out he was essentially revolting against the music industry
Eminem knows that he can shit out whatever and people will buy it anyway. His flow gets lazier and lazier every year. I was forced to listen to his newest album the other day and couldn’t believe how terrible it was. In one song I’m pretty sure I even caught a lyric about how the last album he put out was shit. Maybe on his next album he’ll admit this one was shit too.
Eminem being the most followed rapper on YouTube makes a whole lot of sense. Give it five years,tom MacDonald is gonna be second,and NF is gonna be third.
I honestly thought that Kanye was the most popular Rapper on Twitter.
DJ Khalid snapping with 13 year old girls 💀
Eminem doesn’t even interact with his fan base anymore it’s hilarious how he’s still that fucking popular on every platform
Eminem was a cultural phenomenon from 1999 to 2003, taking rap music to a new level of mainstream success, breaking records, and sparking high profile debates about violence and homophobia in music.
After taking a hiatus between 2005 and 2009, he returned as a commercial giant between 2009 and 2014, but didn’t garner nearly the same amount of headlines. Most of his music post-8 Mile has been received poorly by critics, but throughout this period he regularly topped year-end charts for sales and streams.
Today, he still has a huge fan army, regularly selling out stadiums abroad and headlining music fests. After taking a recent dive into Eminem’s “Standom,” he seems to have a disproportionately large fan following in Eastern Europe, The Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Early next year he is headlining the Super Bowl with Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg.
Why isn’t Eminem talked about more frequently in conversations about pop and commercial music? Is it the bad product, e.g. the screaming vocals, stale themes and bad production? Or is something else afloat?
As a sidebar, is there any artist throughout history that followed a similar career arch as Eminem?
Very Happy to see that Dj Khaled is allowed to be number “1” in at least one thing.
Very very very few artists are able to stay relevant in the same way throughout their career. As artists age they inevitably leave their moment, and many of the very best reach a sort of equilibrium where they’re still relevant to the people who listened to them when they were big and continue to get new fans but are no longer charting or getting radio play in the same way. Madonna, U2, Mariah Carey, Paul McCartney, artists like that are all still relevant and putting out new music decades after their popular prime. Eminem is in that group. He’s relevant because his name will still get clicks, his classics still get spins, he’s still an influence on newer artists, but him releasing a new album is no longer a seismic music event like it once was
I feel like a lot of hip-hop music can get dated really easily, considering that pop culture references are an important aspect of the genre. As long as it doesn’t take too much away from the music, I can give a lot of that kind of stuff a pass. The Low End Theory is a great album even if some of the lyrics and references are a bit dated (like I don’t hear people talking about the Arsenio Hall show anymore). And I think context with the time period matters: Straight Outta Compton is somewhat tame for today’s standards but back then it was revolutionary in the hip-hop scene. Nowadays it’s easy to hear a lot of the shit Eminem said back then and just pass it off as annoying and pointless, but when those first few records came out he was essentially revolting against the music industry
Eminem knows that he can shit out whatever and people will buy it anyway. His flow gets lazier and lazier every year. I was forced to listen to his newest album the other day and couldn’t believe how terrible it was. In one song I’m pretty sure I even caught a lyric about how the last album he put out was shit. Maybe on his next album he’ll admit this one was shit too.
I love this view of the music it’s opened my eyes seeing them do this shit
Eminem is a phenomenon
Eminem being the most followed rapper on YouTube makes a whole lot of sense. Give it five years,tom MacDonald is gonna be second,and NF is gonna be third.
Suavis out here writing paragraphs
Suavis at it again 💀
It’s crazy how Eminem’s got 55 million subs on yt,considering it didn’t exist when he was in his prime. GOAT