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Artist Music Video History Case Study: Eminem

Artist Music Video History Case Study: Eminem

Marshall Mathers (AKA Eminem) has always been renowned for his often offensive and outlandish rap lyrics that helped build his career and make him the notorious hip-hop artist that he is today. The music videos he creates for his music are designed to reflect this and show his evolution from immature and humorous song subjects to generally more serious and even emotional songs about his life and love.

His first major solo single "My Name Is" released in 1999 from his album "The Slim Shady LP" established Eminem as a charismatic artist through his over-the-top video where he dresses up as people of various different occupations from a scientist to a politician. This wacky style of switching between television channels and seeing these extreme stereotypes was an original concept and made the video stand out. As well as the costumes of the professions, a signature grey tracksuit is first witnessed establishing his image as a urban hip-hop artist and one of the first big-name white rappers.

Following this, his release of "Guilty Conscience" caused great controversy both through the song lyrics and its respective video. In it, he tells someone to kill his wife for sleeping with another man and this is portrayed, although not directly shown, in its accompanying music video. This caused upset but the video also included interesting and unique concepts to music videos such as its use of bullet time to tell the narrative of the song as though Eminem and Dr Dre, who features in the single, act as the character's conscience weighing up whether or not they should go through with their crime.

These first two songs joined numerous others in Eminem's first big album release 'The Slim Shady LP' which established him as already one of the biggest names in rap and his 'Slim Shady' persona - a mischievous and funny side to the artist. The album cover for it reflects its controversial content as it shows the artist standing on a pier in the background as a car in the foreground shows an open boot with somebody's feet hanging limp out of it. The cover alongside the music videos and song lyrics is what establish Eminem as an artist of note and created his fame.

His second album, 'The Marshall Mathers LP', established a different tone as he raps about his early career and life without the earlier persona. His song 'The Way I Am' talks about his earlier controversy with his first album and how that is just how he is. The video for it shows him falling endlessly as a metaphor for his feelings towards the controversy he is at the centre of while the opening shows producers pointing to his song lyrics and saying 'I can't sell this' due to his explicit content.

'Stan' was another big hit from the same album and one of the first to feature a narrative music video that told a complete story rather than the conceptual videos done beforehand. This was due to the song's nature as in the song he speaks about an obsessed fan of himself who ends up killing himself and his pregnant girlfriend due to being ignored. The video was censored highly when released due to its contents when portraying the lead-up to the deaths. MTV removed both the lyrics and the visual portrayal of Stan drinking Vodka while driving as well as cutting a shot where Dido is gagged in the back of his car with the Eminem Vevo account even cutting both the screams and any suggestion of her being in the car's boot whatsoever due to the suggestive nature of both actions.

This was followed shortly by 'The Eminem Show' featuring singles with a mixture of both serious topics and videos such as 'Cleaning Out My Closet' in addition to the Slim Shady persona inspired hits such as 'Without Me' continuing to show the artist as a versatile rapper capable of a variety of styles. It was during the creation of this album that arguably his most famous and well-regarded song 'Lose Yourself' was released in time with the release of 8 Mile - an autobiographical drama where Marshall plays himself. The song won 8 Mile an Oscar for Best Original Song and, other than cross-cutting with Marshall singing the lyrics in front of the 8 Mile sign, it consists solely of a montage of clips from the film acting as both an inspiring music video as well as an advertisement for the film.

Skipping forward to his most recent releases, the style of music and its accompanying music videos has altered greatly. The release of his most recent album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, produced some familiar urban rap but mostly consisted of a more pop-orientated style of rap in the form of 'Survival'. The video that was used to promote the videogame Call of Duty: Ghosts features clips from the game behind Marshall performing as well as street artists painting the game's logo onto walls as was included in the game official marketing and so was made for advertising and extra revenue rather than the symbolising the song itself.

However, arguably the most notable song was Headlights which features a unique almost entirely first-person narrative music video from the perspective of Marshall's mother as she tries to see him. It matches the deep meaning of the song where Marshall explains how he misses his mother after the falling out they had in the past while adding to the emotion of the song by the personal perspective of the camera.