Diamond in The Re-up

As promised on my last post, I’m experiencing everything firSSt again. The biggest draw for me so far is Eminem – I’m having a monster revival. What’s ironic is that firSSt has soured on Eminem recently so this revival is truly old school. I’d like to go on record as saying that The Eminem Show is one of the top 10 best albums of all time (though keep in mind I’ve probably given 100 albums top 10 status in my lifetime). I think even firSSt in his state of Eminen denial would agree on The Eminem Show. firSSt said it firSSt and best, Eminem is the Shakespeare of our generation.

My Eminem resurgence got me thinking about his career/album progression so I did some research (i.e., I looked it up on Wikipedia). I’ve included a summarized list below. I actually didn’t realize there was a difference between albums and “compilations”. This is important because earlier this year I e-mailed firSSt all excited about the fact that Eminem released a new album: Eminem Presents the Re-Up. He was indifferent. Perhaps if I had correctly identified it as a compilation his reaction may have been different. I must admit after listening to Eminem Presents the Re-Up, I was indifferent as well. The compilation wasn’t really an Eminem album -- it was more a “friends of Eminem” album with some Em sprinkled in here and there. I tried as hard as I could to force myself to listen, giving Eminem the benefit of the doubt, but just like cycling in Italy on day 13, it was like chewing nails. I put the compilation to the side for a while, but one day a song (Pistol Pistol) popped on my ipod during an iPod shuffle session and I actually enjoyed it. I started getting into the song, listening to it a lot – but I never listened to the other songs on the compilation. Soon, I started to branch out on the album and the music grabbed me – I started to see the genius of it too. Eminem got his start through a break from Dr. Dre, so this was his way of paying it forward. There are 23 songs on the album and I truly heart about 15 of them. It was a hard, long road to enjoying this album, but just like the 9 mile climbs into the Italian mountains, the rewards are that much sweeter.

I’m sure you are wondering how I came up with my post title. It refers to the last song on the album called “Billion Bucks”, sung by Stat Quo. The diamond reference has double meaning – not only is the song awesome – but I think it’s indestructible. Let me explain. You know how you love a song so much and never imagine you could ever not love it – you listen to it nonstop – and in the process, you kill it. Once you cross the line, you wonder if you’ll ever listen to it again. I think Billion Bucks is the first indestructible song I’ve run across. I’m trying to massacre it. I listen to it nonstop. It just keeps laughing at me. The lyrics are awesome. The beat is awesome. The layers are infinite. (FYI, I’ve listened to the song 12 times while I was writing this post.)

ALBUMS:
1) The Slim Shady LP, Released: February 23, 1999, Worldwide Sales: 9.3 million
2) The Marshall Mathers LP, Released: May 23, 2000, Worldwide Sales: 21 million
3) The Eminem Show, Released: May 28, 2002, Worldwide Sales: 20 million
4) Encore, Released: November 12, 2004, Worldwide Sales: 12 million
5) King Mathers, unconfirmed name of the fifth full-length studio album.

COMPILATIONS:
1) 8 Mile Soundtrack, Released: October 29, 2002
2) Curtain Call: The Hits, Released: December 6, 2005 (U.S.)
3) Eminem Presents the Re-Up, Released: December 5, 2006

MIXTAPES:
1) Shade 45: Sirius Bizness
2) The Freestyle Manual
3) Anger Management 3
4) Mick Boogie Presents the Pre-Up
5) Invasion Part 1
6) Conspiracy Theory: Invasion Part II
7) Invasion Part 3: Countdown to Armageddon
8) Shady 08:Shoot To Kill

UNDERGROUND:
1) Steppin' onto the Scene, Released: 1992
2) Fuckin’ Backstabber/Soul Intent, Released: 1995
3) Infinite, Released: 1996
4) The Slim Shady EP (demo), Released: 1997
5) The Underground EP, Released: 1997

My firSSt Reader

Now that the dust has settled on my Italy tour, we're separating the wheat from the chaff. I know I have at least one consistent blog reader, my good buddy firSSt. I must admit I'm having troubles deciding if my readership has troughed or peaked at one.

In tribute to my blog reader, I'm doing a firSSt revival tour. I'm going to experience everything firSSt again. Just in case someone other than firSSt is reading this, I'll give you a bit of background. firSSt is a native Idahoan who came to NYC to work on Wall St. -- after a few years he decided to move back to Idaho and he resides there now. He has his own blog and in fact was the inspiration for my blog (he actually named it as well). http://firsst.blogspot.com/

firSSt and I worked together and became good friends, spending a lot of time sharing ideas and entertainment content (e.g., recommending music and movies to each other). If there's one thing that defines a person's uniqueness it's their taste in entertainment content. No matter how much you overlap personality-wise or humor-wise with another human being, you will no doubt find something funny that they find completely unentertaining. I came up with the 25% doctrine to characterize the "hit rate" on content recommendations firSSt and I make to each other. In truth, the hit rate is higher than that, but it feels like 25% bc just like in poker, in life you remember your big losses/misses more than your big wins/hits.

So long story longer, I'm going to go back and watch/listen to some of the firSSt content that defined our time here in NYC together. I've compiled a list of hits and misses below (full disclosure: some of the content below was recommended after firSSt moved back to Idaho, as we've remained close friends and continue to share ideas).

HITS
1. Snatch
2. Pink Panther Movies
3. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
4. Rushmore
5. Tenacious D
6. Eminem
7. Jack Johnson

MISSES
1. Cool Hand Luke
2. Hogan's Heroes
3. Anything Jackie Chan
4. Pintailes Pizza

I'm sure firSSt will chime in with some more misses I've come up with.