The Real Slim Shady
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| "The Real Slim Shady" | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Single by Eminem | ||
| from the album The Marshall Mathers LP | ||
| Released | 2000 | |
| Format | CD | |
| Genre | Hip hop | |
| Length | 4:44 | |
| Label | Aftermath/Interscope | |
| Producer(s) | Dr. Dre and Mel-Man | |
| Chart positions | ||
| Eminem singles chronology | ||
| "Guilty Conscience" (1999) |
"The Real Slim Shady" (2000) |
"The Way I Am" (2000) |
"The Real Slim Shady" is a song by the rapper Eminem, released in 2000. It was the first single off his album The Marshall Mathers LP, also released in that year.
Contents |
[edit] Premise
The song was a hit single, becoming Eminem's first chart topper in some countries, and garnering much attention for insulting various celebrities, including:
- Actress Pamela Anderson's alleged abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, rocker Tommy Lee
- Eminem jokingly claims in one line to have murdered Dr. Dre, and that he's locked him in his basement. This was a spin on one of his previous songs, My Name Is where Eminem goes, "And Dr. Dre said..." then Dre comes on and says "Slim Shady, you're a basehead".
- Comedian Tom Green's humping of a deceased moose on TV, and his song Lonely Swedish
- Rapper Will Smith's brand of commercialized and clean rap music
- Eminem also criticizes Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, both similarly commercially-oriented pop singers; Aguilera was angered by his claim that she performed oral sex on Carson Daly, an MTV VJ, and Fred Durst, of the band Limp Bizkit.
The chorus is about the sudden fashion changes caused by Eminem's success: "I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady/All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating/So won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?". The chorus echoes the tagline of the classic TV quiz show To Tell the Truth. (The TV show's signature phrase is ""Will the real __________ please stand up?")
[edit] Music video and awards
The music video features several subplots that follow the song's context. It features cameo appearances by D12 and Eminem dressed as Britney Spears while attending the Grammy Awards. A factory can be seen turning young white men into clones of Eminem, with hair dyed platinum blonde, baggy jeans and a plain white T-shirt. This video won the MTV Awards for Best Video and Best Male Video, as well as being a nominee for Best Rap Video, Best Direction, Best Editing and Viewer's Choice. Many fans view it as one of the best videos of Eminem's career.
"The Real Slim Shady" won the 2001 Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance and was later released on Eminem's greatest hits album, Curtain Call.
Actress and comedienne Kathy Griffin, who is also known for insulting celebrities in her act[1], appears in the video as an attending nurse in a psychiatric ward. Griffin said during a July 21, 2005, interview on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno that Eminem selected her for the video because fellow rapper Snoop Dogg told him she was "really funny."[2]
[edit] Covers and Parodies
Parody songs include:
- The Real Church Lady, a Saturday Night Live parody in "Church Chat" with Dana Carvey
- The Saddam Song, A parody (flash animation) about events surrounding the US build up to the Iraq War. It can be viewed here
- Will The Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up, This song was originally written by Mike Spencer and performed by a female rapper named Emily Ellis, for the US radio station KLUC. A common mistake was that it was performed by Christina Aguilera due to comments in the song.
- The Real Greg Brady, which was actually written and performed by Barry Williams (Greg Brady from The Brady Bunch) himself.
- The Real Sugar Baby, generally thought to be created with Sailor Moon's Chibiusa in mind.
- The Real Sin Savior, by Christian parody band Apologetix
- This song was featured in "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Angry White Boy Polka" on his album Poodle Hat.
- William Shatner also performed a spoken word cover of the song during the "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" episode of Futurama. In the episode, an appalled Walter Koenig asks "How can you do a spoken word version of a rap song?", prompting Melllvar to exclaim, "Somehow, he found a way."
- The Real Rahim Jaffer, parodied on the Canadian satirical current affairs show This Hour Has 22 Minutes when Rick Mercer performed a rap based on the Canadian MP having his aide impersonate him on a radio interview due to scheduling conflicts.
[edit] Trivia
- The Real Slim Shady wasn't on the original copy of The Marshall Mathers LP. Jimmy Iovine wanted Eminem to have a song to introduce the album, similar to the way My Name Is was the first single on The Slim Shady LP. Eminem wrote The Real Slim Shady literally hours before the final copy of the album was due.
Source: VH1's Ultimate Albums: The Marshall Mathers LP
- US Comedian Kathy Griffin stared as the nurse in the film clip
- The line "we ain't nothing but mammals", refers to the song "The Bad Touch", by The Bloodhound Gang.
[edit] External link
| Preceded by "Spinning Around" by Kylie Minogue |
UK number one single July 2, 2000 |
Succeeded by "Breathless" by The Corrs |
