Encore

goddamn I wish this album wasn't leaked.

very clearly supposed to follow up The eminem show the same way MMLP did for SSLP, Encore is a Mess of immature lyrics that are the equivalent of a bad south park episode if Matt and tre parker lost their frontal lobe on top of it, as well as some legitimately great, sincere and powerful moments scattered here and there. With the most popular song on here being mockingbird, I'm sure most people would assume that this album would have some level of substance throughout most of the tracklist...

No.

Encore is an embarrassment of an Album after an otherwise excellent 3 album run and I'm not here to talk about why it was this way, but simply to talk about what makes the album bad.

It starts off with Evil deeds, Em's worst intro track in his discography. Mind numbing flow, delivery, singing, writing and beat. Fuck this song.
Never enough is solid, nothing special but I love a good nate dogg hook, 50 has a great verse and em snaps.
yellow brick road i used to find boring but has really grown on me, not amazing but I've grown to really like this beat and content matter.

Like toy soldiers has always been a top 5 em song for me, especially with the music video and how that has aged. Em's sounds so sincere, the beat is emotional as fuck and this is arguably his most mature song, especially of this era. sticks out like a sore thumb when most of the album is juvenile as hell. I adore this song to this day and I dont care.

Mosh is a drop in quality but not really bad, I love the message and intent of this song and as protest music is fucking immaculate. the mixing could be a lot better but Em sounds so convicted and passionate on this song that it carries it. I do prefer we as Americans however and kinda wish that was on the original tracklist, however I'm not mad at this songs existence.

okay so the album isnt so bad so far, what's the problem...

puke. puke exists. and here's where I'm gonna start getting honestly downright angry cause this shit is SO DAMN WHINY AND JUVENILE. I'm gonna be making the same complaints from here on out so lemme just get out of the way. Bad hook. bad singing. annoying flow. grating beat. immature writing. All are present on this song and it's not even the worst on the album. God help me.

my first single. Bad hook? Check. Bad singing? check. annoying flow? check. grating beat? TRIPLE CHECK. immature writing? matter of fact immature everything. Check. This is Eminems worst song and quite possibly one of the worst songs I've ever heard in my life.

Rain man kinda has all of these except for the bad beat, but icl this song is kind of a guilty pleasure. don't get me wrong this song is awful but I also kinda think it's legitamately hilarious. I dont blame half the people that think this is one of his worst songs but I genuinely think this is comedic genius in the most brainrotted way ever. "is it gay?" became a running gag between one of my friends and that alone makes this song hilarious to me.

anyway, Big weenie has none of these hilarious qualities. probably one of the worst diss tracks ever and actively makes Toy soldiers even more of an outlier on the tracklist cause he legit undoes anything he said on that song. along with the rest of the complaints I highlighted in puke.

Just lose it was the lead single for this album and it's... bad. I'm sorry I wish I could just find this song to be dumb fun and it does have some qualities to it but I find the beat annoying and same with Marshalls delivery.
I also don't even wanna talk about ass like that. this is eminems worst single ever released and absolutely HAS to be racist in some way.

spend some time i forget about all the time, but I legit love obie's verse on here, I kinda hate the hook but it's got a charm to it, Em's verse is solid too but not anything amazing. Stat Quo and 50 steal the show on here, Stat quo has one of my favourite features on the album.

mockingbird is such a beautifully written and sincere song with a beautiful beat and being one song after ass is just awful. I love this song but I will say Em's singing is awful, but it feels sincere and kinda adds to it.

Crazy in love is boring bla bla bla.

One shot 2 shot is actually a really fun song. it's not masterpiece but even bizarre has a fun verse and it's not shock factory at all. the "fuck my wife" lines are hilarious. the entire song is a weirdly fun song about... mass shootings? yeah whatever but I genuinely really like this song and it might be my favourite of the d12 songs on eminem albums just cause of how creative it is. no proof verse on here does kinda sadden me though.

Encore/curtains down is an aight way to close the album but it's nothing to write home about so instead imma just talk about how CRAZY IN LOVE SHOULD HAVE BEEN REPLACED WITH LOVE YOU MORE CAUSE THAT SONG IS A MASTERPIECE.

So while this album is not irredeemable (as this absolute monster of a track by track review demonstrated) but is pretty damn bad. I do feel like this album would have been much better if it wasn't leaked, but i also still feel this album would have still been a step down. Evil deeds and puke would have still been left on there so... not sure it would have been great anyway. However I would reccomend anyone curious to look at some of the fan made "Encore if it wasn't leaked" interpretations on YouTube.