Eminem Albums: Ranked

This article is about to become immediately more controversial. This is not because of the placement of albums, the top three is pretty chalk, but because of my overall opinions on Eminem. I can, and in the future will, make a damn fantastic argument as to why Eminem is the greatest hip-hop artist of all time. He also happens to be my favorite but these two things are only vaguely related. Did I have to reveal that at the beginning of this article? No, but I do enjoy a bit of heel heat on an article. If that wasn’t enough I am also a big wrestling nerd. Coincidentally I think Eminem is also a wrestling fan. 

Not even one paragraph in and I am already wildly off track. The point of this article originally was to rank the releases of Detroit native Marshall Mathers, and that’s the intent I desire to stick with. So, in some semblance of celebration of the twentieth anniversary of The Marshall Mathers LP, let’s get into the list. Oh, Infinite is not on the list. Get over it.

Number 10: Revival (2017)

This album came out two days before my birthday and oh boy, it was not good. It has also aged so god awfully. Eminem is somewhat the king of albums not aging well, but this bad boy really does take the cake.The production is this hodge-podge of The Marshall Mathers LP 2 and Recovery except it’s worse and strips away all of the creativity from those albums’ sounds. How do artists this great, release albums this bad? Don’t get all cocky Jay-Z fans, The 20/20 Experience exists. 

Number 9: Encore (2004)

This is less a hip-hop album and more a Greek tragedy. Four to six months before the release of this album, roughly half of the planned tracks for this album were leaked. This completely shot the release plans for the album and Eminem and his producers scrambled to create half of an album that had already been in the works for about a year. The most disappointing part is going through the album from start to finish and hearing the obvious difference in the tracks that were on the original release plans and the songs that were made in that barn burning last segment of studio time. In reality, Em probably should have just released a nine to ten track project, but in 2004 you just didn’t see that kind of thing, and this album suffers for it. Half of this album is filled with A-tier songs. Unfortunately that other half is all D and F-tier songs.

Number 8: Recovery (2010)

The greatest pop-rap album of ALL TIME!!! I’m exaggerating. I do genuinely quite enjoy this album. However I do recognize the somewhat lazy and uninspired nature of the production. The album was absolutely designed to give Eminem a couple of hits. On that note it delivered. By any measure, “Not Afraid” and “Love the Way You Lie” are two of Eminem’s biggest hits of all time. The album’s sound is very much defined by its melodic, sticky hooks, it’s either very airy production, or very stripped back bass heavy production. Eminem’s flows varied but this is the beginning of the choppiness that everyone seems to despise. That flow does get old, I will admit, but after listening to so much Tech N9ne, the stuttery nature and weird accentuation of certain syllables doesn’t bother me. This album contains little lyrical depth other than Eminem overcoming his addiction and the one song about Proof that I very much dislike. That all being said, this is still a significant jump up in overall quality from Encore. 

Number 7: Kamikaze (2018)

The surprise album that showed the world that Eminem can still outsell your favorite artist on exactly zero promotion. Kamikaze was a response album to all the criticism that Revival received. As it turned out, a lot of people liked Em angry. The production on this album was handled by the likes of Mike Will Made It, Boi-1da, Illa da Producer and Tay Keith even gets a credit on this album. The production sounds modern and fun, the flows on this album are crisp, varied, and masterful. There are only two areas where this album falls short. The first and more minor one is just that Eminem can come off as a little petty at various parts of this album. I love the shots being taken at various figures in and around hip-hop, but the Tyler, the Creator diss has not aged well and frankly “The Ringer” is roughly forty five seconds too long. The second place is that the final three tracks just don’t work. I appreciate Jessie Reyes and the talent she possesses, but the songs do not fit on this album. As for “Venom,” I weirdly enjoy the track but I recognize that the hook is annoying at best. Overall, very solid album and a great return to form post-Revival.

Number 6: Music to Be Murdered By (2020)

Another surprise release you say? Yes, and this one did not do as well numbers-wise. The gimmick is wearing thin. But that doesn’t matter right now because we got an absolutely awesome album out of it. Did you ever think you would see Juice Wrld get to work with his favorite artist Eminem? Well “Godzilla” is a fun, fast paced song with a ridiculously catchy hook sung by the Chicago native Juice Wrld. The production on this album falls into a similar lane as Kamikaze. However, the feature list on this project is significantly more robust. Royce da 5’9”, Black Thought, Young MA, and Ed Sheeran all make appearances and all fit in brilliantly. This album has so much on it, there’s something for everyone to enjoy on it. Oddly enough, this was what Em was trying to do with Revival and failed at miserably. Here though, it worked because he wasn’t making an album to appease people. This album has some inconsistencies, and the theme running throughout is actually not a theme at all. Inconsistencies can be ignored for the most part, but a pseudo-theme never sits well. That’s the main reason this album falls outside the top five. It’s unfortunate because this album had the potential to be Eminem’s 4:44.

Number 5: The Marshall Mather LP 2 (2013)

Before the hip hop community began to actively hate Rick Rubin, we got this lovely little sequel to The Marshall Mather LP. The album uses samples from some of the most famous classic rock songs as the basis for the majority of its beats. It gives the album a semblance of cohesion that was lacking on Eminem’s prior release, Recovery. The album follows a lot of themes and story lines that we got on the first version of this. We get a sequel to “Stan” told from the point of view of the brother, we get more tragic love stories and tracks telling the women in his life to not so kindly shove it. It truly is as sequel as a sequel can sequel. The first one is an all time classic, and because there’s too much money on the table the sequel has to get made. Also Eminem does everything in threes for whatever reason. Luckily for us, it wasn’t just a blatant cash grab, it was a well constructed piece of music with a Kendrick Lamar feature that every hip-hop fan absolutely needed in their lives. 

Number 4: Relapse (2009)

This album took years for me to appreciate. When I first started getting into hip-hop more seriously, it was around the year 2015. What I learned back then was that this album got some seriously mixed critical reviews and there was, and is, a rabid cult following that will tell you this is low-key Eminem’s best album. I would never go that far but to the publications that gave this album below three stars, shame. This album is so masterfully produced and written. This is peak horrorcore. The accents can get a smidge annoying and overdone, but outside of that, this album is a seriously enjoyable romp from start to finish. The flows are impeccable, buttery smooth, and never the same on multiple songs. The songs themselves are goofy, serial killer inspired nightmares that make you question the validity of Marshall Mathers’ sobriety. Weirdly enough, one of the best tracks on the album is the one track that sticks out like the sorest of thumbs. That song, “Beautiful,” is also the only song on the album not produced by Dr. Dre. The second biggest issue with this album, behind the accents, is that it’s just far too long. Including the deluxe edition, and the Refill, this album is twenty-nine tracks and 123 minutes long. I love Eminem more than most but that is just far too much music. It’s a good problem to have, but still a problem. 

Number 3: The Slim Shady LP (1999)

You never forget your first. Boy what a first this was. The Slim Shady LP hit stores after a bit of a lead up. The first single was the radio version of “Just Don’t Give a Fuck” which garnered absolutely zero traction because, duh. That song just has no effect as a clean track. The second single, “My Name Is,” is the one that blew the lid off of the whole music industry. Eminem was about to release his debut album and the waves it made would be felt forever. The sound of this album has aged extremely poorly. It was produced almost entirely by Dr. Dre and the Bass Brothers in 1998, so the sound is as 1999 as it gets. However, the sound makes every re-listen to the album feel like you’re wrapping yourself up in a blanket of nostalgia, and hatred because this is an Eminem album from before 2002 we’re talking about. Nothing about this album is delicate. The flows are harsh. The beats are harsh. The lyrics are harsh, gritty, aggressive, and most importantly, real. These were the real feelings, real emotions, and real delusions of a man that had been through hell for roughly twenty-nine years. That’s the biggest reason this album did so well and has stood the test of time. It did, and continues to, resonate with everyday people, particularly white people who had never felt a real emotional or societal connection to rap. 

Number 2: The Eminem Show (2002)

The fourth highest selling hip-hop album of all time and this is not even Eminem’s best selling album. The hype surrounding Eminem in the early 2002s was unlike any we have seen any hip-hop artist garner, ever. And Eminem delivered on the promise his first two albums made with this absolute classic. At this point in his career, skits began every album. But the first real track we got was “White America” and that is certainly a courageous way to start your new hip-hop album. Eminem pulls off the scathing political and societal commentary off like he was born to do it. Don’t get too comfy though. After the opening song, Eminem wants you to know that it is time to get down to “Business.” Eminem does not have time to play around. Em lest you know this by immediately following up the most personal look into his relationship with his mother we have ever gotten with “Cleanin’ Out My Closet.” The album continues along this frantic, schizophrenic mix of tones between songs. This might be easily mistaken for lacking cohesion or a sense of direction, but that’s exactly the point. The key is in the title of the album. Eminem is putting on his show for all of his fans. The show is coming straight from the tragedy laden mind of its creator. The album is all over the place tonally, back and forth in its subject manner, because that’s where the creator of the album is at mentally. 

Every track on this album is wonderful. Some songs are fun, while others are a depressing look at Eminem’s psyche. Some cuts are angry while others are motivational anthems. This album has everything on it. If you want to be nit-picky then the weakest track on the album is “Drips.” It suffers mostly for being forgettable and a little weak lyrically. Other than that, this album is near perfection. Fortunately for Eminem though, by this point in his career, he had already achieved perfection. 

Number 1: The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

This is where we were always going to end up, right? The Marshall Mathers LP is one of the most influential albums in hip-hop history. It’s actually hard to come up with current popular artists that don’t cite this album as being one of the most influential of their childhood. Whether it’s Kendrick Lamar, Joyner Lucas, J. Cole, or a whole host of others, this album helped shape the current landscape of rap more than any other singular album. The album’s first post skit song is “Kill You.” The song is not any deeper than what the title implies. However the flows on this song as as perfect as I have ever heard on any hip-hop song ever, the word play is outstanding including one of my favorite rhyme scheme, alliteration combinations ever. That line by the way is, “I invented violence, you vile venomous volatile vicious[bitches]. Vain Vicodin, *vrin vrin vrin!*” The reason I put “bitches” in brackets up above is because due to the alliteration, “volatile vicious” also sounds like “little bitches” which is part of the point. This one crass, extraordinary line shows what Eminem is capable of on this album. He was at the absolute height of his shock rap powers and “Kill You would not be the end of it.

I can’t spend six paragraphs talking about this album, not today anyways, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention one of the most important rap songs of all time, “Stan.” This song changed the way a lot of people saw hip-hop. The story Eminem told is perfectly paced, brilliantly timed, and ends flawlessly. Eminem showed a whole new set of music listeners what the real power of hip-hop was, the stories you can tell. 

The Marshall Mathers LP is as close to perfect as a hip-hop album can get to in my opinion. There are maybe ten to fifteen albums that have ever been released that are in the same tier as this album. If you give me the choice though, I’m marking this down as the greatest hip-hop album of all time.