10 Perfect Albums That Blended Different Music Genres

For most of his career, Eminem always seemed like a rock star crammed into a rappers' body. He definitely had the flow to rap circles around his competition in the movie 8 Mile, but the attitude he brought across was closer to punk rock than it was to people like Run-DMC or Sugarhill Gang. Em was something a lot more ferocious, and it was only a matter of time before he decided to embrace his inner rock star.

While the Eminem Show is still a hip hop album through and through, the real difference here is the production, having a much larger scope than his introduction to the world and actually trying to say something more than just anger for anger's sake. Coming from the horror movie samples that turn up on the Marshall Mathers LP, the introduction of booming drums and guitar licks on songs like Sing for the Moment and Till I Collapse made for some of the most radio friendly songs of Em's career, taking that anger and channeling it into something a bit more hopeful than what we had seen before.

That dangerous man hadn't gone anywhere though, and tracks like Soldier and My Dad's Gone Crazy are enough to tell you that his signature form of menace is still being kept under wraps. Eminem might still be every parent's worst nightmare at this stage, but hearing a song like White America was the moment where he actually started to grow up.