MUSIC ZONE
Eminem — Encore (Universal)
Saurabh & Gaurav

Encore finds Marshall Mathers at the crossroads in his career. Thirtyone years old, rich and successful, he’s played the belligerent white trash outsider for five years now. Opener Evil Deeds suggests it could have been his In Utero - "The show’s over, you can all go home now", he shouts wearily, "but the curtain don’t close for me". He tries to continue this line of outstanding, introspective songs with his Bush-bashing second single Mosh, but fails due to the plodding and boring Dr Dre beat coupled with his complete lack of flow here. On Yellow Brick Road, he apologises for racist comments that surfaced last year on a tape he recorded as a teen. He continues making amends on Like Toy Soldiers, giving a detailed account of his conflict with Ray Benzino, co-owner of The Source magazine. Marshall Mathers continues to tackle timely topics with reflective maturity, and that sort of soul-baring will make Encore a long running performance.

Best track: Curtains Down

Cheekily entitled Greatest Hits, the range of songs here is actually quite startling from a lady so young: she’s enlisted the might of production titans such as The Neptunes and songwriting skills of the likes of Cathy Dennis to turn out a well-crafted collection of pop tunes, all showing that she’s destined for big things.

As a time capsule, Greatest Hits does its job well. It has all of her hits outside of "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart," a largely forgotten ballad from her debut, Oops!I Did It Again, and it contains two very good previously unreleased tunes, including the In the Zone outtake I’ve Just Begun (Having My Fun), an infectious spin on No Doubt’s Hella Good that outshines most of the songs that were featured on the album (it also has a remake of Bobby Brown’s My Prerogative, which seems to exist solely for its video). So, even if this isn’t a great listen as a cohesive album, Greatest Hits does perform the valuable function of offering all of Britney’s hits in one place, and it does work as a portrait of the time when Britney Spears was the defining figure of American pop culture.

Best track: Baby One More Time

In an era when young female singers tend to equate growing up with shedding clothes, Vanessa Carlton stands out as a woman who’s maturing the old-fashioned way - by exploring the truth of life and evolving her own musical style. After the large amount of success she received with Be Not Nobody, Vanessa Carlton has surpassed the "sophomore slump" by releasing Harmonium, a piano-driven album that can be considered her best work. The album, produced by Carlton’s boyfriend Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind, supplies eager fans with 12 new original songs written by the artist. The first track on the album, White Houses, combines a unique piano melody into a fast-paced, energetic combination of string instruments and drums. While Vanessa tackles some pretty dark subjects on Harmonium — death (Annie),and depression (Half A Week Before the Winter) — there is also something decidedly settled and content about her brooding brand of pop.

This feature was published on January 8, 2004