Eminem Mercilessly Pranks Fans With Announcement of 'Even More Infinite' Version of 1996 Debut Album
It's been four years since Em's most recent studio album, and nearly 30 since 'Infinite.'
After nearly 30 years, are Eminem fans about to get a sequel, of sorts, to Infinite?
Of course not. But that was the setup for Em’s April Fools’ Day joke. In fact, Em and company even went as far as whipping up a social clip about “the highly anticipated next studio album,” complete with wording that suggested it had just been released.
“The highly anticipated next studio album goes back to where it all started, Infinite,” a familiar-sounding narrator says in the clip. “But now, it’s even more infinite. Out today.”
To be clear, nothing is out today. At any rate, see the April Foolsian clip below.
Infinite, released as Em’s debut in 1996, is not available on major streaming services, at least not aside from the project’s title track. While the album has its enthusiastic appreciators among dedicated Em fans, Em himself sees it as more of a documented example of an artist still early in the process of finding their voice.
Speaking with Lisa Robinson Vanity Fair back in 2004, Em, then fresh off Encore, recalled how "crushing" it was for people to compare how he sounded at the time to other artists, including Nas and AZ.
“I reached a point where I stopped caring what people thought about me,” Em said of how the initial response to Infinite changed him moving forward. “And the second I stopped caring, people started caring about me.”
Music to Be Murdered By, Em's most recent album, arrived in two parts back in 2020. In the years since, he's popped up for several collaborations, not to mention a second greatest hits collection, Curtain Call 2. March saw Em roll out the Cole Bennett-directed video for "Doomsday 2," a song off the Lyrical Lemonade comp All Is Yellow.
Also in March, the 15-time Grammy winner appeared on an episode of Vevo Footnotes to look back on the classic video for his breakout 1999 single "My Name Is." In the episode, Em said "maybe" the ubiquitous turn-of-the-millennium hit will one day be mentioned on his tombstone. See more here.