THE FAKE SLIM SHADY

It's not easy being Eminem these days. You're competing for headlines with Scott Peterson and Fallujah, and no matter how sexually corrupt you claim to be, at least one stay-at-home mom has probably topped your most sordid tale on "Oprah." So what's a bad boy to do? Easy. Load your new album, "Encore," with fart noises, dis Michael Jackson and poke fun at foreigners for having weird accents. If you can't shock parents anymore, at least you can make their kids giggle.

Eminem does take some risks here, like the superpoliticized single "Mosh." He's the only MTV/"TRL" icon to take a clear stand on the war and George W. Bush's policies in song and video, and he even dropped the single early to encourage his audience to vote. But judging by most of the album, Eminem--like so many other rappers--still thinks bagging on bitches, homos or anyone who's not in his camp qualifies as fighting the power. He ranks on The Source, the hip-hop magazine that's been highly critical of him, spends at least two entire songs railing against his on-again, off-again wife, Kim, and beats such dead horses as R. Kelly and Pee-wee Herman. Pee-wee Herman? That controversy's older than his fans.

Still, we get flashes of brilliance reminiscent of his last few albums, when he was so whip-smart he'd answer your criticisms before you had a chance to think them up. On "Evil Deeds" he raps: "Father, forgive me, for I know not what I do/I just never had the chance to meet you," then snaps back, "Oh, woe is me! There he goes again. Poor little rich white bastard." The album also has that mix of conflicting emotions, raw self-deprecating humor and personal confusion that made his earlier albums so complex. "Mockingbird" is a lullaby to his daughter, Hailie, where he tells her how it used to be between Mommy and Daddy. It's corny but heartbreaking: "It's funny/I remember back one year when Daddy had no money/Mommy wrapped the Christmas presents up and stuck 'em under the tree/and said some were from me/'cause Daddy couldn't buy 'em/I'll never forget that Christmas, I sat up the whole night crying/ Daddy felt like a bum."

Dr. Dre provides the music behind the words, and as always, the beats are crisp and the hooks are supercatchy. Eminem's rapid-fire delivery is equally impressive. But what's missing this time around is his unique wordplay. So many of his lines here are so clumsy (think Weird Al Yankovic meets Slim Shady), you get the sense that he isn't even feeling it anymore. Who would ever have thought we'd long for the good old days when Eminem could really p--s us off?