Niki N. Phaser

If you are slightly familiar with Eminem’s music, you would know that his stuff could be divided into two major categories: the funny songs, where he is clowning and the serious stuff, where he sounds… angry. There is an interdependence between the two, because the dramatic rapping is far more effective because of the flow of jokes from lighter songs like The Real Slim Shady, Without Me or the recent We Made You. Say Goodbye Hollywood from his 2002 album, probably his best, The Eminem Show, is a song which finds a place between those two groups. The beat has a hook which resembles The Real Slim Shady, but the subject is quite serious. Still, it is not delivered in his angry voice (like White America or The Way I Am), but in rather argumentative tone, which suits the fact that he’s explaining why he is leaving Hollywood, here regarded as a symbol of all wrong things that come with fame. All the “classic” characters from Eminem’s music are checked: Kim, his very own Nancy Spungen, his daughter Hailie and his father (“my dad, cus I hate him so bad, the worst fear that I had was growin’ up to be like his fuckin’ ass”). The great absentee is his mother. There are plenty of memorable lines like “just sold two million records, I don’t need to go to jail, I’m not about to lose my freedom over no female” or “It’s like the boy in the bubble, who never could adapt, I’m trapped, if I could go back, I never woulda rapped”. But this is not one of those hip-hop songs, where you totally ignore the beat. In fact, the entire album is a good example of how much attention Eminem pays to the production of his tracks. You have the main beat, but it’s very well filled with subtle sounds and the vocals from the chorus are quite catchy. Another non-single from The Eminem Show I strongly recommend is Soldier.

LISTEN TO THE SONG HERE

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