Shady/Aftermath/Interscope
1.5 out of 5
1.5 out of 5
The worst thing about Britney Spears isn't the army of vag-flashing tween tarts she's left in her wake, or her less than inspiring chances at clenching a Mother of the Year nod, or the pathetically methodical
rhythm with which MTV and the MSM line up to suckle from her weary
plastic teat. No, the perennial pop starlet's most gaping sin is one
of omission: an utter failure to progress, evolve or otherwise grow
up. Over 10 years (two babies, two marriages, a couple wars,
breakdown, rehab, breakdown and a black motherfuckin' president) after
the proud "virgin" showed up in our living rooms begging to go another
round in the sack, she's still making hits about how cool it would be
to go another round in the sack. Such is life. Spears gets a shoutout
in Eminem's long-awaited sixth album, Relapse, in which the early
millennium's other superlative super star fantasizes about slipping her
drugs and brutally killing her ("Same Song and Dance"). It's a startlingly literal solution to
the Britney problem, and one I might have been more open to if Em's
album didn't make me want to kill myself first.
It's not as if it's the first time Eminem's used album space to fantasize about killing someone. In fact "Kill You," from 2000's 9x Platinum The Marshall Mathers LP, is one of the most thrillingly unhinged yet acutely self-aware songs the celebrated lyricist has ever recorded. And "Kim," "Stan's" darker, but equally ingenious narrative cousin (both of the same album), climaxes with the strangulation of the rapper's famously estranged baby mama. It would be a mistake, though, to think that the many grisly murders and sickly inventive acts of violence chronicled over Relapse's hour and ten minutes are on equal footing with their predecessors. They're not. Times, as they are known to do, have changed, and Eminem's particular set of talents, musical sensibility and cultural relevance don't appear to have aged well.
What happened to this guy? I mean I wouldn't wish the kind of coast-to-coast mass hysteria that followed the MMLP on my worst enemy, let alone a rapper I admired. But Em seemed to have conquered it - surviving the picket lines and TRL, locking himself in the studio, and cranking out the third installment of his identity trilogy, The Eminem Show - an album less fawned over but more focused, more conscious and in a lot of ways more impressive than its predecessor.
And then there was Encore. A record so lackluster and phoned-in that its relative commercial and critical success stand as living proof of Slim Shady's status as a bonafide cultural institution. Hell, 20 years from now Rolling Stone will still be giving this guy four stars.
He had done it all, to be fair, and by 2005 he lost his hunger, his raison d'etre, his mojo. Four years later, Relapse sadly shows no sign of it, and instead retreads the same tired material: drugs, gays, mom, women-who-aren't-mom and all that killing. I don't want to say that that's all Eminem is good for, but it's pretty clear by now that that's all Eminem is good for.
Em hasn't lost his sense of self-awareness, but this time around he seems to be aware of how bizarre and disappointing his own album must sound. "I think I'm starting to lose my sense of humor / Everything's so tense and gloomy" he rhymes toward the end of it, in a dead-on encapsulation. At least two other times he apologizes explicitly for Relapse's bald lack of redeeming qualities. "My mom, my mom, I know you're probably tired of hearing 'bout my mom, oh-oh, whoa-oh," goes the early, plainly-titled dud "My Mom." We are. Does that mean you'll shut up about her? No?
Other song titles like "Same Song and Dance" and "Old Time's Sake" seem to acknowledge their own dated shtick, and Steve Berman, in his third eponymous sketch on an Eminem album, offers listeners another awkwardly astute mea culpa. "Let me guess, another album about poor me. I'm so famous and it's ruined my rich little life. And I'm such a tortured artist, let me make music about it and my tragic love life," he lets loose.
Of course, Eminem doesn't actually have a love life to speak of anymore. A fact that becomes painfully clear on tracks like the miserable "Bagpipes from Baghdad," in which the self-styled villain launches a lengthy lambast against supposed ex-paramour Mariah Carey and her hip-pop husband Nick Canon. The song falls flat, and from a 36 year old single dad, it actually feels sad and pathetic.
Elsewhere Em's old vices have manifested themselves over years of isolation into weird and revolting fantasies. "Insane" takes emotional snuff to new lows, using three interminable minutes to weave a did-he-or-didn't-he tale of graphic molestation at the hands of his stepfather. And most of the other songs are so mired in imagined accounts of the rape and murder (mostly rape) of countless women and homosexuals, that one is left wondering what possible purpose they could serve outside of Eminem's own therapy.
And can we talk about that voice? If you needed any more clear and present proof that Em has lost his old flow, look no further than the strained, high-pitched staccato used inexplicably over the vast majority of the album. It's as if he's forgotten how to rap without it. He sounds like Zany Character #3 in a backwater improv at the community theater.
The top-shelf lyrical agility is mostly in tact ("I'm just a hooligan who's used to using hallucinogens"), but the album is plagued by unmistakable misfires that would have been unheard of in his prime ("This prosthetic arm keeps crushing my hard taco." Huh? "Go get a white crayon and color a fuckin' zebra!" What?). "Beautiful," Relapse's would-be-inspirational emo flop, is easily the most pitiful song Eminem has ever written, and amounts to the aural equivalent of watching David Hasselhoff bare-chested and on his belly, lapping a cheeseburger off the floor on YouTube.
There are moments in the Joseph Khan-directed video for lead celebrity-bashing single "We Made You," where you almost feel like it's 2002 again, and our hero Eminem has been "sent here to piss the world off."In the end, though, Relapse's downward spiral confronts us only with the realization that we made him, too - like Britney and the others.
- Reggie Ugwu
It's not as if it's the first time Eminem's used album space to fantasize about killing someone. In fact "Kill You," from 2000's 9x Platinum The Marshall Mathers LP, is one of the most thrillingly unhinged yet acutely self-aware songs the celebrated lyricist has ever recorded. And "Kim," "Stan's" darker, but equally ingenious narrative cousin (both of the same album), climaxes with the strangulation of the rapper's famously estranged baby mama. It would be a mistake, though, to think that the many grisly murders and sickly inventive acts of violence chronicled over Relapse's hour and ten minutes are on equal footing with their predecessors. They're not. Times, as they are known to do, have changed, and Eminem's particular set of talents, musical sensibility and cultural relevance don't appear to have aged well.
What happened to this guy? I mean I wouldn't wish the kind of coast-to-coast mass hysteria that followed the MMLP on my worst enemy, let alone a rapper I admired. But Em seemed to have conquered it - surviving the picket lines and TRL, locking himself in the studio, and cranking out the third installment of his identity trilogy, The Eminem Show - an album less fawned over but more focused, more conscious and in a lot of ways more impressive than its predecessor.
And then there was Encore. A record so lackluster and phoned-in that its relative commercial and critical success stand as living proof of Slim Shady's status as a bonafide cultural institution. Hell, 20 years from now Rolling Stone will still be giving this guy four stars.
He had done it all, to be fair, and by 2005 he lost his hunger, his raison d'etre, his mojo. Four years later, Relapse sadly shows no sign of it, and instead retreads the same tired material: drugs, gays, mom, women-who-aren't-mom and all that killing. I don't want to say that that's all Eminem is good for, but it's pretty clear by now that that's all Eminem is good for.
Em hasn't lost his sense of self-awareness, but this time around he seems to be aware of how bizarre and disappointing his own album must sound. "I think I'm starting to lose my sense of humor / Everything's so tense and gloomy" he rhymes toward the end of it, in a dead-on encapsulation. At least two other times he apologizes explicitly for Relapse's bald lack of redeeming qualities. "My mom, my mom, I know you're probably tired of hearing 'bout my mom, oh-oh, whoa-oh," goes the early, plainly-titled dud "My Mom." We are. Does that mean you'll shut up about her? No?
Other song titles like "Same Song and Dance" and "Old Time's Sake" seem to acknowledge their own dated shtick, and Steve Berman, in his third eponymous sketch on an Eminem album, offers listeners another awkwardly astute mea culpa. "Let me guess, another album about poor me. I'm so famous and it's ruined my rich little life. And I'm such a tortured artist, let me make music about it and my tragic love life," he lets loose.
Of course, Eminem doesn't actually have a love life to speak of anymore. A fact that becomes painfully clear on tracks like the miserable "Bagpipes from Baghdad," in which the self-styled villain launches a lengthy lambast against supposed ex-paramour Mariah Carey and her hip-pop husband Nick Canon. The song falls flat, and from a 36 year old single dad, it actually feels sad and pathetic.
Elsewhere Em's old vices have manifested themselves over years of isolation into weird and revolting fantasies. "Insane" takes emotional snuff to new lows, using three interminable minutes to weave a did-he-or-didn't-he tale of graphic molestation at the hands of his stepfather. And most of the other songs are so mired in imagined accounts of the rape and murder (mostly rape) of countless women and homosexuals, that one is left wondering what possible purpose they could serve outside of Eminem's own therapy.
And can we talk about that voice? If you needed any more clear and present proof that Em has lost his old flow, look no further than the strained, high-pitched staccato used inexplicably over the vast majority of the album. It's as if he's forgotten how to rap without it. He sounds like Zany Character #3 in a backwater improv at the community theater.
The top-shelf lyrical agility is mostly in tact ("I'm just a hooligan who's used to using hallucinogens"), but the album is plagued by unmistakable misfires that would have been unheard of in his prime ("This prosthetic arm keeps crushing my hard taco." Huh? "Go get a white crayon and color a fuckin' zebra!" What?). "Beautiful," Relapse's would-be-inspirational emo flop, is easily the most pitiful song Eminem has ever written, and amounts to the aural equivalent of watching David Hasselhoff bare-chested and on his belly, lapping a cheeseburger off the floor on YouTube.
There are moments in the Joseph Khan-directed video for lead celebrity-bashing single "We Made You," where you almost feel like it's 2002 again, and our hero Eminem has been "sent here to piss the world off."In the end, though, Relapse's downward spiral confronts us only with the realization that we made him, too - like Britney and the others.
- Reggie Ugwu
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