The Real Slim Shady
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “The Real Slim Shady” | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
|||||
| Single by Eminem from the album The Marshall Mathers LP |
|||||
| Released | May 16, 2000 | ||||
| Format | CD | ||||
| Genre | Hip hop, Comedy rap | ||||
| Length | 4:44 | ||||
| Label | Aftermath/Interscope | ||||
| Producer | Dr. Dre and Mel-Man | ||||
| Eminem singles chronology | |||||
|
|||||
"The Real Slim Shady" is one of Eminem's best known songs, released in 2000. It was the first single off his album The Marshall Mathers LP, also released in that year. It was his first #1 on the UK Singles Chart and it also peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving him his biggest hit up to that point. The song's chorus is based on that of K-Solo's song "Real Solo Please Stand Up" from his 1990 album Tell the World My Name.
Contents |
[edit] Premise
The song is a critique of manufactured pop songs that were being churned out at the time. It parodies these songs by including features of a typical pop song, a repetitive chorus etc. Most hardcore rap and general music fans missed the irony, and classed this as a novelty pop song itself rather than a parody of one.
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.
- He also makes fun of the boy band *NSYNC, when he appears to dance in the video, with the "group".
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?")
One of the lyrics comparing the questionable morality of the Tom Green episode mentioned above to gay marriage, accompanied by a disgusted retch, helped touch off homophobic accusations against the rapper. Although it can be explained by saying that the views expressed are not Eminem's himself, but of Slim Shady (This can be extended to most of the other 'offensive' lyrics). This particular line may also be a comment on Shady's disgust that although Tom Green's act is considered socially acceptable, gay marriage is considered taboo.
Certain parts of the song feature allusions to other songs, such as Bloodhound Gang's The Bad Touch. This could possibly be construed as mocking impersonation and lyric-theft, for comedic value.
[edit] Music video and awards
The music video features Eminem performing the song in a psychiatric ward, a local Detroit neighborhood nearside a park, a fast-food joint, the Grammy Awards, and even in a factory where multiple clones of the rapper are produced. The video also features cameo appearances by Dr. Dre, D-12, Kid Rock, Fred Durst, Carson Daly, Kathy Griffin, Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee, and even a stuffed Bill the Cat doll can also be seen being held in posession by one of the mental patients in the hospital scenes.
The video has one notable scene when Eminem is seen dressed in a Robin-like superhero costume with a plastic derriere chasing a group of individuals and pushing one of the individuals on the ground and putting 'his bum on the man's lips.' The costume can be seen later in the 'Without Me' music video following the release of The Eminem Show.
There are also more scenes showing one or more of the following [when the lyrics roll along with the video]:
1. Two children watching the 'Discovery Channel' on television with two rhinoceroses mating, then looking at each other in awe. 2. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee chasing each other around a couch and Pamela screaming in front of the camera. 3. An obese man in underwear being enslaved by a dominatrix with a paddle [the scene can be seen through a keyhole]. 4. A gay marriage is shown and Eminem breaks up the two men about to kiss each other [as a rejection to homosexuality] and showing disgust. 5. Eminem performing in a private room with all his clones produced from the factory with their heads bobbing to the music. 6. Eminem at the Grammy Awards dressing as Britney Spears, along with Fred Durst and Carson Daly pulling a replica of a girl between their seats towards each other angrily until it flies out of the chair. 7. A 1940's Looney Tunes like cartoon of a frog tap-dancing on a turtle can be seen on a TV in the hospital and the viewer laughs at it. 8. Eminem working in a fictional fast-food joint with an 'Ask Me' patch giving an obese woman her order and rejecting it because of the onion rings being forgotten, however he gets the onion rings and he spits in them, and gives the onion rings to the woman to complete her order and she eats the onion ring which Eminem spat on as she walks away. The same scene also shows Eminem driving recklessly around in circles in a parking lot in a blue car.
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: The Hits.
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] Chart performances
| Chart (2000) [1][2][3] | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Singles Chart | 11 |
| Austrian Singles Chart | 6 |
| Belgian Singles Chart (Flanders) | 7 |
| Belgian Singles Chart (Wallonia) | 2 |
| Canada Singles Chart (Canada) | 1 |
| Finnish Singles Chart | 6 |
| French Singles Chart | 6 |
| German Singles Chart | 7 |
| Irish Singles Chart | 1 |
| Italian Singles Chart | 4 |
| Netherlands Singles Chart | 5 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 15 |
| Norwegian Singles Chart | 2 |
| Swedish Singles Chart | 3 |
| Swiss Singles Chart | 2 |
| UK Singles Chart | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 4 |
| United World Chart | 3 |
[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.[4]
- Will The Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up, two parodies have been recorded under this name:
- A song was originally written by Mike Spencer and performed by a female rapper named Emily Ellis for the US radio station KLUC. It is sung from Christina Aguilera's point of view, and due to Ellis' similar voice it is commonly mistaken for Aguilera herself.
- A song performed by Cletus Haus, with the narrator portraying a parody of Eminem admitting to his own fame and talentlessness.
- The Real Greg Brady, a song written and performed by Barry Williams.
- The Real Bing Cavy, a song by a superstar guinea pig[5]
- The Real Eggman, a flash video on the internet about how Dr. Eggman, Sonic the Hedgehog's main enemy, is the fattest out of all the versions of himself.
- The Real Sin Savior, by Christian parody band Apologetix
- The Real Sugar Baby, by Stephanie Beard.
- The Real Johnny Roney, by Adam Hinds.[6]
Cover versions:
- 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, "He found a way." This is a parody of Shatner's music album "The Transformed Man," in which Shatner used spoken word (as opposed to singing) all of his songs.
The Real Slim Santa
[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 just hours before the final copy of the album was due. The first single was intended to be "I'm Back", but was not released as a single due to the lyrics concerning Columbine High School.[citation needed]
Source: VH1's Ultimate Albums: The Marshall Mathers LP
- US Comedian Kathy Griffin starred as a nurse in the film clip.
- The lines "they got the Discovery Channel, don't they?" and "we ain't nothing but mammals", refers to the song "The Bad Touch", by The Bloodhound Gang.
- In the video where Eminem is spinning around in a room full of D12 members, it bears resemblance to one of the videos of "Made Niggaz" where 2Pac is in a room full of The Outlawz.
[edit] References
- ^ lescharts.com (Retrieved on May 9, 2008)
- ^ mediatraffic.de (Retrieved on May 9, 2008)
- ^ Billboard.com (Retrieved on May 9, 2008)
- ^ TocciOnline presents The Real Hussein - powered by Kizash
- ^ the real Bing Cavy
- ^ The Real Johnny Roney on iTunes
| Preceded by "Spinning Around" by Kylie Minogue |
UK number one single July 2, 2000 - July 9, 2000 |
Succeeded by "Breathless" by The Corrs |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
