Each note of the piano intro sounded cleanly struck, and then, as if snapping its fingers, the VK-3500 launched into the guitar riff, bringing bite and edge to Brian May's tone. Queen's 'Death On Two Legs' from A Night At The Opera вЂ“ which has an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production befitting an album reported at the time to be the most expensive ever recorded вЂ“ left me grinning. BAT's VK-3500 artfully handled both sides of the coin, approaching the introduction with a light touch but matching the drive and dynamics later on beat for beat, while keeping the various elements distinct. 'It Never Rains', the closing track on Dire Straits' Love Over Gold, begins with a major key keyboard melody, gentle percussion and floating guitar licks, but ends with an extended instrumental section where Pick Withers' drumming gains intensity, Knopfler lets his bluesy guitar notes fly and a phase effect threatens to render it a sonic soup. I was guilty of expecting a little more softness to its presentation вЂ“ having recently experienced exactly that with Copland's easy-on-the-ear CSA150 hybrid integrated amplifier вЂ“ but instead found myself captivated by its energetic and revealing nature. It gives a mostly transparent view of recordings without descending into clinical indifference while treble is typically more wholegrain mustard than buttery smooth. Years later, as the shock has faded, it's those lyrical skills and the subtle mastery of the music that still resonate, and they're what make The Slim Shady LP one of the great debuts in both hip-hop and modern pop music.Overall, the VK-3500's sound mixes crisp, sparky treble and fast, precise bass with a deliciously dynamic delivery and confident, detailed soundstaging. At a time when many rappers were stuck in the stultifying swamp of gangsta clichГ©s, Eminem broke through the hardcore murk by abandoning the genre's familiar themes and flaunting a style with more verbal muscle and imagination than any of his contemporaries. As well they should be - there are few rappers as wildly gifted verbally as Eminem. Dre but also helmed in large doses by Marky and Jeff Bass, along with Marshall himself - mirrors his rhymes, with their spare, intricately layered arrangements enhancing his narratives, which are always at the forefront.

Eminem's supreme gifts are an expansive vocabulary and vivid imagination, which he unleashes with wicked humor and unsparing anger in equal measure. There have been more violent songs in rap, but few more disturbing, and it's not because of what it describes, it's how he describes it - how the perfectly modulated phrasing enhances the horror and black humor of his words. Of course, nowhere is this more true than on '97 Bonnie and Clyde,' a notorious track where he imagines killing his wife and then disposing of the body with his baby daughter in tow. This was unsettling in 1999, when nobody knew his back-story, and years later, when his personal turmoil is public knowledge, it still can be unsettling, because his words and delivery are that powerful. The Slim Shady LP bristles with this tension, since it's never always clear when Marshall Mathers is joking and when he's dead serious. Then, it wasn't clear to every listener that Eminem was, as they say, an unreliable narrator, somebody who slung satire, lies, uncomfortable truths, and lacerating insights with vigor and venom, blurring the line between reality and parody, all seemingly without effort. Given his subsequent superstardom, culminating in no less than an Academy Award, it may be easy to overlook exactly how demonized Eminem was once his mainstream debut album, The Slim Shady LP, grabbed the attention of pop music upon its release in 1999.

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