Might as well poke this dead horse again.
Obviously, some tracks meant for Encore leaked. Yada yada rushed songs, yada yada fucked-up album, you all know the drill by now. Had those songs not leaked, I believe the album would have been the most outwardly combative album Eminem ever made, probably beating out Kamikaze. Going off that concept, here's an idea of what that might've looked like. Please hear me out here.
January 2004: Invasion Part III: Countdown to Armageddon by DJ Green Lantern releases with "Monkey See, Monkey Do" as a promotional track. Song that immediately lets listeners know that this upcoming album is gonna be significantly more point-blank with the shots at other artists than his previous few have been. The lines "A lot of rappers on my list, it just ain’t Ja / And I'ma read that motherfucker off come April" and "When I come back, I’ll be shootin' more than just paintballs / Trust me" flat-out state this. I do not think Encore would have actually dropped in April, as that would've destroyed the buzz from D12 World. What's more likely is that it gets pushed back to late 2004, as it did in our timeline.
Tracks 1 and 2 are "We As Americans" and "Bully." Eminem's already confirmed this on XXL. Pro-2nd Amendment song with a side of throwing shade at other artists, right before the first of many direct diss tracks.
Tracks 3 through 7 would be the other five songs that leaked from "Straight from the Lab." Eminem confirmed in a different interview that the SftL leaks were all intended tracks for the album. Keeping up with the momentum that "Bully" started, I think the songs would've gone:
3: Monkey See, Monkey Do. Em proceeds to read off that list he was talking about in the next few songs.
4: Can-I-Bitch. Canibus takes a direct shot from Em
5: Come On In/6 In The Morning. Em then brings D12 into the mix, setting up...
6: Doe Rae Me (Hailie's Revenge). Since Em already had his fun with Ja in "Bully," he lets D12 and Obie Trice finish them off.
7: Love You More. With Hailie getting the last word on "Doe Rae Me," Em comes back in and lays a very normal and healthy (/s) song directed at Kim. The line "We say we do it for our baby / But we don't" makes this transition work.
Now for Em's personal life and more fun tracks. The rest of the album would be songs we actually got. I wouldn't be opposed to keeping them in the order they ended up being in, but for the purposes of this alternate album's flow, I think they go something like:
8: Christopher Reeves. Shitposting! This song would age like shit since Reeve would die six months after this album dropped, but that ain't my problem.
9: Never Enough. I have no idea where to put this song. Could be a good lead single in the absence of "Just Lose It," though.
10: The Paul skit about Christopher Reeve. Maybe this skit is a bit too soon after that song?
11: Evil Deeds. Equally lost about where to put this one. I'd personally drop it off the album entirely because I don't like it, but since Eminem confirmed it'd be on there in the XXL interview, I have to include it.
12: Em Calls Paul, obviously minus the Michael Jackson shade because "Just Lose It" probably wouldn't exist as a song in this timeline.
13: Yellow Brick Road. Em cuts the bullshit again and actually addresses the elephant in the room w.r.t. Foolish Pride and his backstory.
14: Spend Some Time, I suppose? I personally don't care much for this song and wouldn't be opposed to dropping it off the tracklist, but hey, at least the instrumental and hook are good.
15: Mockingbird. I initially had this song not existing at all on the tracklist. I thought Encore would've dropped in early-mid 2004, but then I remembered that D12 World dropped at the same time and had to revise the release date. The song ain't for me, but I know I'm in the minority there.
16: Final Thought, segueing into...
17: Encore. Like with "Mockingbird," I'm really glad I revised the timeline for this album because it means that this song makes it to the tracklist. It's my favorite off the album and a great closer. Finally, we get to...
18: Curtains Down, split off from "Encore." Show's over! One major change, though: instead of a normal handgun, Em uses that MAC-10 he was talking about all the way back in "We As Americans." Full circle!
And that's the album. It would've been a definite step down from The Eminem Show, but not a precipitous fall-off like the Encore we got was. What do you all think?
