Guess who’s back? Back again? Shady’s back with his third album, and his third British number one single.

Without Me, by Eminem (his 3^rd of eleven #1s)

1 week, from 26^th May – 2^nd June 2002

My usual moral quandaries over his lyrical themes aside, this is my favourite Eminem #1. I even used to know all the words. It’s an elevated version of ‘The Real Slim Shady’, in which Eminem contrasted his vulgarity with his popularity, and took swipes at various famous figures. Here he plays up to his pantomime villain image again, seemingly more at peace with it than on his angrier, earlier chart-topper, and the fact that everyone wants the character of Slim over the real-life Marshall Mathers: I created a monster, ‘Cos nobody wants to see Marshall no more, They want Shady, I’m chopped liver…

In the video, and in the short Batman-theme interpolation, he positions himself as an inept superhero, Rap Boy, who snatches his own CDs from children’s hands, lest they hear his inappropriate rapping. Elsewhere the rhymes are airtight, the delivery precise, and all the right/wrong buttons pressed (choose depending on your tolerance for Eminem). Two people who might have been disapproving were Liz Cheney and her husband, and Vice-President, Dick, whom Eminem kills with a defibrillator in the video. Shots are also fired at NSYNC, Limp Bizkit, Moby, Prince, and his mum: Fuck you Debbie!

The second verse is a highlight, with one of Eminem’s best lyrics: Little hellions, Kids feelin’ rebellious, Embarrassed their parents still listen to Elvis, They start feelin’ like prisoners helpless, Until someone comes along on a mission and yells ‘Bitch!’ In ten seconds it goes from making an interesting comparison between the controversies around himself, and Elvis forty-five years earlier, to him yelling a rude word. Eminem in a nutshell.

Elvis reappears later, in another astute line: I not the first king of controversy, I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley, To do black music so selfishly, And use it to get myself wealthy… Much was, and still is, made of the fact that the biggest selling hip-hop artist of all time is white. But again, just as the casual listener is starting to think Marshall Mathers might be more intelligent than he looks, the same lines are delivered in the video while a mini-Eminem balances on a giant turd that the King has just delivered into his famous toilet bowl.

In some ways, this record is typical Eminem. It wasn’t going to win him any news fans, unlike ‘Stan’, but he’s also at the peak of his powers. Many times over the years he has tried to release a ‘Without Me’ style caustically-comic single, and while many have been commercially successful, none have managed to come close to this. It’s also musically quite fun, with a grinding disco beat, and it may be the one Eminem song that you can actually dance to.

Because I can’t help myself, I have to do the now traditional Eminem Homophobic Lyrics Watch, and there’s just one example here, in which he calls Moby a bald headed fag. But then he asks that he blows him, so who knows. Perhaps the lady doth protest too much? Sixteen-year-old me noticed that lyric, though, never fear. It’s also still noticeable how much more explicit Eminem’s three number ones have been compared to almost everything else that’s made number one. He liked to revel cartoonishly in his status as a corruptor of youth, but he had a point. Few other stars could release chart-topping singles so explicit.

‘Without Me’ is the middle single of a triptych, between ‘Stan’ and his next (more serious) chart-topper, in which Eminem was untouchable. Although he has gone on to have an almost thirty-year career, nothing he’s released since 2004 has come close to these three. Not just three of the best hip-hop singles, but three of the best and most controversial #1s of all time.