Eminem — Curtain Call

Curtain Call

Interscope/Universal

Noah Love (CHARTattack)

12/06/2005 2:21pm

The world's most popular rapper (arguably) is at once an excellent and somewhat troubling subject for a Best Of. On the former side, nobody has more recognizable hits in the last six years and let's face it, Eminem's singles were always 90 per cent better than the rest of the tracks on his albums. On the other hand, his sound has been so dramatically different at most stages of his career that there's not a lot of cohesiveness on this randomly mixed LP.

The mistakes are glaring. For instance, instead of kicking things off with Slim Shady staple "My Name Is," it's buried between two of the rapper's dark mid-period smashes, "The Way I Am" and "Stan." The new tracks, "Fack," "Shake That" and "When I'm Gone" are passable, but aren't remotely in the same league as Eminem's epics. That said, they're all here, from "Stan" to "The Real Slim Shady" to the Oscar winning "Lose Yourself." Overall, Curtain Call is a solid collection for the casual Eminem fan.

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