Eminem is back with 'Encore'

The rapper unleashes more details of his life on this album.
By JIM FARBER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
All those anger-management classes Eminem attended must have hit home.
On the famously furious rapper's latest album, "Encore," in stores Friday, he often acts levelheaded, analytical, even contrite.
At least by his standards.
In the opening cut, "Evil Deeds," Eminem asks forgiveness for his violent character. In "Yellow Brick Road," he apologizes for a racist rap he admits to recording when he was young.
In "Like Toy Soldiers," he calls for an end to several personal beefs. One cut even finds him forgiving his ultimate enemy -- his mom.
Before you confuse him with Miss Manners, you should know that Eminem opens one number sitting noisily on the toilet. He burps with theatrical abandon on several cuts. And he thought to title one piece "Puke."
Yet even Eminem's potty-mouthed flourishes have a new purpose. They're meant to mock his detractors' belief that that's all there is to him -- and to serve as in-jokes for fans who know better.
Explains his life
On "Encore," Eminem connects more of the dots that have made his life such a fascinating mess. It's the logical next step after his previous project, the autobiographical flick "8 Mile," which did more to explain Eminem's character than anything that preceded it.
More importantly, Eminem has jettisoned many of the complaints about fame that made his last nonsoundtrack album, "The Eminem Show," such a self-righteous bore.
But if his point of view has broadened, his music hasn't always followed suit.
Roughly half of "Encore" features less-than-scorching beats. Tracks like "A-- Like That," "Never Enough" and the aforementioned "Puke" just sort of lie there.
Thankfully, Eminem has another way of creating a beat. Rarely does he fail to make a meaningful groove with his rapping flow.
Few, if any, other MCs have more creative ways of packing, or elongating, couplets over a beat.
While he receives all the attention for his "message," he achieves even more individuality through his delivery. In several cuts, Eminem switches up the rhythm of his words two and three times.
Of course, it's hard to pay attention to such things, given the headline-making content of his raps.
Offers response
One of the recurrent themes of "Encore" is Eminem's response to the campaign led against him by the rap magazine The Source. Over the past year, the publication has become obsessed with dimming his star, first by exposing a racist rap he recorded as a teenager.
On the CD, Eminem explains that the piece reflected his bitterness over a breakup with a black girlfriend. He apologizes for his awful response ("I singled out a whole race/and for that I was wrong"). After putting in a few digs at the Source crew, (calling the editor an opportunist, and perhaps worse, a "receptionist") Eminem extends an olive branch, saying, "I'm willing to be the bigger man."
He also takes the sting out of his old battle with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog by goofily impersonating the hand puppet in "A-- Like That."
Mocks Jackson
Eminem takes on Michael Jackson, naturally, in the album's kickoff single, "Just Lose It." He mockingly imagines Jackson's outraged response to the song in several skits on the CD.
But the real scandal here isn't that the Jackson swipes are offensive. It's that they're old.
Fortunately, Eminem picks a far worthier target in "Mosh" -- the president. While the rapper had earlier taken on Bush, and Lynne Cheney, for what he sees as censorship, this time there's a less self-serving angle. "Mosh" is his anti-war song. And given the pro-Bush mood of much of the country, and the fury of Eminem's delivery, the protest has real edge.
It's a highlight on an album that, like the rapper himself, remains a mixed bag.
On "Encore," he can be maddening, self-involved, repetitive and still prone to blaming others. But in his most inspired moments, Eminem focuses his frustration, not just on the usual critics and celebrities but, at last, on himself.