The original album would have retained the highest-quality tracks that survived the leak:
Most fans first encountered the original Encore tracks on the infamous bootleg mixtape Straight from the Lab (2003). This CD-R featured high-quality, unmixed versions of:
“Encore's” first track, “Evil Deeds,” acknowledges these pitfalls, as Eminem speaks of himself in the third person, “whining about... Evil Deeds Spend Some Time eminem encore original tracklist
The leak was a seismic event for Eminem's label, Aftermath Entertainment. The entire planned vision for the album was now public domain. In a frantic scramble that mirrored the The Eminem Show leak two years earlier, label executives met to conduct damage control. The initial release date was pushed forward from November 16 to November 12 in a desperate attempt to get the official product into fans' hands before bootlegs saturated the market. But for Eminem, the damage was already done. He was forced to fly back to Dr. Dre's studio in Los Angeles to salvage the album.
It is worth noting that during this era (2004-2006), Eminem was allegedly working on a project rumored to be titled King Mathers . Many of the scrapped Encore tracks and the serious leaks from this period likely bled into the Curtain Call: The Hits bonus cuts or were lost to time. "We As Americans" stands as the primary relic of the "Dark Eminem" era that fans felt they were robbed of. The original album would have retained the highest-quality
A devastating peer-to-peer network leak forced Marshall Mathers to scrap his primary tracklist. Suffering from a worsening drug addiction, he had to record completely new replacement tracks in a matter of hours. The Incident: How the 2003 Leaks Ruined 'Encore'
: Confirmed by Eminem as a track meant for the main album. The entire planned vision for the album was
While an official, finalized tracklist from early 2003 was never published, statements from Eminem and archived pre-release data from Eminem.com point to a much heavier, darker, and cohesive project.
As a consolation prize for fans, Interscope included and "Love You More" on a bonus disc for the Deluxe Edition of Encore , confirming their status as essential pieces of the album's puzzle. Reconstructing the "Perfect" Encore
To make room for the three songs above, Eminem added what are now considered the "middle-stretch" fillers. In the original vision, the following songs likely never would have existed: "Rain Man" "Big Weenie" "Ass Like That" "My 1st Single" What the Original Experience Would Have Felt Like
A Blind Audition That Left Every Chair Turned 🎤✨ A breathtaking moment from The Voice Kids when Emma stepped onto the stage in 20... Mockingbird Evil Deeds