Eminem Goes Platinum in Second Week on the Charts

Following up his record-breaking debut on The Billboard 200 albums chart last week, Eminem’s Recovery managed to earn a platinum plaque already, just seven days later.

According to the Nielsen SoundScan report released today (July 7), fans picked up 313,300 copies of Em’s sixth solo LP this go-round, which, added to last week’s staggering 741,400 total, makes the Detroit lyricist’s tally now stand at about 1,057,700. In addition to the impressive sales, Shady also picked up the No. 1 spot on the charts for the second week in a row.

At No. 2 is Young Money star Drake, with his first major label effort, Thank Me Later. The disc continues to fly off shelves, clearing 104,900 units, in the last week alone, which brings the T. Dot’s three-week stats to 708,900.

Next up is The Root’s latest album, How I Got Over. The legendary Philly band slid 11 spots to No. 17 in their second week, after moving 20,800 units. Overall Black Thought, ?uestlove and company have 72,200 copies in the bank.

Rounding out the Top 40 are B.o.B. and the Black Eyed Peas. Sitting at No. 23 is The Adventures of Bobby Ray, after adding 15,100 CDs to his total tally, which now equals 283,000. At No. 24, BEP is right on his tail at No. 24, selling 14,900 copies of The E.N.D. 56 weeks later and the group’s accumulated 2,640,200 in sales and counting. -xxlmag.com

Eminem Talks Rehab, Being Snubbed By MTV & Not Competing On “Forever”

Days before his seventh album, Recovery, dropped, Eminem sat with VIBE for a short convo to talk about his rehab back in ’05, being snubbed by MTV and not competing on the “Forever” track. Check out the full interview after the jump!

VIBE: How’d you feel about the response to “Forever”?

Eminem: The response was great. I didn’t really look it like I’m competing against these guys. I’m on a record with them, but I just wanted to make a good song. Certainly, the response helped, as far as me being able to feel good about myself again. It took me so long to just even be able to do that. I was pretty down for a few years. I went through some things and not just with addiction, some personal setbacks and I was down. Just being able to get back up again feels good. I think everything played a factor of where I’m at now.

On Recovery, you have this one line on “25 to Life” where you talk about taking control of your relationship with hip-hop. How have you done that?

What the whole song is saying is that I have a strange relationship with hip-hop because I love it so much. I go through this thing in my head a lot, which I’m sure every rapper does, where you give your life to this thing. You literally give everything that you got. I come to work some days wearing the same thing two days in a row—baggy sweats—just dedicating my life to this. And there are times that I feel like I get the respect that I deserve and there are times where I feel like I don’t.

Like when MTV excluded you from their Hottest MCs of 2009 list?

That hottest MC list that I was left off, it was one of those things that I was glad that I am at where I’m at. I’m glad I’m in this place now, because a few years ago I would’ve let it bother me more than it did. I took it not as a slap in the face but more so like, “Maybe I’m not on that list for a reason. Maybe I’m not doing the things that I need to be doing. Maybe I need to look at myself and step it up.” I don’t know what I would have thought being in the mind state that I was in. I just felt like maybe I need to do better.

As a person, are you proud of yourself?

I handle things a lot differently now. I’m proud to be able to say that I’m an addict without any shame in it. I’m proud that I’m able to admit that I have a problem with a certain thing and I have to leave it alone and accept it. I’m proud that I’m strong enough to be able to walk away form those things.

When did you realize that? During rehab? Therapy?

I got some tools in rehab when I went in 2005. I got the tools that I need, I just didn’t use them. I got the information, the analysis—I don’t know if that’s the word—of my personality. What type of person I am, why I have this addictive behavior, why I need instant gratification from certain things, why I feel a certain way because my childhood was this way or that way. I got all of those tools, which made me understand why I had to leave that stuff alone. But I didn’t use it and that’s why I went back to it.

Why did you decide not to release the songs you’d planned for Relapse 2?

On a record like the new record, when I mention the third verse of “Talking to Myself,” I try to sum up the last two records in a nutshell. Mr. Porter, who produced “On Fire,” had this analogy of Encore and Relapse that stuck with me: “Encore I was on drugs, Relapse I was flushing them out.” His view on Relapse was that I was flushing the drugs out my system and looking back at it, I probably was. My mind was coming back, my writing skills were coming back, so I was able to write again because I had writer’s block from the pills. I was backed up. I was writing so much and so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to stop and say, Are these good songs? Are they great songs? I was just going. I was like, ‘I got so much material for three albums, but let’s narrow it down to two. Let’s put out Relapse 2 months later. That was the original plan. There are so many drug references on the last album; that’s just where my head was at. I came to life again and everything was like new. When they say ‘in recovery’ or ‘in rehab’, it’s like being born again when you get clean and sober. You start appreciating shit that you never thought you would appreciate, like, ‘Wow, look at those trees. Look at nature.’ Before, it didn’t matter. I just started appreciating things more. I got happy when I got sober, broke free from the chains—not to sound corny. I broke free from the chains of addiction and it was just like ‘Ahh, I’m happy again. I’m not a prisoner.’ I was just happy to be back.

Eminem Tops Billboard Hot 100 Chart

There are 16 tracks on Eminem‘s new album, Recovery, and nearly half of them are scattered on the Billboard Top 100. The album sold 741,000 copies in its first week, while the songs listed below have netted 701,000 downloads combined.

2. “Love The Way You Lie”
11. “Not Afraid”
23. “No Love”
62. “Won’t Back Down”
71. “Cold Wind Blows”
88. “Talkin’ 2 Myself”
92. “25 to Life”

Eminem’s “Recovery” Album

Tracklist
1. Cold Wind Blows
2. Talkin’ 2 Myself feat. Kobe
3. On Fire
4. Won’t Back Down feat. Pink
5. W.T.P.
6. Going Through Changes
7. Not Afraid
8. Seduction
9. No Love feat. Lil Wayne
10. Space Bound
11. Cinderella Man
12. 25 To Life
13. So Bad
14. Almost Famous
15. Love the Way You Lie feat. Rihanna
16. You’re Never Over

"Not Afraid"
Download single

2009–2010: Recovery

On October 3, Eminem appeared once again on Shade 45 with DJ Whoo Kid and announced that Denaun Porter and Just Blaze were very busy working on Relapse 2. On April 13, 2010, Eminem tweeted, "There is no Relapse 2", to his followers. When he tweeted this, people started to believe that he was not releasing an album at all, but it simply meant that the album title would be changed to Recovery. He confirmed this by tweeting, "Recovery", with a link to his website. Eminem said, "I had originally planned for Relapse 2 to come out last year. But as I kept recording and working with new producers, the idea of a sequel to Relapse started to make less and less sense to me, and I wanted to make a completely new album. The music on Recovery came out very different from Relapse, and I think it deserves its own title." His seventh studio album, Recovery, was released on June 21. The first single, "Not Afraid", was released on April 29, and debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Eminem performed at the 2010 BET Awards. He performed "Airplanes Part II" with B.o.B and "Not Afraid". He also performed at the Activison E3 concert.

In the U.S. Recovery sold 741,000 in its first week.

2008–2009: Relapse and Relapse: Refill

In September 2007, Eminem called into New York radio station Hot 97 during a 50 Cent interview and said he was "in limbo" and "debating" about when and if he would release another album. He said, "I'm always working – I'm always in the studio. It feels good right now, the energy of the label. For a while, I didn't want to go back to the studio ... I went through some personal things. I'm coming out of those personal things [and] it feels good."

Eminem made an appearance on his Sirius channel Shade 45 in September 2008 in which he said, "Right now I'm kinda just concentrating on my own stuff, for right now and just banging out tracks and producing a lot of stuff. You know, the more I keep producing the better it seems like I get 'cause I just start knowing stuff." It was around this time that Interscope finally confirmed the existence of a new Eminem album, with Spring 2009 later being stated as the period span in which the album is due. In December 2008, he gave more details on the album, which he recently reported was being titled Relapse. He said, "Me and Dre are back in the lab like the old days, man. Dre will end up producing the majority of the tracks on 'Relapse'. We are up to our old mischievous ways ... let's just leave it at that."

On March 5, 2009, Eminem reported in a press release that he would be releasing two new albums that year. Relapse, the first album, was released on May 19, while "We Made You", the first official single and its music video, were released on April 7. While Relapse didn't manage to sell as well as Eminem's previous efforts, it was still a commercial success that received some critical acclaim, while also re-establishing his presence in the hip hop world. Relapse was named one of the top albums of 2009. Relapse has sold more than five million copies worldwide. During the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, Sacha Baron Cohen descended upon the audience wearing an angel's costume and landed on top of Eminem with his buttocks facing towards Eminem's face, resulting in Eminem storming out of the awards ceremony in disgust. Three days later, Eminem admitted it was a staged act that they had planned together. On October 30, Eminem performed at the Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans as a headliner in his first full performance in 2009. The performance included several songs from Relapse, as well as many of Eminem's older hits and an appearance by D12. On November 19, Eminem announced on his website that Relapse: Refill would be released on December 21. The album was a re-release of the Relapse album with seven bonus tracks, including "Forever" and "Taking My Ball". In a statement he described the forthcoming CD:
“ I want to deliver more material for the fans this year like I originally planned ... Hopefully these tracks on The Refill will tide the fans over until we put out Relapse 2 next year ... I got back in with Dre and then a few more producers, including Just Blaze, and went in a completely different direction which made me start from scratch. The new tracks started to sound very different than the tracks I originally intended to be on Relapse 2, but I still want the other stuff to be heard. ”

2005–2008: Musical hiatus

In 2005, some industry insiders speculated that Eminem was considering ending his rapping career after six years and several multi-platinum albums. Speculation began in early 2005 about a double-disc album to be released late that year, rumored to be titled The Funeral. The album manifested itself as a greatest hits album under the name Curtain Call: The Hits, and was released on December 6, 2005 under Aftermath Entertainment. In July 2005, the Detroit Free Press broke news of a potential final bow for Eminem as a solo performer, quoting members of his inside circle who said that he will begin to fully embrace the role of producer and label executive. On the same day of the release of the compilation album, Eminem denied that he was retiring on Detroit-based WKQI's "Mojo in the Morning" radio show, but implied that he would at least be taking a break as an artist, saying "I'm at a point in my life right now where I feel like I don't know where my career is going ... This is the reason that we called it 'Curtain Call', because this could be the final thing. We don't know."

In 2005, Eminem was a subject of Bernard Goldberg's book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America; he ranked #58. Goldberg cited a 2001 column by Bob Herbert of The New York Times claiming, "In Eminem's world, all women are whores and he is eager to rape and murder them." Goldberg cited Eminem's song "No One's Iller" from The Slim Shady EP as an example of misogyny in his music. In summer 2005, Eminem embarked on his first U.S. concert run in three years, the Anger Management 3 Tour, featuring 50 Cent, G-Unit, Lil' Jon, D12, Obie Trice, The Alchemist, and others. In August 2005, Eminem canceled the European leg of the tour and subsequently announced that he had entered drug rehabilitation for treatment for a "dependency on sleep medication".

2004–2005: Encore

The Media Research Center, which was founded by a conservative activist and is funded by conservative foundations, claims that on December 8, 2003, the United States Secret Service admitted it was "looking into" allegations that Eminem had threatened the President of the United States. The lyrics in question: "Fuck money/I don't rap for dead presidents/I'd rather see the president dead/It's never been said, but I set precedents ..." The song in question, "We As Americans", wound up on a bonus CD accompanying the album.

In 2004, Eminem released his fourth major album, Encore. It sold over 700,000 copies in its first week of release. Now being certified 4x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album was another chart-topper, as it was driven by the single "Just Lose It", notable for being disrespectful towards Michael Jackson. On October 12, 2004, a week after the release of "Just Lose It", Eminem's first single off Encore, Michael Jackson called into the Los Angeles-based Steve Harvey radio show to report his displeasure with the video, which parodies Jackson's child molestation trial, plastic surgery, and an incident in which Jackson's hair caught on fire while filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. The lyrics to "Just Lose It" refer to Jackson's legal troubles, however he does state in his song "... and that's not a stab at Michael/That's just a metaphor/I'm just psycho...." Many of Jackson's supporters and friends spoke out about the video, including Stevie Wonder, who called the video "kicking a man while he's down" and "bullshit", and Steve Harvey, who declared, "Eminem has lost his ghetto pass. We want the pass back." In the video, Eminem parodied Pee Wee Herman, MC Hammer, and "Blond Ambition"-era Madonna.

Regarding Jackson's protest, "Weird Al" Yankovic, who parodied the Eminem song "Lose Yourself" on a track titled "Couch Potato" on his 2003 album Poodle Hat, told the Chicago Sun-Times, "Last year, Eminem forced me to halt production on the video for my "Lose Yourself" parody because he somehow thought that it would be harmful to his image or career. So the irony of this situation with Michael is not lost on me." Black Entertainment Television was the first channel to stop airing the video. MTV, however, announced it would continue airing the video. The Source, through its CEO Raymond "Benzino" Scott, wanted not only the video to be pulled, but the song off the album, and a public apology to Jackson from Eminem. In 2007 Jackson and Sony bought Famous Music LLC from Viacom. This deal gave him the rights to songs by Eminem, Shakira and Beck, among others.

Despite the comedic theme of the lead single, Encore had its fair share of serious subject matter, including the anti-war track "Mosh". On October 25, 2004, a week before the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, Eminem released the video for "Mosh" on the Internet. The song featured a very strong anti-Bush message, with lyrics such as "fuck Bush" and "this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president". The video features Eminem gathering up an army of people, including rapper Lloyd Banks, presented as victims of the Bush administration and leading them to the White House. However, once the army breaks in, it is revealed that they are there to simply register to vote, and the video ends with the words "VOTE Tuesday November 2" on the screen. After Bush was re-elected, the video's ending was changed to Eminem and the protesters invading while Bush was giving a speech.

2002–2003: The Eminem Show

Eminem's third major album, The Eminem Show, was released in summer 2002 and proved to be another hit for the rapper reaching number one on the charts and selling well over 1 million copies in its first week of release. It featured the single "Without Me", in which he makes derogatory comments about boy bands, Limp Bizkit, Moby, and Lynne Cheney, among others. The Eminem Show has been certified 8x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album reflected on the impact of his rise to fame, his relationship with his wife and daughter, and his status in the hip-hop community. He also addresses the charges he faced over assaulting a bouncer he saw kissing his wife in 2000. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic felt that while there was clear anger present on several tracks, this album was considerably less inflammatory than The Marshall Mathers LP. However, L. Brent Bozell III, who previously criticized The Marshall Mathers LP for perceived misogynistic lyrics in the album, noted The Eminem Show for its extensive use of obscene language, giving Eminem the nickname "Eminef" for the bowdlerization of motherfucker, an obscenity prevalent in the album.

2000–2001: The Marshall Mathers LP

The Marshall Mathers LP was released in May 2000. It went on to sell 1.76 million copies in its first week, breaking the records set by Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle as the fastest-selling hip hop album and Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time as the fastest-selling solo album in United States history. The first single released from the album, "The Real Slim Shady", was a success and created some controversy by insulting celebrities and making dubious claims about them; he states, among other things, that Christina Aguilera performed oral sex on Fred Durst and Carson Daly. In his second single, "The Way I Am", he reveals to his fans the pressures from his record company to top "My Name Is" and sell more records. Although Eminem had parodied shock rocker Marilyn Manson in the video "My Name Is", the artists are reportedly on good terms. They performed a remix of the song "The Way I Am" together in concert. In the third single, "Stan" (which samples Dido's "Thank You"), Eminem attempts to deal with his new-found fame, taking on the persona of a deranged fan who kills himself and his pregnant girlfriend, mirroring "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" on The Slim Shady LP. In the music video of "Stan", Eminem was shown writing with his left hand, ending the fan debate over his dominant hand. Q magazine named "Stan" the third-greatest rap song of all time, and the song came tenth in a similar survey conducted by Top40-Charts.com. The song has since become highly acclaimed and was ranked 290th in Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. In July 2000, Eminem became the first white person to be featured on the cover of The Source magazine. This album has been certified 9x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)

Eminem performed with Elton John at the 43rd Grammy Awards ceremony in 2001; the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an organization that perceived Eminem's lyrics to be homophobic, condemned the openly gay John's decision to perform with Eminem. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "It was the hug heard 'round the world. Eminem, under fire for homophobic lyrics, shared the stage with a gay icon for a performance of "Stan" that would have been memorable in any context." On February 21, the day of the ceremony, GLAAD held a protest outside the Staples Center, the venue where the Grammy ceremony was held. Music tours that he participated in for 2001 included the Up In Smoke Tour with rappers Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, and Ice Cube and Family Values Tour with the band Limp Bizkit.

The Slim Shady LP

According to Billboard Magazine, at this point in his life Eminem had "realized his musical ambitions were the only way to escape his unhappy life". After being signed to Aftermath Entertainment/Interscope Records in 1998, Eminem released his first major studio album, The Slim Shady LP, heavily based on the production by Dr. Dre, one year later in 1999. Billboard praised the album as "light years ahead of the material he had been writing beforehand". It went on to be one of the most popular albums of 1999, going triple platinum by the end of the year. With the album's popularity came controversy surrounding many of the album's lyrics. In "'97 Bonnie and Clyde", he describes a trip with his infant daughter, disposing of his wife's body. Another song, "Guilty Conscience", ends with his encouraging a man to murder his wife and her lover. "Guilty Conscience" marked the beginning of the friendship and musical bond that Dr. Dre and Eminem would share. The two label-mates would later collaborate on a line of hit songs, including "Forgot About Dre" and "What's the Difference" from Dr. Dre's album 2001, "Bitch Please II" from The Marshall Mathers LP, "Say What You Say" from The Eminem Show, "Encore/Curtains Down" from Encore and "Old Time's Sake" and "Crack a Bottle" from Relapse. Dr. Dre would go on to make at least one guest appearance on all of Eminem's studio albums under the label Aftermath. The album has now been certified 4 times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

1992–1998: Early career and Infinite

Mathers was initially signed to FBT Productions in 1992, run by brothers Jeff and Mark Bass. Mathers also held a minimum-wage job of cooking and dishwashing at the restaurant Gilbert's Lodge at St. Clair Shores for some time. In 1996, his debut album Infinite, which was recorded at the Bassmint, a recording studio owned by the Bass Brothers, was released under their independent label Web Entertainment. Eminem recalled, "Obviously, I was young and influenced by other artists, and I got a lot of feedback saying that I sounded like Nas and AZ. 'Infinite' was me trying to figure out how I wanted my rap style to be, how I wanted to sound on the mic and present myself. It was a growing stage. I felt like 'Infinite' was like a demo that just got pressed up." Subjects covered in Infinite included his struggles with raising his newborn daughter Hailie Jade Scott while on limited funds and his strong desire to get rich. Early in his career, Eminem collaborated with fellow Detroit MC Royce da 5'9" under the stage name Bad Meets Evil. After the release of Infinite, Eminem's personal struggles and abuse of drugs and alcohol culminated in an unsuccessful suicide attempt.

With the release of The Slim Shady EP, Mathers was accused of imitating the style and subject matter of underground rapper Cage. While promoting the EP, Mathers approached Insane Clown Posse member Joseph Bruce and handed him a flyer which implied that the group would make an appearance at the EP's release party. Bruce refused to appear because Eminem had not previously approached him for permission to use the group's name in this way. Taking Bruce's response as a personal offense, he subsequently attacked the group in radio interviews.

Jimmy Iovine, CEO of Interscope Records, requested a demo tape of Eminem's after Eminem won second place at the 1997 Rap Olympics. Eminem had also won Wake Up Show's Freestyle Performer Of The Year award helping him acquire a record deal. Iovine played the tape for record producer Dr. Dre, founder of Aftermath Entertainment. The two began recording tracks for Eminem's upcoming major-label debut The Slim Shady LP, and Eminem made a guest performance on the album Devil Without a Cause by Kid Rock. Hip-hop magazine The Source featured Eminem in its "Unsigned Hype" column in March 1998.

Shady Records and D12

As Eminem succeeded in multi-platinum record sales, Interscope granted him his own record label. He and his manager Paul Rosenberg created Shady Records in late 1999. He followed this by signing his own Detroit collective D12 and rapper Obie Trice to the label. In 2002, Eminem signed 50 Cent through a joint venture between Shady and Dr. Dre's Aftermath label. In 2003, Eminem and Dr. Dre signed Atlanta rapper Stat Quo to the Shady/Aftermath roster. DJ Green Lantern, the former DJ for Eminem, was signed to Shady Records until a dispute related to the 50 Cent and Jadakiss feud forced him to depart from the label; he is no longer associated with Eminem. The Alchemist is now officially Eminem's tour DJ. In 2005, Eminem signed another Atlanta rapper, Bobby Creekwater, to his label along with West Coast rapper Cashis.

On December 5, 2006, Shady Records released compilation album, Eminem Presents: The Re-Up. It started out as a mixtape but Eminem found that the material was better than expected and released it as a full album. It was meant to help launch the new artists under the roster, like Stat Quo, Cashis and Bobby Creekwater. Around the time of recording Infinite, Eminem and rappers Proof and Kon Artis gathered the group of rappers now collectively in the group D12, short for "Detroit Twelve" or "Dirty Dozen", performing in the manner of the multi-man group Wu-Tang Clan. In 2001, Eminem brought his rap group, D12, to the popular music scene, and the group's debut album Devil's Night came out that year. The first single released off of the album was "Shit on You", followed by "Purple Pills", an ode to recreational drug use. For radio and television, the censored version "Pills" was heavily rewritten to remove many of the song's references to drugs and sex and was renamed "Purple Hills". While that single was a hit, the album's second single, "Fight Music", was not as successful.

After their debut, D12 took a three-year break from the studio, later regrouping to release their second album, D12 World, in 2004, which featured the popular hit single release "My Band". In April 2006 D12 member (and Eminem's childhood friend) Deshaun "Proof" Holton was killed in a club brawl on 8 Mile Road in Detroit, Michigan, with U.S. military veteran Keith Bender Jr., who also died in the fray. The eruption is suspected to have been due to an argument over a game of pool. Proof was then allegedly shot by the bouncer Mario Etheridge, Bender's cousin. He was taken by private vehicle to St. John Health's Conner Creek Campus, an outpatient emergency treatment site, but pronounced dead on arrival. Eminem and former Detroit Shady Records artist Obie Trice spoke at the funeral. D12 member Bizarre said that Eminem is not featured on his new album Blue Cheese & Coney Island because "he's busy doing his thing".

Eminem's Biography

Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his stage name Eminem, (commonly stylized EMINƎM on his albums), is an American rapper, record producer, actor and singer. Eminem quickly gained popularity in 1999 with his major-label debut album, The Slim Shady LP, which won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. The following album, The Marshall Mathers LP, became the fastest-selling solo album in the United States history. It brought Eminem increased popularity, including his own record label, Shady Records, and brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition.

The Marshall Mathers LP and his third album, The Eminem Show, also won Grammy Awards, making Eminem the first artist to win Best Rap Album for three consecutive LPs. He then won the award again in 2010 for his album Relapse, giving him a total of 11 Grammys in his career. In 2002, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Lose Yourself" from the film, 8 Mile, in which he also played the lead. "Lose Yourself" would go on to become the longest running #1 hip-hop single. Eminem then went on hiatus after touring in 2005. He released his first album since 2004's Encore, titled Relapse, on May 15, 2009. Eminem is the best-selling artist of the decade on the US Nielsen SoundScan, and has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide to date, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world.

Eminem was ranked 82nd on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time. He was also named the Best Rapper Ever by Vibe magazine. Including his work with D12, Eminem has achieved nine #1 albums on the Billboard Top 200, 7 solo and 2 with D12.[citation needed] Eminem has had 12 number one singles worldwide. In December 2009 Eminem was named the Artist of the Decade by Billboard magazine. His albums The Eminem Show, The Marshall Mathers LP, and Encore (in order) ranked as the 3rd, 7th, and 40th best album of the 2000-2009 decade by Billboard magazine. According to Billboard, Eminem has two of his albums among the top five highest selling albums of the 2000s. In the UK, Eminem has sold over 12.5 million records.