The phenomenal number of opinions already voiced at this web site shows the amount of interest generated by this album. Given that this was one of my favourite records of last year and that (living up to my Ciao name!) I performed 'Stan' at a karaoke contest over New Year, I think it is about time that I let known my thoughts on the subject.

Of course there will be those who are offended by Eminem's profane lyrical content and aggressive manner. It's entirely understandable. His persistent use of the f-word is mind-numbingly gratuitous at times. And yet, I feel it would be so wrong for this album to be dismissed as simply nothing more than a lot of tracks full of mindless swearing.

There is a scene in the film 'Pulp fiction' when John Travolta, in an attempt to fill an uncomfortable silence with his date Uma Thurman, tells her that he has thought of something to ask her but is reluctant to because he thinks she might take offence. She immediately perks up. 'This doesn't sound like the normal, boring, getting-to-know-chit-chat!' she replies, intrigued. 'This sounds like you actually do have something to say!'

Unfortunately his (alleged) attitudes to women and the gay community dominate the headlines. He is constantly accused of misogyny and homophobia and he is frustratingly non-committal (although that's probably a good thing) on both subjects. In the opening track 'Kill you' he constantly refers to his female addressee as 'b**ch' or 'sl*t'. At the song's end he laughs and says 'I'm just playing ladies, you know I love you!' Just playing he may have been but he never sounded as if he sang the words with a smile on his face. As for homophobia, in 'Who knew' he tells us 'to make fun of gay clubs and men who wear make up'. Yet in an interview for MTV he claimed that he wasn't anti-gay, he just had an aversion to 'unmanly' men. Make up your own minds!
In a relatively short space of time, Eminem has shot from obscurity to arguably the most famous rapper in the world (white or otherwise). The underlying theme of this album is indeed this sudden rise to fame and how he copes with it. His major feeling is one of bewilderment. In the chorus of the melancholic 'Marshall Mathers' he protests 'I'm just a regular guy, I don't know why all the fuss about me'. He suggests that the megastar status in nothing it's cracked up to be - 'What do I think of success? It sucks!' he raps in 'I'm back!' Not that he's fooling anybody. 'I've got a new house car, I've got a new car ' he boasts in 'Who knew'.

The best track is the haunting 'Stan', the downbeat song about an obsessive Eminem fan who eventually commits suicide due to his idol's refusal to return any of his fan mail. Radio 1 DJ Sara Cox perhaps put it best when she said 'It's one of those songs that you remember where you were first time you heard it' and I'd certainly agree. Whether I'd like it so much if it didn't have the Dido sample is questionable. Eminem raps brilliantly throughout, but it is Dido's beautiful chorus that really makes the song. So whether more credit should go to Eminem or Dido is open to question, but 'Stan' is undeniably one of the few occasions in recent memory where sampling genuinely enhances a song.

Whether Eminem is a bad influence on the youth of today is worth a debate in itself. All I would say is that to me, someone like Oasis' Liam Gallagher (with his rather casual attitude to fathering children) is far more morally reprehensible than the white rapper from Detroit. (I'm not trying to pick on Liam Gallagher specifically here - it was just as good as an example as any to use) Whatever else you may wish to throw at Eminem, you can not accuse of him of not being a faithful husband and a devoted father.