Best Pop Singers of 21st Century (No. 12)

With the primary quarter of the twenty first century coming to an in depth, Billboard is spending the following few months counting down our workers picks for the 25 best pop stars of the final 25 years. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25, No. 24, No. 23, No. 22, No. 21, No. 20, No. 19, No. 18, No. 17, No. 16, No. 15, No. 14 and No. 13 stars, and now we keep in mind the century in Eminem — a singular pressure in early twenty first century popular culture whose influence continues to reverberate right now.

On the peak of the TRL period in well-liked music — a turn-of-the-century interval dominated by bubbly teen-pop stars and punctuated by livid nu-metal rockers — the most important artist of all was really a late-20-something rapper from Detroit. Eminem, who seemingly went from underground battle-rapper to omnipresent celebrity by the top of his first week on MTV, reached business heights and ranges of well-liked publicity as a solo artist that solely the defining stars of pop’s ’80s golden age (and positively no prior MC) might beforehand declare.

It couldn’t final, and it didn’t — with Em’s run as a culture-defining celebrity flaming out before anybody doubtless would’ve predicted. Eminem himself has lasted, nevertheless, remaining a business fixture and a high-level rapper since retooling on the flip of the 2010s, not often fairly as central to popular culture as he was throughout his all-consuming first few years of the century, however at all times an element on the charts and within the dialog.

By the yr 2000, Eminem was already near a family title, because of his breakthrough major-label debut The Slim Shady LP and its lead single “My Title Is.” The wisecracking, s–t-stirring and mercilessly catchy mission assertion explicitly launched him to America as each mum or dad’s worst nightmare — with Em ending the primary verse by claiming that God (or, within the music’s radio edit, his iconic producer, label head and mentor Dr. Dre) “despatched me to piss the world off.” That breakout hit solely reached No. 36 on the Billboard Scorching 100, nevertheless it made him a right away MTV sensation with its cartoonishly comedic music video, that includes the artist portraying popular culture figures starting from shock-rocker Marilyn Manson to impeached president Invoice Clinton (and all eight stars of The Shady Bunch).

Satirically, it was Eminem’s extraordinarily anti-pop power in his early days that made him the right pop star for the second. The early ’90s had been largely been outlined by Seattle-based grunge and L.A.-based G-funk, however by the late ’90s, these genres had largely run their course within the mainstream, and their sonic and thematic heaviness was largely changed by upbeat, kid-friendly, sometimes good megapop that nonetheless left a variety of still-pissed-off younger people determined for a darker, extra skeptical different. Out of that starvation got here the rise of rap-rockers like Korn and Limp Bizkit, in addition to the inner-turmoil-driven hip-hop of DMX — all of whom can be current at Woodstock ’99, a bad-vibes pageant of such historic proportions that the unfavourable power in the end manifested in literal flames that engulfed a lot of the fest. The world was clearly prepared for a rapper like Eminem, a (peroxide) blond-haired, blue-eyed, indignant younger white man who mixed the youth-galvanizing outsider attraction of the nu-metalers with the intensely private rhymes of DMX, additionally with a wholesome dose of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s bratty humor and cultural commentary combined in.

That potent mix would reap speedy blockbuster returns with the discharge of Eminem’s first album of the brand new century, 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP. Led by “The Actual Slim Shady,” which doubled down on the “My Title Is” components with even funnier and ruder outcomes (and reached No. 4 on the Scorching 100), the album bought an unthinkable 1.78 million copies in its first week — then second to solely the two.4 million moved by *NSYNC’s No Strings Hooked up months earlier, and to today the highest-selling single week for a rapper within the Soundscan period. The album additionally drew largely rave evaluations from critics, impressed with Eminem’s verbal dexterity, storytelling chops and talent to tackle a large breadth of subjects and views in his music, and even earned a Grammy nomination for album of the yr and a win for greatest rap album, first of Em’s 15 profession Ws on the awards. The reward for Eminem was hardly common, nevertheless: His R-rated language and subject material and tendency in direction of excessive violence in his lyrics — particularly in direction of ladies, together with his real-life then-wife Kim — made him public enemy No. 1 amongst American mother and father, and arrests for separate altercations in back-to-back days that June raised public considerations that he was harmful even past his rhymes.

Whereas questions concerning the album’s extra misogynistic content material had been completely truthful to ask, the criticism over its violent content material took on a considerably unfair tenor as a result of it coming throughout a very delicate cultural second over the topic, following the tragic 1999 bloodbath of a dozen college students at Columbine highschool by the hands of two of their classmates. Within the aftermath, a lot of the general public blame for the taking pictures was positioned on the toes of shock rockers Marilyn Manson (who the shooters had been reportedly followers of, although the concept of them being cult-level devotees has since been debunked) for supposedly inspiring the disaster — an artist-blaming panic that Eminem additionally felt the brunt of in 2000, as Lynne Cheney (spouse of soon-to-be-VP Dick Cheney) introduced up the album’s lyrics on the senate ground, calling it “astonishing to me {that a} man whose work is so crammed with hate can be so honored by his friends.” (Eminem talked about Manson on the album’s “The Manner I Am,” positing that these pointing fingers ought to take accountability themselves: “They blame it on Marilyn… The place had been the mother and father at?”)

Equally pervasive within the public discourse on the time was dialogue about Eminem’s use of anti-gay slurs on Marshall Mathers — sometimes in such explicitly malevolent contexts because the “Felony” lyric “Hate f–s?/ The reply’s sure” — and his efforts to clarify himself on the time (“[The f– word] has nothing to do with sexual choice. I meant one thing extra like a–holes or d–kheads,” he stated in response to GLAAD’s criticism of him) largely landed flat. The backlash over the album’s homophobic content material did result in some of the iconic moments of that cycle, when he teamed up with the overtly homosexual pop and rock legend Elton John for a efficiency of its third ingle “Stan” — whose chilling account from the attitude of an obsessed fan was so unforgettable that its title ended up turning into widespread parlance to confer with all overly invested pop followers — on the 2001 Grammys, which led to an embrace between the 2 artists. (Although some remained unmoved by the gesture of allyship, the pair have remained good buddies within the a long time since, with Sir Elton even revealing that the rapper obtained him and his husband diamond-encrusted intercourse toys for a marriage reward in 2017.)

Whereas criticism of among the album’s extra inflammatory content material ranged from the considerate to the histrionic, all of it served the aim of creating Eminem not simply the most important star, however probably the most unavoidable matter of dialog in early 2000s popular culture. His well-known efficiency of “The Actual Slim Shady” on the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards — by which a military of white-teed, peroxide-blond Eminem clones stormed New York’s Radio Metropolis Music Corridor — resonated not solely as a result of Em had already impressed so many followers, however as a result of he was so unavoidable on the time it felt like there could as effectively have been lots of of him working round concurrently. And it wasn’t simply on his personal songs: Eminem additionally stole the present as a featured visitor and hype man on Dr. Dre’s back-to-the-old-me 2000 hit “Forgot About Dre,” and because the lone visitor on Jay-Z’s universally acclaimed 2001 masterpiece The Blueprint for the late-album spotlight “Renegade” (which he additionally co-produced with Luis Resto, a burgeoning ability of Em’s he’d make higher use of as the last decade went on). He additionally launched Satan’s Night time along with his previous Detroit rap crew D12, now signed to Em’s Interscope imprint Shady Data, which topped the Billboard 200 and generated a high 20 Scorching 100 hit in “Purple Hills” (or “Purple Tablets” on the non-radio edit).

As central to pop music and popular culture as Eminem was all through the primary two years of the 2000s, it merely shouldn’t have been doable for him to get any larger. And but, 2002 marked one other leap ahead for the celebrity: In Could, he launched The Eminem Present, which adopted Marshall Mathers again to the highest of the Billboard 200, with over 1.3 million bought in its first full week of launch. The album spawned his third straight basic culture-slapping lead single within the pulsing fake-superhero theme “With out Me,” adopted by maybe his most vicious diss monitor but — tellingly, about his personal mom Debbie Nelson, who’d beforehand sued him for defamation of character over lyrics in “My Title Is” that alleged heavy drug use on her half — in “Cleansing Out My Closet,” with each singles reaching the Scorching 100’s high 5. Like its two predecessors, The Eminem Present drew rave evaluations, with critics significantly praising Em’s self-awareness and incisiveness on songs just like the stomping “White America,” the place he aptly proclaims, “Let’s do the maths/ If I used to be Black, I’d’ve carried out half.”

However the primary occasion of his 2002 was nonetheless to come back. In November, the Curtis Hanson-directed drama 8 Mile was launched, starring Eminem (in his first main movie position) because the Detroit trailer park resident, manufacturing facility employee and aspiring battle MC Jimmy “B-Rabbit” Smith. Em was clearly enjoying a loosely fictionalized model of himself, however the steely depth of his star flip was effectively obtained critically, and his charming performances in among the film’s battle scenes gave him the electrical energy of a younger Sylvester Stallone. Most crucially, his character got here with theme music that was even higher than Rocky Balboa’s: “Lose Your self,” the seize-the-day jock jam that basically tells Rabbit’s story (and appears to play in his head all through the film), turned Eminem’s most ubiquitous hit; whereas earlier singles of his had been extra impactful on MTV than on radio, there was no probability the latter might be in a position to withstand a pop music this accessible and large. It topped the Scorching 100 shortly after the film’s launch — his first No. 1 on the chart — and stayed there for 12 consecutive weeks, simply his greatest hit to this point, and perhaps the primary Eminem music you didn’t even actually even should be an Eminem fan to like.

This was Eminem’s peak — and one of many highest of any pop artist, in both this century or the final. However in some ways, it was additionally the top of his run on high. In 2003, The Eminem Present continued to spin off medium-sized hits (the gleefully chauvinistic “Superman,” No. 15; the Aerosmith-sampling “Sing for the Second,” No. 14) whereas Eminem largely targeted on manufacturing work for the likes of Jay-Z, his Shady signee Obie Trice and even the late 2Pac. For maybe the primary time in 4 years, Eminem was not the tradition’s most ubiquitous rapper, although he nonetheless obtained to take partial credit score for the man who was: 50 Cent, who he signed to Shady the yr earlier than. Eminem appeared on two tracks and co-produced 5 whole on his new protégé’s blockbuster debut LP Get Wealthy or Die Tryin’, launched that February, with Get Wealthy occurring to be the yr’s best-selling album, an enormous secondhand win for Em.

However by the point he was able to resume recording his personal subsequent solo mission, Eminem appeared a little bit misplaced. After D12 scored its first high 10 hit with D12 World lead single “My Band” — a light-hearted take a look at Eminem’s outsized position because the group’s frontman, with Em enjoying the clueless lead singer position to perfection — he returned in September in “Simply Lose It,” the lead single from his personal upcoming Encore. The music peaked at No. 6 on the Scorching 100, however confounded followers and critics alike with its outdated Michael Jackson and Pee Wee Herman references, sexually confused refrain (“Yeah, boy, shake that ass/ Oops, I imply lady/ Woman, lady lady”), recycled hooks from “With out Me” and “Superman,” and comparatively limp beat. After three straight game-changing lead singles, “Simply Lose It” was a particularly puzzling launch — and Encore was stuffed with equally wheel-spinning tracks for Em, the place even he appeared not sure of what he was making an attempt to do. (It did include just a few more-focused highlights, together with the Martika-sampling “Like Toy Troopers,” which recapped all the meat Em had gotten embroiled in on each his and his crew’s behalf over the previous couple years, and the George W. Bush-protesting “Mosh,” which made him maybe the one U.S. pop star daring sufficient to actually say “f–ok Bush” within the midst of GWB’s 2004 re-election marketing campaign.)

Encore nonetheless debuted at No. 1, with a sky-high first-week whole of 710,000 copies bought (in simply three days of launch, with the album’s launch date being moved as much as counteract on-line leaks). However Eminem himself appeared dissatisfied with the mission — he’d finally dismiss it outright as a miss — and as soon as its promo cycle was over, he ended up largely disappearing from the general public eye for just a few years. He scored one other two high 10 hits with the foreboding “Once I’m Gone” and Akon-featuring “Shake That,” each from his Billboard 200-topping best hits assortment Curtain Name, however that set’s title pointed (once more) to the concept he was toying with the concept of bowing out of music altogether. Eminem had rapped about drug use his total profession, however through the recording of Encore his tablet utilization (as he would later recount) had spiraled into full-blown dependency. That dependancy and related melancholy would worsen in 2006, after Eminem’s D12 bandmate and greatest pal since childhood DeShaun “Proof” Holton was shot to dying in a tragic membership incident.

Following an almost deadly overdose in 2007, Eminem went sober in 2008 — and commenced work with Dr. Dre on his comeback album, Relapse. Launched in 2009, and led by his third Scorching 100-topper within the Dre and 50 team-up “Crack a Bottle,” the album had all of the hallmarks of an athlete coming back from damage and nonetheless getting again in recreation form — the complete set carried a serial killer theme that he didn’t fairly appear able to completely decide to, and the singles had been comparatively weak, with Em making an attempt out some new vocal tics and inflections that he’d later categorical remorse over (and his rhymes nonetheless a little bit rusty). The comeback effort topped the Billboard 200 and bought over 600,000 copies in its first week, and accommodates a pair transferring moments of true introspection in “Deja Vu” and “Lovely” — however right now, it represents (together with Encore) a low interval in Eminem’s profession, for each his followers and for himself. On Em’s his subsequent album, he even principally requested his listeners to permit him a do-over, rapping on “Talkin II Myself,” “Them final two albums didn’t depend/ Encore I used to be on medication, Relapse I used to be flushing ’em out.”

Fortunately for Eminem, he would get that do-over try with that subsequent album, 2010’s Restoration, and he’d take advantage of it. Now totally clear, he was hungry and refocused in a approach that he hadn’t been since The Eminem Present — and the outcomes had been speedy, because the set’s lead single, the anthemic perseverance ballad “Not Afraid,” debuted atop the Scorching 100, his first No. 1 since “Lose Your self” in 2002. Restoration adopted in June, and although the set divided critics with its extra somber tone and greyscale manufacturing — Dre solely co-produced one monitor, the late-album reduce “So Afraid,” with extra up to date collaborators like Boi-1da and Simply Blaze dealing with the brunt of duties — the business response was huge, because it debuted at No. 1 with 741,000 copies bought and in the end ended 2010 because the Yr-Finish Billboard 200 No. 1 album. The set additionally scored a second Scorching 100-topper with the seven-week No. 1 “Love the Manner You Lie,” an amour fou team-up with fellow megastar Rihanna that turned one thing of a linchpin hit for the second section of Eminem’s star profession.

Although Eminem gave the impression to be beginning a brand new chapter with Restoration, his subsequent album would take him again to the start of the century: The Marshall Mathers LP 2. Main off with the “Stan” sequel “Unhealthy Man,” the set featured Eminem sounding like he was having enjoyable for the primary time in a very long time — getting unfastened over basic rock on songs just like the fame-bemoaning “So Far” (Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good”) and the block-rocking lead single “Berzerk” (Billy Squier’s “The Stroke”), and breaking Guinness data along with his lightning-quick spitting on the viral “Rap God.” (That music additionally revisited the Marshall Mathers period by courting accusations of homophobic content material — criticism Eminem has continued to domesticate in moments all through his profession — which he responded to by reasserting that his phrases weren’t meant to be interpreted actually: “I feel folks know my private stance on issues and the personas that I create in my music.”) MMLP2 was one other big success for Eminem, promoting 792,000 copies in its first week, incomes his greatest evaluations in a decade and spawning his fifth Scorching 100 No. 1 with a second smash Rihanna collab, “The Monster,” additional confirming the early 2010s as one thing of a second renaissance for Eminem.

Eminem’s subsequent album would are available in 2017 with Revival, led by a protracted pre-release rollout that included his much-hyped first team-up with Beyoncé, “Stroll on Water.” Each the album and the one underwhelmed expectations; Revival debuted atop the Billboard 200 — each new Eminem album this century has — however with combined evaluations and solely a couple of third of MMLP2‘s first-week numbers, whereas the ponderous “Stroll on Water” debuted and peaked at No. 14 on the Scorching 100. He appeared to sense that he had carried out the album few favors with the prolonged walk-up to it, so he got here again the following yr with the shock launch Kamikaze, spawning a high 10 hit within the Joyner Lucas-featuring “Fortunate You” — one of many first actual examples of Em extending his arm to the following era of rappers — and getting a greater reception from followers and critics for its extra impressed, targeted rhyming. (As of Kamikaze, Eminem’s method to music has clearly prioritized demonstrating his nonetheless being a top-tier MC above all hitmaking considerations — with him even saying, “If I had a selection between being one of the best rapper or making one of the best albums, I’d relatively be one of the best rapper” — which makes excellent sense for an artist born from the battle rap circuit.)

Probably the most social media consideration Eminem obtained within the again half of the 2010s was really for a pair of non-album cultural moments. On the 2017 BET Hip-Hop Awards, he once more entered the political protest realm through the use of his cypher efficiency to decry then-president Donald Trump with an a cappella efficiency titled “The Storm,” even calling out a few of his personal followers within the course of: “And any fan of mine who’s a supporter of his/ I’m drawing within the sand a line, you’re both for or in opposition to.” (Em would later rap that the transfer “virtually reduce my motherf–kin’ fanbase in half,” however continued to face by his anti-Trump stance.) Then, in 2018, he engaged in his first celeb beef in some years with then-rapper Machine Gun Kelly, who he had points with relationship again to a 2012 remark MGK made about Em’s daughter Hailie, and who he known as out once more on Kamikaze‘s “Not Alike.” This time, Kelly responded with a full dis monitor: “Rap Satan,” which drew sufficient media and streaming consideration to additionally change into his greatest unaccompanied Scorching 100 hit, reaching No. 13. Eminem responded with the vicious “Killshot,” which outperformed “Rap Satan” by reaching No. 3, and largely ended the on-record back-and-forth.

Within the 2020s, Eminem has continued to carry out effectively commercially, with loyal, dependable fan assist that ensures that he’s not as weak to the altering tides of well-liked music as most different veteran rappers (or artists of any style) are. His 2020 album Music to Be Murdered By marked his tenth No. 1 album and spawned a high 5 hit with the posthumous Juice WRLD teamup “Godzilla,” whereas this yr’s The Loss of life of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace) revisited Eminem’s most basic period and lots of of its most memorable characters for a (supposedly) ultimate time. The “With out Me”-echoing, Steve Miller Band-sampling lead single “Houdini” has been Em’s greatest hit since “The Monster,” debuting at No. 2 on the Scorching 100 and receiving a VMAs-opening efficiency in September that noticed him recreating the Slim Shady Military from his epochal “Actual Slim Shady” efficiency on the century’s starting, a pleasant full-circle second for the rapper and his longtime supporters.

It may be a little bit robust to dimension up Eminem’s legacy in pop stardom — which, apart from some unlucky gaps within the 2000s, has basically spanned the complete twenty first century up to now — as a result of no matter Eminem has completed within the years since is at all times going to be held up in opposition to these first three years the place he was on high of the world in practically each conceivable approach, and it’s inevitably going to pale compared. Whereas Em has put up spectacular stats and launched a variety of good music within the years since, the greatness of his early run nonetheless ensures that any retelling of his story, or practically any rating of his greatest albums, songs or moments, goes to be impossibly weighted in direction of that preliminary period. The numbers Eminem put up in these years had been jaw-dropping, however his influence additionally went far past them; like Taylor Swift’s newer run of dominance throughout her Eras Tour, you most likely needed to stay by way of it to completely perceive simply how all-consuming it was.

However whereas Eminem could have by no means been fairly in a position to match the influence of his personal early-2000s run in his later profession, neither has some other rapper. And even when youthful listeners could have hassle comprehending Eminem as one of many actually nice and dominant pop stars of the twenty first century, they will see it within the unmistakable significance he’s had on a few of their very own favourite artists within the subsequent era. That ranges from vividly introspective rappers like Juice WRLD and Mac Miller to line-crossing provocateurs just like the early-days Odd Future crew to verbal technicians like Kendrick Lamar and Logic to singing pop stars like Ed Sheeran and The Weeknd — all of whom bear Eminem’s imprint, and all of whom have particularly cited him as an inspiration. They don’t all look (or sound) precisely like him, however the prophecy from the 2000 VMAs nonetheless basically got here true: a military of Slim Shady acolytes actually did take over the world within the twenty first century.

Learn extra concerning the Best Pop Stars of the twenty first Century right here — and you should definitely test again on Tuesday when our No. 11 artist is revealed!