Encore was met with mixed reviews, with most of the second half being heavily criticized, though "Mockingbird" and "Like Toy Soldiers" were particularly highly praised and retrospectively have been ranked as some of Eminem's best songs. The album has sold 11 million copies worldwide and was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on December 17, 2004.
The first of two covers for the album features Eminem standing in front of an audience, bowing to the crowd. The tray insert features Eminem holding a gun behind his back, while the inlay shows Eminem holding the pistol in his mouth without his jacket on. The CD itself shows a note written by Eminem saying "To my family & all my friends, thank you for everything, I will always love you. To my fans, I'm Sorry, Marshall" with a bullet underneath, which is also seen in the album's booklet, where Eminem is writing the note. Some pictures show Eminem shooting everybody, which refers to the ending of the album's title track. The second cover, used for the Collector's Edition, features the same audience from the inlay on a black background with a blood splat on the top right.
Encore received generally mixed reviews from critics, with more of a negative response compared to his past three albums.[17] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 64, based on 26 reviews.[7] Josh Love from Stylus Magazine felt Eminem was "dying" with this album, whose concept was "end-to-end mea culpa", full of "clarifications, rectifications and excuses", revising the history of "a man who knows he doesn't have much time left".[18] Scott Plangenhoef, writing for Pitchfork called Encore a "transitional record" and "the sound of a man who seems bored of re-branding and playing celebrity games".[12]BBC Music's Adam Webb believed it starts "fantastically" but ends "abominably", writing that it has too many "low points".[19] David Browne from Entertainment Weekly said Eminem "sacrifices the rich, multi-textured productions" of his two previous albums for "thug-life monotony, cultural zingers for petty music-biz score-settling, and probing self-analysis for juvenile humor". He concluded his review by saying that Eminem has become "predictable" on Encore, something that he wasn't before.[9]
Stephen Thomas Erlewine was more enthusiastic in his review for AllMusic, calling the music "spartan", built on "simple unadorned beats and keyboard loops", and the lyrics "plain-spoken and literal".[6]Robert Christgau said Eminem still sounded "funny, catchy and clever, and irreverent past his allotted time", noting that even the bonus tracks "keep on pushing".[16] In Rolling Stone, he wrote that Encore was not as "astonishing" as The Marshall Mathers LP, but praised Eminem for maturing his lyrical abilities while retaining his sense of humor.[13] Steve Jones from USA Today also spoke positively about the album, calling Eminem's producing and lyrical skills as "top-flight" and noting that the record explores "the many sides of Marshall Mathers".[20] The album earned Eminem Grammy Award nominations in three categories at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards: Best Rap Album, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for the song "Encore", and Best Rap Solo Performance for the song "Mockingbird".
Encore provoked some controversy over anti-Bush lyrics and lyrics that parodied and targeted Michael Jackson, who criticized Eminem's depiction of him in the video for "Just Lose It".[21] 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, George Bush,[22] after the song "We As Americans", in an unreleased bootleg called Straight From The Lab, circulated with the lyrics "Fuck money, I don't rap for dead presidents. I'd rather see the president dead." This line was eventually used as a sample in Immortal Technique's single "Bin Laden", which featured Mos Def and Chuck D. The incident was later referenced in the video for his song "Mosh" as one of several news clips on a wall, along with other newspaper articles about other unfortunate incidents in Bush's career. The song eventually appeared on the album's bonus disc, with the word "dead" being reversed.
In retrospect, Eminem stated numerous times that he considers Encore as one of his worst albums. He described its reception, "I'm cool with probably half that album. I recorded that towards the height of my addiction. I remember four songs leaked and I had to go to L.A. and get Dre and record new ones. I was in a room by myself writing songs in 25, and 30 minutes because we had to get it done, and what came out was so goofy. That's how I ended up making songs like 'Rain Man' and 'Big Weenie'. They're pretty out there. If those other songs hadn't leaked, Encore would've been a different album."[23] In an interview with Sway Calloway for his album Kamikaze, he stated that although "Encore... [is] not what I would consider one of my better albums", he considered it better than its follow-up Relapse.[24] He reiterated his statement about Encore in 2022 for the XXL's 25th anniversary issue and singled out the album as his first «misstep»: "It became a misstep and I struggled to get over the fact that I didn't do my best. My best would've been good enough if the leaks hadn't happened. But I released what I had at that point in time, and I feel that put a kind of a mark on my catalog. Encore did some decent numbers, but I was never that concerned with numbers. I was more so worried about what people think about the album. Critics and fans were important to me, and they were always at me about that project."[25][26]
Encore was released on November 12, 2004.[27] The release date was moved up from the originally planned November 16 to countermeasure leaks.[28] The album sold 710,000 copies.[29] The following week, the album's first with a full seven days, it moved 871,000 copies, bringing the 10 day total to 1,582,000.[30] It was certified quadruple-platinum that mid-December.[31] Nine months after its release, worldwide sales of the album stood at 11 million copies.[32] The album made digital history in becoming the first album to sell 10,000 digital copies in one week.[33] As of November 2013, the album had sold 5,343,000 copies in the US.[34]
Encore sold 125,000 copies in two days in the United Kingdom,[35] and has been certified quadruple-platinum.
"Curtains Down" is a skit at the end of "Encore", in which Eminem shoots everyone at his concert and then shoots himself, followed by a robotic voice saying "See you in hell, fuckers". Some of the pictures in the booklet make reference to this.
The robotic voice heard on "Em Calls Paul" and in the "Curtains Down" skit is Eminem speaking with an electrolarynx.
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
^"年間 アルバムランキング 2004年度" [Oricon Year-end Albums Chart of 2004] (in Japanese). Oricon. Archived from the original on July 13, 2019. Retrieved January 11, 2021.
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