Remember the days when Eminem was considered an outlaw? Remember when a foul-mouthed, equal-opportunity offender sold gazillions of records while the industry that profited from his booby-trap rhymes squirmed?

The industry liked Eminem’s sales numbers, alright, but it didn’t care much for his style, and so kept him at arm’s length when passing out its biggest year-end prizes at the Grammy Awards.

Those days appear to be ending. Eminem is poised to finally win the one major award that has eluded him in a career that has produced more than 80 million album sales: The Grammy for album of the year.

The 53rd annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 13 in Los Angeles is shaping up as a coronation for one of the industry’s erstwhile bad boys (see my Grammy predictions in the major categories HERE). The onetime master of outrage finds himself with 10 nominations and is considered the front runner for the music industry’s most coveted honor. His 2010 album, “Recovery,” marked a return to commercial favor and critical relevance for an artist who had been struggling for several years with drug dependency. Now he’s back, and selling like it’s still 2001 when he was the biggest pop star on the planet and the music business was still swimming in profit.

Eminem, once a music-industry pariah, cleaned up at the nationally televised nominations Wednesday for the 53rd annual Grammy Awards.

Nearly a decade after he divided Grammy voters because of his explicit lyrics and was denied an album of the year award in favor of Steely Dan, he scored 10 nominations, including the trifecta of album of the year (“Recovery”) and song and record of the year (“Love the Way You Lie”).

It was a big night as well for pop-soul newcomer Bruno Mars with seven nominations; hip-hop kingpin Jay Z, country-pop band Lady Antebellum and Lady Gaga with six; and rapper B.O.B., classical producer-pianist David Frost, rocker Jeff Beck, R&B singer John Legend and Bruno Mars collaborator Philip Lawrence with five.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, long a favorite of Grammy voters, appears destined to sweep the classical field at awards time. The CSO picked up nominations in no fewer than four classical categories.  Music director Riccardo Muti’s recording of the Verdi Requiem with the orchestra and Chicago Symphony Chorus was nominated both for best classical album and best choral performance. Conductor emeritus Pierre Boulez’s CSO album of “Pulcinella” and other Stravinsky works is in the running for best orchestral performance.  And Bernard Haitink’s CSO recordings of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony and Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben” are certain to boost James Mallinson’s chances of being named classical producer of the year. All four releases are available on the orchestra’s in-house label, CSO Resound.

For the second year in a row, host L.L. Cool J found himself stumbling around when he wandered off script. He traded awkward Southern accents with presenter Craig Ferguson, and his interview technique needs work.

“Do you feel incredible? Do you feel amazing?” he asked four-time nominee Katy Perry, who couldn’t help but agree that she was, indeed, all of the above.

Otherwise, it was a relatively dull hour with no strong takeaway live performances and little star power: No Eminem, no Jay-Z, no Lady Gaga. Album-of-the-year nominees Arcade Fire would’ve been a nice balance for the pop-heavy performance lineup, which included Bruno Mars and Perry. Protean soul singer Cee-Lo Green was actually in attendance, but wasn’t invited to perform his censor-baiting hit, “F--- You,” nominated for both song and record of the year. Easily the biggest charmer on the telecast was a nonperformer, Stevie Wonder, who provided a typically impish introduction for the album of the year nominees.

Among nominees with Chicago or Illinois connections were R. Kelly with two (for best traditional R&B performance for “When a Woman Loves,” best contemporary R&B album for “Untitled”), Mavis Staples (best Americana album), Pochohontas, Ill., native Gretchen Wilson (best country Song), Common (best rap/sung collaboration), Laurie Anderson (best pop instrumental performance), 97-year-old pianist Pinetop Perkins and drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (best traditional blues album), James  Cotton (best traditional blues album), VaShawn Mitchell with two (best gospel performance, best contemporary R&B gospel album), Herbie Hancock with two (best improvised jazz solo, best instrumental arrangement accompanying vocalist), Pierre Boulez (best orchestral performance), Kathy Griffin (best comedy album), Justin Roberts (best childrens album), and Buddy Guy (best contemporary blues album).

Winners in the 109 categories will be announced Feb. 13 at the Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. The nominations by the Recording Academy of Arts and Sciences cover music released from Sept. 1, 2009, to Sept. 30, 2010.

greg@gregkot.com

2 stars (out of 4)

With “Recovery,” his sixth major-label release (Interscope/Shady/Aftermath), 37-year-old Eminem is no longer a sure thing. His relevance hanging in the balance, he fights back like an artist who knows he’s running out of time to reclaim his place as one of hip-hop’s dominant MC’s. He mixes apologies with belligerence, and tries to will himself back into the game by rapping like a demon over surprisingly dull tracks. The once incorrigible prankster even gets sentimental.

What a strange way to make a comeback.   

More than a decade ago, Eminem turned his talent for tongue-twisting rhymes and wicked wordplay into a series of transgressive hits, beginning with the Dr. Dre-produced “The Slim Shady LP.” But when you make a career out of shocking listeners, it’s only a matter of time before the shtick wears thin. Lately Eminem has sounded like a self-parody, knocked for a loop by the death of a close friend, the Detroit rapper Proof, and a long-running battle with drugs.

On “Recovery,” his still formidable flow plays out over brooding, monochromatic tracks – most consisting of little more than spare beats and moody keyboards -- that make him sound even more bruised. For an artist who has sold 30 million albums, his latest release is brutally short on hooks and, most of all, fun. The subversive humor is long gone, and his cultural references (David Cook? Austin Powers? Yet another dis of Mariah Carey?) remain dated.

Rating: 1 star

And so it has come to this: rebel-turned-celebrity turns into celebrity-as-cliché.

How else to explain Eminem’s latest studio album, “Relapse” (Interscope)? It took five years to make not because the artist born Marshall Mathers III was squirreling himself away in an attempt to reinvent himself. No, he was preoccupied with a drug habit that sent him into rehab.

His dependency on pain killers frames a 20-track, 76-minute album, and the by-now expected digressions into audio pathology. There are a few genuinely chilling moments, a few shots of dark humor, and a lot of trolling through one of the most disturbing imaginations in popular entertainment.

Eminem has specialized in the sick and the self-deprecating for a decade, in the process becoming the most celebrated (and reviled) hip-hop artist of his time. The outlaw pose has paid off well: his previous studio albums have sold 27 million copies. The problem with transgression lies in its impermanence; once you perform the same trick countless times, the sense of surprise dissipates, and so does your audience.

Yet Eminem has the talent to outlive his moment. When he’s good, he can be very good. His best music has an honesty as withering as a heart attack. He has produced landmark music such as “Stan” and starred in a hit movie, “8 Mile,” that gave his hardscrabble story a context and depth lacking in his albums.

But for anyone who carried a glimmer of hope that this talented if perverse MC had a great album in him, the kind of arty self-reinvention that the Beastie Boys once engineered with their 1989 masterpiece, “Paul’s Boutique,” “Relapse” is a wake-up call. He took five years off to produce an album that retraces his steps rather than forging a bold new path.