Devil's Night received mixed reviews from critics but was a commercial success, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 372,000 album sales in its first week. The album was supported by three singles: "Purple Pills", "Ain't Nuttin' But Music", and "Fight Music".
Background
The album was executive produced by Eminem, who had released his hugely successful third studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP, a year earlier. The album's title comes from the Devil's Night tradition, recognized in and around Detroit in which abandoned homes are set ablaze. This practice was so popular in Detroit that it was depicted in the film 8 Mile. The group recorded Devil's Night in memory of Bugz, who was killed in May 1999 just hours prior to a concert.
The song "Revelation" parodies "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2", where there are kids screaming and Eminem shouting "Wrong! Do it again!" and "If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding! You can't have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat!". During the chorus, Eminem also raps: "I don't wanna go to school, I don't need no education".
In August 2001, while on promotion for the album, D12 and Esham were kicked off the Warped Tour after members of the group allegedly physically attacked Esham over the lyrics of his song "Chemical Imbalance", which contained a reference to Eminem's daughter. Eminem was not present during the tour.
Censored material
A censored version of the album was mastered and pressed but for unknown reasons ended up not being officially released. Some copies however did get out into the general circulation though they are considered very rare and hard to find. On it alternate versions of "Purple Pills" and "Fight Music" were included, entitled "Purple Hills" and "Flight Music". "Shit Can Happen", "Pistol Pistol", and "Pimp Like Me", were also edited, removing the offensive content from their titles. The "Dirty Edition" was available in both Europe and the United Kingdom. However, some versions swap the running order, making "Shit on You" track three and "These Drugs" track one.
The rare censored version of the album did not remove all expletives, as words like "ass", "asshole", "faggot", "nigga", "pussy", "hoe", "whore", "slut", "tits", "nuts" and "goddamn" were permissible on the album, as well as most sex references. "Fuck”, “bitch” “cunt”, “shit” as well as most violence and heavy drug use are removed on the edited version. The physical copies of the clean version mistakenly list "Girls" as the 18th track after "Revelation", even though "Girls" was not supposed to be listed on the back cover at all.
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with approximately 371,881 copies sold during the first week of release.[2] It re-entered the number one spot in its third week of release with approximately 173,956 copies sold, overtaking Alicia Keys' Songs in A Minor by just 306 copies.[3] Ultimately, the album was certified platinum by a two-week stay at number one and twenty-two weeks on the chart overall.[4]
The album debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart, with approximately 57,967 copies sold during the first week of release. Ultimately, the album was certified platinum; total sales of the album stand at 436,977 as of December 2017.[5]
Devil's Night was met with mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 58 based on 11 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[6]
Nathan Brackett of Rolling Stone wrote: "If the Slim Shady and Marshall Mathers albums were slapstick trips into one man's psychosis - like the Marx Brothers starring in Taxi Driver - then Devil's Night is Friday the 13th by the Farrelly brothers [...] with results varying from silly to just dumb". The reviewer, however, felt that the album's redeeming qualities lied in the album's production and Eminem's lyricism, describing the album's high points as "some of the most accomplished hip-hop we'll hear this year".[15] Jason Birchmeier of AllMusic highlighted "remarkable production" and Eminem's "songwriting genius on several of the song's hooks", who "bring[s] a catchy pop-rap approach to hardcore lyrics."[7]Q Magazine described Devil's Night as "a slightly tweaked re-run of The Marshall Mathers LP, with a couple of stonking singles."[13]NME's Ted Kessler called the album "Eminem's most misogynistic, homophobic, violent and anally fixated trip to date". "Like all his work it's offensive, defensive and, somehow, still quite charming", he added.[12] Shaheem Reid, in his review for The Source, found some of the lyrics to be funny, but thought the themes used throughout the album get repetitive. Despite that, he commended the group's "wild word play".[16]
Despite mixed reviews, the album gained a strong following after its release. Denaun Porter stated in a 2020 interview that he is really pleased with the project: "That album, man, when I think about it, there wasn’t a lot of skippers on that album. It was really well put together."[17] On June 18, 2021, in celebration of the album's 20th anniversary, an "Expanded Edition" was released, which contains all three songs from the album's Limited Edition bonus disc along with a new track, "Freestyle", four new instrumentals, and an acapella version of "Shit On You".[18]
"Shit On You" was the commercial debut single of the group, being released in December 2000. It can also be found on the cassette version of the album as a bonus track. [19]
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
^ ab"D12 – Devil's Night". Q. No. 180. Summer 2001. p. 100. It's very difficult to see the tough-talking Devils Night as anything other than a slightly tweaked re-run of The Marshall Mathers LP
^Juon, Steve 'Flash' (June 19, 2001). "D12's "Devils Night"". RapReviews. Archived from the original on August 28, 2013. Retrieved October 13, 2009.
