Two types of people listen to Eminem. There are some who appreciate his language and narrative as it should be appreciated: as good literature. There are also those who think his darkest manifestation, Slim Shady, is someone to be emulated. As many albums as he's sold, both types obviously exist in droves. I'll leave it to your personal balance of optimism and pessimism to decide just what the percentages are.

This is where his genius lies. "The Marshall Mathers LP" succeeds in the manner that truly great art should always succeed. First, it describes a problem -- and not in the distanced, pleasant way that, say, Arrested Development does (or, rather, did).

Second, it proves the problem is real, scarily real. Significantly, it does this as much through album sales as it does through language.

Finally, it has the guts to terrify people, to get people mad.

But if there's a problem here, it's us. The people with the reason, education and humanity to fix the problems that Eminem writes about are more interested in fixing him. Rather than concentrate on devastating income gaps and a shoddy educational system, his critics -- on both the left and the right -- would prefer he tone down the darkness that is essential to the effectiveness of his work, or shut up altogether. And because no one will go far enough to suggest that he be banned or otherwise restricted, none of this really amounts to anything at all.

This is why he deserves record of the year, and any other Grammys he doesn't give a damn about: because it will piss people off. As Zack de la Rocha of the late, great Rage Against the Machine put it, "Anger is a gift," and our anger is Eminem's gift to us. It's not as if the Grammys have ever been in touch with the most important or even the best records since, oh, Bobby McFerrin won an armful of statues for "Don't Worry Be Happy."

Eminem is most likely not going to win record of the year. But the awards are still a barometer of the music industry, if not popular culture or good music. This year, in the record of the year category, NARAS has a number of choices before it. The members could honor Radiohead's "Kid A," which is sufficiently arcane and audience-unfriendly to be art; Paul Simon, for making, in "Still the One," the thousandth or so pristinely produced album of his career; Beck, for making "Midnite Vultures," the best party album in, oh, a few months; Steely Dan's "Two Against Nature," an arch collection of state-of-the-art jazz-pop songs; or Eminem, an artist of immense social significance and creative talent, the only artist in the crop who is taking real risks, who is standing up and telling society something that it truly, genuinely doesn't want to hear.

In his first album, Eminem -- rather, Slim Shady -- claimed "God sent me to piss the world off." I'm starting to believe it.

Recent Stories