Eminem’s Grammy Nod Strikes a Blow for, and to, the Critics

Eminem, the rapper who has bedeviled politicians, activists and a fair share of the nation’s parents with his shockingly graphic lyrics, on Wednesday became the first hard-core rapper to be nominated for a best album Grammy.

“The Marshall Mathers LP,” decried by women’s groups and gay activists as a call to violence, is easily the most controversial work to vie for the music industry’s top annual accolade.

Only the second major label release of the 27-year-old rapper’s career, the recording has been a cultural lightning rod since it hit stores in May. It became the most talked about recording of 2000 as cultural and music critics debated its merits. Its nomination assures that it will continue to thrive as debate fodder leading up to the Feb. 21 global broadcast of the Grammys.

According to an executive at the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, their phone lines were jammed with angry calls moments after the nominations were announced.

Eminem, born Marshall Bruce Mathers III, has become this generation’s poster child of malcontent rebellion. He raps in a nasal voice about murder, drug excesses, rape, hate crimes and incest with a gleefully explicit style that some listeners find clownish and others find chilling.

“The Marshall Mathers LP” has been named album of the year by a large chorus of critics (including the pop music writers of The Times). Spin magazine called Eminem artist of the year, Rolling Stone readers and critics named “Mathers” the best album of the year--but then Time cited his work as the worst force in music.

“Mathers” was the second-best-selling album of 2000, its 8 million copies trailing only the squeaky clean pop of ‘N Sync. But it was also portrayed as public enemy No. 1 at U.S. Senate hearings last year when its lyrics were read aloud and cited as a leading example of lewd entertainment being foisted on American youth by an exploitative entertainment industry.

Arguments, Weeping at Grammy Meetings

NARAS President C. Michael Greene said the angst is not just among the activists who say Eminem advocates violence against gays and women or the culture critics who blanch at his explicit lyrics. According to Greene, there was tense argument and even weeping during the meetings of the Grammy special selection committee that has final say on the premier categories, including best album.

The core question: Will the Grammys give their imprimatur to an album laced with hate and crudeness? Or, on the flip side, could they ignore an album that has also been hailed as raw, storytelling genius delivered with impishly clever humor?

“If music is to remain the voice of rebellion, it’s got to continue to unnerve and upset parents,” Greene said. “That’s its job. And Eminem has probably done the best job of that of anyone in decades.”

Indeed, the camp that sees Eminem as a vital new artist point to his haunting, high-craft song “Stan,” which tells the story of an obsessive fan through a series of increasingly crazed letters and has the rapper, sounding almost tender, reaching out to a troubled kid too late. But the foes of Eminem cite a different song, “Kim,” a pathological assault in which Eminem imagines killing his wife, a crime that comes accompanied by her harrowing shrieks and a chain saw.

Either way, “Mathers” is the most shocking offering to ever get a best album nod, more than topping its film equivalent, the best picture Oscar nomination and victory for “Midnight Cowboy” in 1969, which famously became the only X-rated film with that laurel.

Past best album nominees, such as Pink Floyd’s drug-tinged epic “The Wall,” the Rolling Stones’ politically incorrect “Some Girls” and Prince’s lusty “Purple Rain,” seem quaint in comparison to bloody, bawdy “Mathers.”

Scott Seomin, entertainment media director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which has voiced its protest since the album’s release, said the nomination is disheartening and irresponsible.

“It sends a dangerous message to Universal Music Group, Interscope, Eminem and other artists that they can ignore corporate responsibility in releasing music that contains music that encourages violence against a specific group of people,” Seomin said. “The lyrics on this album are not about ridiculing a group of people or poking fun of women--this is about killing, and stabbing and throwing people in trunks of cars.”

Officials with Interscope Records and its parent, Universal Music Group, declined comment through a spokesman, and Eminem’s manager could not be reached for comment.

Eminem defended his music in an interview last summer with The Times.

“I don’t think music can make you kill or rape someone any more than a movie is going to make you do something you know is wrong, but music can give you strength,” Eminem said. “It can make a 15-year-old kid, who is being picked on by everyone and made to feel worthless, throw his middle fingers up and say, ‘[expletive] you, you don’t know who I am.’ It can help make them respect their individuality, which is what music did for me.”

In that and other interviews, Eminem described his own background as “white trash.” He was born in St. Joseph, Mo., in 1973 and never knew his father. He describes his youth as constantly shuttling between the homes of relatives and dealing with poverty and a mother with addiction problems.

It’s those experiences and his candor about them that have earned Eminem a large measure of his acclaim from critics--along with his whipsaw rhyming skills and a sharp satirical eye. Instead of the braggadocio that is hallmark of most hard-core rap, Eminem has shown a tendency to present himself as flawed and even doomed, creating an empathy with his fans. “He’s arguably the most compelling figure in all of pop music,” Newsweek wrote.

Growing up in Michigan, Eminem found connection and strength in the rap music of the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J, he says, and he hopes the same applies to the disadvantaged fans now reciting his rhymes. But to Seomin, that connection is cause for concern.

Seomin also borrows some of the imagery of the album’s hit song “The Real Slim Shady” to point out the mind set of the growing ranks of “wannabe” Eminems, young boys dyeing their hair blond and emulating the popular rapper.

“His fan base of easily influenced adolescent males--when they dress like him, they adopt his mannerisms and constantly rap along to his songs--it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’re giving credence to his words,” Seomin said. “This nomination, it just says all of this is OK.”

Eminem’s jarring nomination may be a result of the Grammys making a concerted effort in recent years to become more relevant and credible.

For much of its 42 years, the gramophone trophy has been mocked for ignoring edgy works and stumbling badly on gauging artistic heft. After “Three Tenors in Concert 1994,” a collection dismissed as a novelty among classical music circles, was nominated for best album six years ago, NARAS created a blue-ribbon committee to oversee the nomination process. Now the academy’s 12,000 voting members cast their votes and then the panel, with members’ names cloaked and meetings closed, selects five nominees from the top 20 vote-getters.

Grammys Have Gained Credibility

In recent years, many observers have found that the blue-ribbon panel has brought more credibility, and this year that perception will likely continue with music critics’ darlings Beck and Radiohead getting best album nods, along with respected elders Paul Simon and Steely Dan. Eminem, of course, adds an element of unpredictability.

When the 43rd edition of the Grammy awards convenes on the floor of Staples Center next month, expect angry protesters outside, antsy academy members inside and a global audience on the edge of its seat. Best album nominees are usually invited to perform on the broadcast, and the rapper’s well-known boast is a pledge to do and say anything, to blow up any taboo and shock any establishment.

His music takes the form of everything from encouraging young misanthropes to spit into onion rings at their fast-food jobs to starting public feuds with other pop stars by describing them in lewd situations.

Most of Eminem’s antics seem cartoonish, but then there’s the real harshness beneath much of what he says and does. The volatile rapper is facing felony assault and weapon charges in Michigan after alleged confrontations with rap and romantic rivals in his home state. The cases are pending, but he was arraigned in June in the same week “Mathers” debuted atop the nation’s pop album charts, a position it would hold for seven consecutive weeks.

He is also dealing with strife in his personal life. His wife slashed her wrists last year after ongoing marital problems, and the rapper’s mother has sued him for what amounts to musical slander for his lyrics about his chaotic childhood. Both topics have been staple themes in his raps.

For the Grammys, of course, all of this creates great theater.

“I can’t wait to see what happens,” said Toni Braxton moments after the nominations were read Wednesday morning. The singer was herself nominated for both best album and best female vocal in the R&B; categories, but she was more interested in discussing Eminem. “Everybody’s been talking about it. I think it’s fantastic that he got nominated. I’m a huge fan.”

Braxton, whose music has often evoked images of a strong, independent woman, might not be the type of supporter some would expect to hear rallying to Eminem’s side, but she and other artists--including U2’s Bono and Elton John, who says he has no problem with Eminem’s anti-gay reputation--have jumped to do just that.

Greene says Eminem should be viewed as just another troublemaker in the vein of Elvis Presley, Lenny Bruce or Jim Morrison.

“The tough part of this,” Greene says, “is to look at what is arguably the most repugnant recording of the year and realize that--in the context of what art is supposed to do--it is also one of the more remarkable recordings of the year.”

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Grammys: In a break with recent tradition, no one artist dominated the nominations. Plus, analysis and a nominee list, Calendar Weekend