In Eminem’s case, the class in question is the transracial American proletariat. But it is intelligent entertainment with a coherent critical worldview, albeit one marred by the Marxist propensity to interpret morality through the lens of class consciousness. “The Slim Shady LP” by Eminem (1999) Well, obviously this is not for the squeamish, the qualmish, the prudish, or the priggish. For all his not giving a fuck, he always wanted his music to be a dialectic. More importantly, it’d mean ignoring that he announces himself with a PSA followed by the immortal “Hi kids”. I could just say it’s all in good fun and shouldn’t be taken seriously, but double guessing his sincerity is half the fun.

Eminem slapping Garth Brooks out of his limestone shirt, standing next to the Loch Ness monster at Kid Rock’s next concert, as an extra-terrestrial running over pedestrians while they’re screaming at him “Let’s just be friends”, wearing a bulletproof vest and shooting himself in the head, having full blown aids and a sore throat, activating his gadget dick, supporting abortion, putting his guinea pig in the microwave, dressing like Les Nessman, putting air in a bag and charging people to breathe, murdering the alphabet. And the images that stand out are the same ones that burnt into my brain when I was a teenager lying on my bed playing Pokémon Blue and spinning this on repeat. While it was still possible for him to be this detached, going to the far reaches of his imagination is as refreshing for me as it was cathartic for him. If ’97 Bonnie and Clyde leaves room for growth and If I Had and Rock Bottom are the residue of previous attempts at gritty East Coast rap, that leaves My Name Is, Role Model, My Fault, Cum On Everybody, Just/Still Don’t Give a Fuck, As the World Turns, I’m Shady and Bad Meets Evil (plus a handful more) as the most outrageously cartoonish, wickedly funny and violently deranged version of Eminem we’d ever get. That came once he was a global cause celebre and had the genius to make the Public Eye the prism at the centre of his nakedly honest, frighteningly violent real-or-fantasy bizzare-o-world.

’97 Bonnie & Clyde isn’t the weakest song here, but it does represent the main drawback: that Eminem hasn’t yet found his register for stories that exorcise his (and 50% of the world’s) violent misogyny.

The slim shady lp genius