Eminem proves to 80,000 Slane fans there is life after Slim Shady

What so instantaneously made Eminem a global superstar more than a decade ago, aside from complex rhymes and the fact parents hated him, was his willingness to play with alter-egos — multitudes of them, if the videos to hits from ‘My Name Is’ (1999) to ‘Just Lose It’ (2004) are anything to go by.

With chameleon ability, Eminem flaunted a sense of glee at his naughtiness, but also hinted at a much darker side, thrilling audiences and selling more than 65m copies of his first three albums. However, therein he sowed the seeds of his own downfall: ‘I’ve created a monster, ‘cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more, they want Shady I’m chop liver,’ he says in ‘Without Me’. The caricature bad-boy rapper, smoking a fat pound of grass and spitting in your onion rings, doesn’t allow for artistic growth. Hence the diminishing returns since Encore; hence self-indulgent nonsense such as ‘Like Toy Soldiers’, all anger, no wit.