Eminem due in homes for the holidays
Eminem is back. “Encore,” his first full album of new material since 2002’s “The Eminem Show,” is slated to reach stores Nov. 16 in the midst of the fourth-quarter holiday season, the record industry’s biggest time of the year.
“His last two albums were significant sellers and each had million-plus weeks at the beginning of their store lives,” Billboard charts editor Geoff Mayfield said Monday. “It will be welcome to have something with that potential joining the fourth-quarter drive.”
The Detroit rapper has kept a relatively low profile since 2002, when he also starred in the loosely autobiographical film “8 Mile,” which yielded a hit soundtrack album and included the Oscar-winning song “Lose Yourself.”
His three solo albums, together with the “8 Mile” album, have sold nearly 19 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. And though he hasn’t released an album under his name in two years, he was key to the success of his old rap group D12’s album “D12 World” earlier this year.
“That’s among our top 20 sellers this year,” Mayfield said. “I don’t think anyone’s forgotten who he is.”
Randy Lewis
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