FYI:
1) I know this is still impressive.
2) I Know this is a classic album.
3) Please read the last section before replying.

This is a narrative I see pushed a lot, and I think we should clear it up.

Much like Kanye West's "Donda" or Lil Durk's "The Voice", Eminem's "The Eminem Show" did not release at the beginning of the tracking week. Instead, it released about 2 days prior to the end of the tracking week.

In it's first "week", which was about 1.5 days of sales it moved 284K units.

As per Billboard's article:

Eminem's "The Eminem Show" racked up 284,000 units in U.S. sales over the weekend, according to Nielsen SoundScan, making the Aftermath/Interscope album a lock to debut at No. 1 on this week's Billboard 200. In fact, Eminem beats the No. 2 album, P. Diddy's "We Invented the Remix" (Bad Boy/Arista), by more than 100,000 units. Now, the only question remaining is whether Eminem's album will top the million-unit mark in its second week, when it has a full week of sales behind it. The rapper's last album, "The Marshall Mathers LP," racked up 1.7 million units in its debut week.

"We've never had a record debut at No. 1 with only a day and a half of sales," says Nielsen SoundScan CEO Mike Shalett. "Any record that's ever debuted at the top of the chart in the past has had the benefit of six days of sales. This is quite an achievement."

Then, it's second week, which was it's first week with a full 7 days, it moved 1.3M units as per Billboard:

Eminem's "The Eminem Show" (Web/Aftermath/Interscope) streaks to its second-straight week atop The Billboard 200 after selling an impressive 1.32 million copies in its first full week of release, the fifth-highest one week sales total in the SoundScan era. Eminem's 10-day sales total is now 1.6 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan; his last album, "The Marshall Mathers LP," sold 1.76 million units in its first week in 2000.

Why does this matter?

Well we recently had this thread which visualized the top 100 hip-hop first week sales. According to this thread, "The Eminem Show" had the second highest first week, and the 100th first week was 324K. However, if we're giving this benefit to "The Eminem Show", counting its first 7 days rather than tracking week, we should give it to all albums without a full tracking week. For example, "DONDA" did 309K in 4.66 days. This list used the 327K in 4.66 days numbers from HDD. Even still, with a full 7 days, it would be higher on this list. 50 Cent's "The Massacre" did 1.15Million in 4 days also being a mid week release. With a full 7 days it would possibly be higher than "The Eminem Show".

So why do we only give Eminem a pass for having a mid week release?

I’ve been telling people this my whole life

Why are you bringing up something that happened like 18 years ago?

Why does anyone genuinely care about this

don't care

even more impressive

read the "why does this matter" section

interesting factoid but

You back

see above

I think it's just a common misunderstanding rather than being bias.

that's a lot of words

The daily eminem thread

its definitely impressive, but when talking best first weeks, we should give this advantage to all albums (ex. 50 massacre, kanye donda)

Still a Classic.

Ok but

Bro you're stuck in 2011

That no one cares shows we wont give af bout fw sales of this gen in 20 years

Only the output cares fam

yup

his last good album

its just a picture king

Big Em has been pushing this narrative but I'm glad you've concisely explained the situation to people that were previously unaware about it. Good thread, thank you king.

Op you know why they give him a pass

never knew this thank you op

It sold 1.3M in its first full week