Encore (Eminem album)
| Encore | ||||
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| Studio album by Eminem | ||||
| Released | November 12, 2004 | |||
| Genre | Hip hop | |||
| Length | 77:06 | |||
| Label | Aftermath, Shady, Interscope, Goliath | |||
| Producer | Eminem, Dr. Dre, Luis Resto, Mike Elizondo, Mark Batson | |||
| Eminem chronology | ||||
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| Special Edition Cover | ||||
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| Singles from Encore | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Blender | |
| Entertainment Weekly | C− |
| The Guardian | |
| NME | 7/10 |
| Pitchfork Media | 6.5/10 |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Slant Magazine |  |
| Spin | B |
| The Village Voice | A |
Encore (stylized as ƎNCORE) is the fifth studio album by American rapper Eminem. It was released by Aftermath Entertainment, Shady Records, and Interscope Records. Its release was set for November 16, 2004, but was moved up to November 12 (coincidentally, exactly eight years to the day his debut album, Infinite, was released) after the album was leaked to the Internet. Encore sold 710,000 copies in its first three days, and went on to sell over 1.5 million copies in its first two weeks of release in the United States, certified quadruple-platinum that mid-December. Nine months after its release, worldwide sales of the album stood at 11 million copies.
The album contains several lyrical themes, including Eminem's relationship with his ex-wife, Kim, ("Puke", and "Love You More"), their daughter Hailie Jade Mathers ("Mockingbird"), his childhood ("Yellow Brick Road"), his relationships with his parents ("Evil Deeds"), and opposition to then-American President George W. Bush ("Mosh" and "We As Americans") "Just Lose It" is a parody of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", as well as a Pepsi commercial in 1984. Similar to Eminem's previous album, The Eminem Show, Encore opens with a skit called "Curtains Up", indicative of the start of the show.
In "We As Americans", the line "Fuck money, I don't rap for dead presidents, I'd rather see the president dead" has "dead" reversed in both clean and explicit versions of the album. Simultaneously with the original, a censored version was released, from which the profanities, violent and sexual content, as well the drug references had been edited.
"My 1st Single" has a bleep instead of a muted part in the verse "This was supposed to be my first single, but I just fucked that up so... Fuck it let's all have fun let's mingle" like the clean version of "The Real Slim Shady". The word "ass" is left uncensored in "Yellow Brick Road", "One Shot 2 Shot", "Encore" and "We As Americans", but is censored out in "Ass Like That", "Mosh", "Spend Some Time", "My 1st Single", and "Just Lose It", and also in the song "Rain Man", the word "ass" was used twice, but only censored once. The word "goddamn" was left uncensored in "Spend Some Time." In the "clean" version's album booklet, the written lyrics have been removed, however on the songs "Puke", "My 1st Single" and "Just Lose It", lyrics were changed to avoid long censorship. Other profanities on all other songs are blanked out; and the song "Ass Like That" is listed as "A** Like That". The song "Encore/Curtains Down" has the shooting sequence at the end of the track removed on the censored album. Also, on the track "One Shot 2 Shot", the intro to the song is removed and the song starts at the first chorus, with more lines blanked out during the remainder of the track. "Yellow Brick Road" leaves the word "goddamn" uncensored once. "One Shot 2 Shot" has the violent content edited, and the word "shot" is blanked throughout the song. However, the original title remains written on the back cover. The bonus disc was also censored for the album's clean version.
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