This album was an embarrassingly large part of me getting in to Hip Hop. It wasn’t my first album, that was The Eminem Show. But I was a little moody for about a year there and the edgy teen I was really identified with a lot of the depression and anger on the album. I still like Eminem now, but I mostly listen to his goofier songs (Real Slim Shady, Without Me, Lock it Up) or anything featuring Swifty McVay. Giving it a re-listen yesterday night I still really liked it, but it is weird to listen to it and not identify with it at all. And some of the lyrics made me kind of uncomfortable knowing I used to rap along with this.

Favorite songs back in the day would have been Kill You, The Way I Am and Kim. Because I was a vaguely poor teenager and I was mad about it. Looking back at it now though, I found myself really getting in to pretty much the whole album, just not identifying with any of it.

The only songs I really didn’t enjoy now are Amityville and Kim. Amityville has Bizarre so we all know what went wrong there. Kim is just…too mad. I don’t know why I loved that song so much as a kid, because I had a decent childhood, but looking at it now it is weird. It kind of gives me some insight on my kids I think, seeing the sort of stuff I felt “reflected me” at that age. Hormones man.

That Criminal joint.