The Real Slim Shady

Single infobox
Name = The Real Slim Shady


Artist = Eminem
Album = The Marshall Mathers LP
Released = May 16, 2000
Format = CD
Genre = Hip hop, Comedy rap
Length = 4:44
Label = Aftermath/Interscope
Writer = Eminem
Producer = Dr. Dre and Mel-Man
Last single = "Bitch Please II"
(2000)
This single = "The Real Slim Shady"
(2000)
Next single = "The Way I Am"
(2000)"The Real Slim Shady" is a hip hop song written by Eminem for his second album "The Marshall Mathers LP" (2000). It was released as the lead single a week before the album's release. The song was later released in 2005 on Eminem's greatest hits album "".

"The Real Slim Shady" was Eminem's first song to reach number one on the UK Singles Chart and it also peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, giving him his biggest hit up to that point. It won multiple awards, including MTV Video Music Awards for Best Video and Best Male Video, as well as a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance.

Premise

"The Real Slim Shady" wasn't on the original copy of "The Marshall Mathers LP" before its release. Interscope Records chairman Jimmy Iovine wanted Eminem to have a song to introduce the album, similar to the way "My Name Is" was the first single on "The Slim Shady LP". Eminem wrote The Real Slim Shady just hours before the final copy of the album was due. The first single was intended to be "I'm Back", but was not released as a single due to the lyrics concerning Columbine High School. ["VH1's Ultimate Albums: The Marshall Mathers LP"]

The song is a critique of manufactured pop songs that were being churned out at the time. It was a hit single, becoming Eminem's first chart topper in some countries, and garnering much attention for insulting various celebrities, including:
* Actress Pamela Anderson's alleged abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, rocker Tommy Lee
* Eminem claims in one line to have murdered Dr. Dre, and that he's locked him in his basement. This was a spin on one of his previous songs, "My Name Is", where Eminem says "And Dr. Dre said..." then Dre comes on and says "Slim Shady, you're a basehead".
* Comedian Tom Green's humping of a deceased moose on TV, and his song "Lonely Swedish"
* Rapper Will Smith's brand of commercialized and clean rap music
* Eminem also criticizes Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, both similarly commercially-oriented pop singers; Aguilera was angered by his claim that she performed oral sex on Carson Daly, an MTV VJ, and Fred Durst, of the band Limp Bizkit.
* He also makes fun of the boy band *NSYNC, when he appears to dance in the video, with the "group".

The chorus is about the sudden fashion changes caused by Eminem's success: "I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady/All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating/So won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?". The chorus imitates the catchphrase of the quiz show "To Tell the Truth": "Will the real ______ please stand up?"

Certain parts of the song feature allusions to other songs. The lines "they got the Discovery Channel, don't they?" and "we ain't nothing but mammals", refers to the song "The Bad Touch", by The Bloodhound Gang.

Music video

The music video features Eminem performing the song in a psychiatric ward, a local Detroit neighborhood nearside a park, a fast-food joint, the Grammy Awards, and even in a factory where multiple clones of the rapper are produced. The video also features cameo appearances by Dr. Dre, D12, Kid Rock, Fred Durst, Carson Daly, Kathy Griffin, Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee, and even a stuffed Bill the Cat doll can also be seen being held in possession by one of the mental patients in the hospital scenes.

Actress and comedian Kathy Griffin, who is also known for insulting celebrities in her act, [ [http://www.sfist.com/archives/2006/07/24/kathy_griffin_dishing_and_swishing.php Kathy Griffin dishing and swishing] ] appears in the video as an attending nurse in a psychiatric ward. Griffin said during a July 21, 2005, interview on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" that Eminem selected her for the video because fellow rapper Snoop Dogg told him she was "really funny." [ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjDUQ1sY--o Snoop Dogg] ]

The video also features Eminem dressed in a Robin-like superhero costume with a plastic derrière chasing a group of individuals and pushing one of the individuals on the ground and putting 'his bum on the man's lips.' The costume can be seen later in the "Without Me" music video following the release of "The Eminem Show".

There are also more scenes showing one or more of the following (when the lyrics roll along with the video):

*Two children watching the Discovery Channel on television with two rhinoceroses mating, then looking at each other in awe.
*Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee chasing each other around a couch and Pamela screaming in front of the camera.
*An obese man in underwear being enslaved by a dominatrix with a paddle.
*A gay marriage is shown and Eminem breaks up the two men about to kiss each other (as a rejection to homosexuality) and showing disgust.
*Eminem performing in a private room with all his clones produced from the factory with their heads bobbing to the music.
*Eminem at the Grammy Awards dressing as Britney Spears, along with Fred Durst and Carson Daly pulling a replica of Christina Aguilera between their seats towards each other angrily until it flies out of the chair.
*A 1940's "Looney Tunes"-like cartoon of a frog tap-dancing on a turtle can be seen on a TV in the hospital and the viewer laughs at it.
*Eminem working in a fictional fast-food joint with an 'Ask Me' patch giving an obese woman her order and rejecting it because of the onion rings being forgotten, however he gets the onion rings and he spits in them, and gives the onion rings to the woman to complete her order and she eats the onion ring which Eminem spat on as she walks away. The same scene also shows Eminem driving recklessly around in circles in a parking lot in a blue car.

In the explicit version of the music video, the obese man in underwear wears a ball gag, but in the censored version, he doesn't.

Covers and parodies

Parody songs include:
*The Real Church Lady, a "Saturday Night Live" parody in "Church Chat" with Dana Carvey
*The Saddam Song, A parody (flash animation) about events surrounding the US build up to the Iraq War. [ [http://toccionline.kizash.com/movies/the_real_hussein/ TocciOnline presents The Real Hussein - powered by Kizash ] ]
*Will The Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up, two parodies have been recorded under this name:
**A song was originally written by Mike Spencer and performed by a female rapper named Emily Ellis for the US radio station KLUC. It is sung from Christina Aguilera's point of view, and due to Ellis' similar voice it is commonly mistaken for Aguilera herself.
**A song performed by Cletus Haus, with the narrator portraying a parody of Eminem admitting to his own fame and talentlessness.
*The Real Greg Brady, a song written and performed by Barry Williams.
*The Real Bing Cavy, a song by a superstar guinea pig [ [http://members.aol.com/bingguineabing/bingcavy.html the real Bing Cavy ] ]
*The Real Eggman, a flash video on the internet about how Dr. Eggman, Sonic the Hedgehog's main enemy, is the fattest out of all the versions of himself.
*The Real Sin Savior, by Christian parody band Apologetix
*The Real Sugar Baby, by Stephanie Beard.
*The Real Johnny Roney, by Adam Hinds. [ [http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=281392245&id=281392220&s=143441l The Real Johnny Roney on iTunes ] ] Cover versions:
*This song was featured in "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Angry White Boy Polka" on his album "Poodle Hat".
*William Shatner also performed a spoken word cover of the song during the "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" episode of "Futurama". In the episode, an appalled Walter Koenig asks "How can you do a spoken word version of a rap song?", prompting Melllvar to exclaim, "He found a way." This is a parody of Shatner's music album "The Transformed Man", in which Shatner used spoken word (as opposed to singing) all of his songs.

Awards

"The Real Slim Shady" was very successful at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, as it won awards for Best Video and Best Male Video, as well as being a nominee for Best Rap Video, Best Direction, Best Editing and Viewer's Choice. The song was also performed by Eminem at the show.

"The Real Slim Shady" also won at the 43rd Grammy Awards for Best Rap Solo Performance.

Track listing

#"The Real Slim Shady" (Explicit Album Version)
#"Bad Influence" (Clean Version)
#"The Real Slim Shady" (Instrumental)
#"My Fault" (Pizza Mix)
#"Just Don't Give a Fuck" (Enhanced Video Track)

Chart performances

References

succession box
before = "Spinning Around" by Kylie Minogue
title = UK number one single
years = July 2 2000 - July 9 2000
after = "Breathless" by The Corrs