Yeah a lot of people that were up in arms about rap lost some of their fear/anger when Eminem hit it big. I still can't believe that a musician who rapped non-ironically IIRC about raping his mother , doing likewise to his wife and then killing her was referenced approving by supposedly feminist columnists in the NYT. Go figure....
One must remember that before Eminem, there were no respected white hip-hop MCs unless you were the Beastie Boys. The ghosts of Vanilla Ice and future Oscar-nominee Marky Mark haunted any cracker who hoped to kick ass and chew bubblegum in the rap world.
Which is why I argue that
Eminem being white didn't help his career as much as many believe. In the early 2000s what he offered was a nice breath of fresh creative air in a rap landscape dominated by way too many creatively-lazy rappers bragging about their mansions and their number of bitches and how many suckahs they wasted last night.
Mr. Mathers offered humor, offered self-commentary with not so high self-esteem attributes (like suffering from ED), offered sadist controversial imagery like the infamous "Stan" and "Kim" and even though this ties nothing directly to the music's supposed quality,, his music videos were usually must see.
God knows he had to deliver something to everybody (including the all-time best selling rap single "Lose Yourself") which to make people wait
5 years for RELAPSE.
Anyway RR, are you certain about Wings being the most successful 70's rock band in terms of record sales? I would have thought that distinction belonged to Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd or The Eagles?
They are from what I understand. And looking back at their chart sales, they were crazy big. Hell at one point they even had the most successful released single ("Mull of Kintrye") in UK history. Ironically that song flopped in America.
