by Arsenio Orteza
Post Date:
January 25, 2003 Issue Date:
January 25, 2003

Bestsellers

Name: WORLD
Price range: $

The Top 5 best-selling CDs for the year 2002, according to Billboard magazine

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1 THE EMINEM SHOW Eminem

32 weeks on chart

STYLE Hard-core rap.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL All 20 songs and skits, especially the graphically pornographic "My Dad's Gone Crazy," which features the recording debut of Eminem's young daughter Hailie.

WORLDVIEW "More pain inside of my brain than the eyes of a little girl / inside of a plane aimed at the World Trade."

OVERALL QUALITY Catchier and more revealing than the average gutter rap, but a case study in psychopathology nevertheless.

2 WEATHERED Creed

58 weeks on chart

STYLE Harsh, churning, abrasive, brutal, grating, heavily metallic-and that's just the ballads.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW "At times life's unfair and you know it's plain to see / Hey God I know I'm just a dot in this world / Have you forgot about me?" ("Don't Stop Dancing").

OVERALL QUALITY Spiritually sensitive at best, emotionally oversensitive and full of itself (not to mention puerile) at worst.

3 NELLYVILLE Nelly

27 weeks on chart

STYLE "Playa" Rap.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL All 19 tracks (profanity, vulgarity, obscenity).

WORLDVIEW That English has a dozen words, that three or four of those words should be used disproportionately more than the others, and that thuggin' and druggin' really turn the ladies on.

OVERALL QUALITY Sonically high-rap will soon be the best-produced music in the world if it isn't already; morally abominable-for the usual reasons.

4 M!SSUNDAZTOOD M!SSUNDAZTOOD

58 weeks on chart

STYLE Radio-friendly pop concoction with R&B undertones (and sometimes overtones).

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL "Get the Party Started," "Just like a Pill," "Respect" (vulgarity), "18 Wheeler" (implied profanity), "Don't Let Me Get Me" (casual cursing)

WORLDVIEW It's lonely at the top, what with everyone digging you just because you're famous (and rich) and not really caring about your dysfunctional childhood.

OVERALL QUALITY Catchy, but too slick to pass for sincere.

5 [HYBRID THEORY] Linkin Park

114 weeks on chart

STYLE Metal that's heavy, beats that are def, rap that's rap.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW "All these words they make no sense / I find bliss in ignorance" ("One Step Closer").

OVERALL QUALITY For all its window-rattling boom, ear-splitting caterwaul, and occasional hooks, this genre-blending bestseller epitomizes the blandness that results when angry young men fail to acknowledge the reality of anything but their anger, youth, and maleness.

Arsenio Orteza

Arsenio is a music reviewer for WORLD Magazine and one of its original contributors from 1986.

@ArsenioOrteza

Bestsellers

The Top 5 best-selling CDs for the year 2002, according to Billboard magazine

Full access isn’t far.

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