For the last three weekends not a night has gone by without at least a few cars cruising down Los Angeles's main drag, Sunset Strip, blasting ''The Eminem Show.'' This album, the latest from the fast-rhyming, ire-raising rapper Eminem, briefly became the equivalent of bass-enhanced car stereos and custom rims: a showboating way to call attention to a car. This is because these drivers were blasting early pirated copies of the album, which was scheduled to be released next week.

So many copies of the album have been taken off the Internet and sold as bootlegs that Eminem's label, Interscope/Universal, made the rare decision to release the album early. First, it was pushed up to today, then the album was put on sale Sunday, wreaking havoc with the marketing campaign. Despite these problems, it is expected to be one of the best-selling albums of the year.

Forget for a moment the many issues (race, sexism, violence, free speech) associated with Eminem. What his albums have become is the audio equivalent of reality television. And not just any reality show, but one like ''Cheaters,'' so excruciatingly raw and human that it is both hard to watch and hard to stop watching.

The pilot episode was his 1996 independent rap album ''Infinite.'' Here we see Eminem less angry and more ambitious. He is 21 and living in his mother's mobile home, on the verge of being a father. In the songs he dreams of being a star, with concert tours and albums in stores. He also imagines being ''a family man happily married'' with ''at least half a million for my baby girl.''