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Why Eminem's "The Marshall Mathers LP" was so successful

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Why Eminem's "The Marshall Mathers LP" was so successful
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The “Marshall Mathers LP” is the third studio album by rapper Eminem. It was released on May 23, 2000, by Interscope Records. “The Marshall Mathers LP” was one of Eminem 's best selling albums and one of the best rap albums of all time. One reason why “The Marshall Mathers LP” was such a great impact to the rap community is because after the great success of his previous album “The Slim Shady LP” no one expected a white rapper to be able to follow up with a better album, like Eminem did. Another reason why “The Marshall Mathers LP” had such a great impact on rap is because he was the first rapper to spark protest from the gay and lesbian communities and the anti violence and drug community. Lastly this album had such a great impact on rap because of Eminem’s lyrics and beats on each of his songs.
After the immense success of his second studio album “The Slim Shady LP”, which as of Nov 2013 has sold over ten million copies in the United-States (Rolling Stone Magazine, n.d.) and the failure of Vanilla Ice, no one believed that Eminem could top his last album and would be a one album wonder. The Marshall Mathers LP contained hit song after hit song, with songs like Stan, The Real Slim Shady, Kim, The Way I am and Criminal. These all helped the album skyrocket in sales by selling 1.7 million copies in the first seven days of its release, and would become one of only a handful of albums to achieve diamond certification by selling over ten million copies. (Rolling Stone Magazine, n.d.)
Another reason why The Marshall Mathers LP had such a great impact on the rap game is because he was the first rapper to spark protests from the gay and lesbian communities and the anti violence and drug community. Throughout the whole album Eminem raps about killing or hurting people and has homophobic slurs in most of his songs. For instance, Eminem has a song called “Kim” named after his girlfriend where he raps about brutally cutting his wife’s throat and driving around



References: "Eminem." Rolling Stone. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. <http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/eminem/biography>. "Eminem Terrified As Daughter Begins Dating Man Raised On His Music | The Onion - America 's Finest News Source." Eminem Terrified As Daughter Begins Dating Man Raised On His Music | The Onion - America 's Finest News Source. N.p., 27 June 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. <http://www.theonion.com/articles/eminem-terrified-as-daughter-begins-dating-man-rai,32989/>. "EMINEM." MTV. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. <http://www.mtv.com/bands/archive/e/eminem00/index2.jhtml>. "Eminem – Bitch Please II Lyrics." Rap Genius. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. <http://rapgenius.com/Eminem-bitch-please-ii-lyrics#note-2180860>.

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