Quotes of the Day

Eminem sailed into Barcelona last week for the MTV Europe Music Awards on an updraft of hot reviews and the box office success of his movie debut. 8 Mile, a semi-autobiopic starring the rapper — whose talent is fast rendering his many controversies irrelevant — grossed $54.5 million in its first weekend in the U.S. What's more, 8 Mile and Eminem's performance has been generating serious Oscar buzz (yes, it really has), and the sound track from his movie went straight to the top of the Billboard 200. If there had been a Best Crossover Act at the MTV Awards, he would have had a lock on it.

As it happens, he had to be satisfied with three of those ungainly trophies — Best Album (for The Eminem Show), Best Male and Best Hip-Hop Artist. And for European fans who must wait another two months or more before 8 Mile arrives at the local cineplex, there was the consolation of a spit-and-polished live performance of Lose Yourself, the movie's showstopper and the best song of 2002 so far.

If they can't see the movie yet, at least fans can buy the album. Unburdened by the weight of images and dialogue, they can ponder at leisure Eminem's attempt to make the first iconic sound track for his genre — rap's Saturday Night Fever, say, or hip-hop's Purple Rain.

Those two great sound tracks of the rock-'n'-roll era could not be more different musically. On Fever, the Bee Gees stole vocals from the Chipmunks and beats from the Casablanca records catalog to define disco, while on Purple Rain Prince stole moves from James Brown and licks from Jimi Hendrix to define himself. Yet both albums, and the movies that spawned them, are about the same thing: talent overcoming apathy to talent. Tony Manero wants to rule the world's dance floor; Prince wants to rock it. Ambition is a subject to which every artist can relate, and it's no wonder that it inspired the Gibb brothers' best song, Stayin' Alive, and Prince's most human album.

8 Mile is also about talent struggling for recognition, with the added wrinkle of the talent being a white artist yearning to be taken seriously in a black genre. Eminem runs with the theme and delivers Lose Yourself. It starts with a dreadful keyboard solo, but then a guitar riff kicks in, a bass drum thumps and Eminem starts telling his — and his character's — story. The song is about working hard, trusting your talent and succeeding against the odds when opportunity presents itself because, hey, there's no other choice. The chorus ("You better lose yourself in the music, the moment/ You own it, you better never let it go") reads like the blatherings of a cheesy motivational speaker, but it flies out of Eminem's mouth in about three seconds, and every word is spectacularly clear and intense. For the first time, Eminem isn't angry; he's hungry, and his desire to make something of himself is as inspiring as the first Rocky movie.

8 Mile's title track is also about breaking through. Eminem spits an astonishing 1,100 words in 8 Mile's six minutes, and though some of them are film clichés — "Sorry Mama, I'm grown/ I must travel alone/ Ain't gonna follow no footsteps, I'm making my own" — it's still a powerful song. The music on both tracks (produced by Eminem) is intentionally simple. Three guitar chords, a few keyboard tinkles and the snap of a snare build tension in the verses and explode into every chorus. It's refined arena rock, but it works.

The problem with 8 Mile is fairly simple: not enough Eminem. He performs on only five of the album's 16 songs, and in one he is part of his hard-core junta/spin-off group D12. The rest of the album is filled out with solid tracks from the likes of Jay-Z, Nas and Rakim, but since their rhymes lack the confessional roar of Eminem's, the middle of the album sags. In fans' minds, these excess tracks will inevitably be forgotten and 8 Mile will be remembered as an Eminem album (just as Saturday Night Fever is recalled as an album by the Bee Gees, even though they contributed only six songs). Inevitably too, 8 Mile will be hailed as the first great rap sound track. It doesn't quite deserve that honor, but Eminem makes it awfully close.

• JOSH TYRANGIEL
• Could this be rap's Purple Rain?