Why I'm Not Listening to Eminem's New Album

Eminem

In the modern era, there's only one thing that could be seen as exciting for music. It's the surprise release strategy, of which artists like Jay-Z and Beyonce have mastered and everyone else has tried to copy. That is probably why many became excited with the release of the new Eminem album "Kamikaze." Who wouldn't be? He has been one of the mot influential rappers of the 21st century and has remained just as exciting as he has vulgar, having become one of the rare talents to also win an Oscar for the 8 Mile song "Lose Yourself." As a legendary act at this point, especially in the world of hip-hop, this should be a big moment for the artist that revitalizes his career in meaningful ways. However, I'm not quite there. To be totally honest, he's one of the few artists whom I lost faith in over the past year.

I'll start by being totally honest: I feel like Eminem was one of the more interesting rappers of the 21st century, if just because of how he subverted the expectations that come with being white in a notoriously black industry. If you listen to the album "Marshall Mathers LP" or "The Eminem Show," you get the sense that he's an actual artist with plenty to say. He's just picky about how he chooses to express himself, fixing personal grievances against his mother and stories of drug addiction in between homophobic slurs and milquetoast political commentary. He had an edge to him that was a raw nerve in that moment. He was the angry young man, and it was a miracle that he knew to chronicle his changing behavior over the course of the albums to come. He wasn't just rapping about being famous, he was talking about the loneliness that came with it. He found a way to add layers to what could be perceived as a novelty of a bleach-blonde white boy flipping people off. 

In some respects, Eminem knew this and played into it so well. In the song "Sing for the Moment," he acknowledged that he contributed to the lives of white kids who loved rap but had no friends. He was audacious, challenging what the genre could be. It was the career peak of a rapper who hadn't ever achieved that status before, and he was one of the most transparent artists but maybe also the most cranky. He was an angry young man who picked fights with not only rappers, but ongoing feuds with boy band N*SYNC and electronic artist Moby. He was seen as funny because of this, satirizing the vapid nature of celebrity while adding another dozen of millions to his total albums sold.

In some respects, he never got to this point again, but it's interesting to view him as an artist who never stopped being honest. "Encore" was even more satirical, diving into the most juvenile lyrics and production that contradicted what he had done before. He later revealed that he was addicted to drugs, which would continue on his following albums "Relapse," where he dived further into the cartoonish side of his work, using exaggerated voices and picking fights with celebrities that still had stable careers. By "Recovery," he managed to obtain a comeback album that was produced so well with a sonic sound that captured the rapper at his most sober and awake. There was a power and most of all an honesty to it all that showed that he could age gracefully, pottymouth and all.

Not all of his work in this time was successful, but his rise to Top 40 artist wasn't without something that flipped the switch in how he approached music. He appeared on songs with Drake, and even earned some of his most successful reviews for the "Recovery" song "Love the Way You Lie." It was sincere and deep and reflected something new in the artist, but it was also the sign that things were maybe going to be more conventional. On every album since, most notably on "Revival," he has had more of a rap/ballad approach to his songs that try to be more personal and honest, but they're also lacking the core of what made Eminem interesting. Along with his follow-up "Marshall Mathers LP 2," he proved that he was stuck in an identity crisis. While his sequel to his most notorious album was pretty good and shocking in the right ways, it sent him mixed messages. Does he write something earnest or something vulgar?

As mentioned before, he had a successful track record before at mixing these two forms fairly well for most of his career. But since "Love the Way You Lie," he has had issues being interesting from a production standpoint. He's had artists like Rihanna sing powerful choruses that are sometimes jarring from Eminem's verses. The opening song to "Revival" called "Walk on Water" featured Beyonce and was a slow and disjointed start to the album. Unfortunately, it would come for the rest of the album as the aging rapper tried to be edgy and relevant, but sometimes that came at the expense of something self-conscious. Where he used to play with form in music, he now tried to make melodies that fit "Love the Way You Life." The man who self-proclaimed that he didn't care now cared too much, and it was one of the big issues that his production was often abysmal and redundant, layered in ways that highlighted Eminem's weakness: his own harmonies.

It's one thing to argue that Eminem's productions got worse, but this is exactly where he went from being a compelling artist to someone who hit the wall very hard. "Revival" was a bad album that tried too hard to be the Eminem of yesteryear, and as a result there's consistent lines of him using homophobic slurs, murder imagery, and an attempt to use the political fire he brought to "Square Dance" over a decade ago and make it sound interesting. The one caveat is that his previous album, "The Marshall Mathews LP 2," was actually really good at balancing things. However, it was the start of him not having much to say. As a man who has sold as many records as one can and played countless high end venues, what was there to say? He was, essentially, riffing on what people expected of him instead of being it.

As much as "The Eminem Show" is arguably his last true masterpiece, it's been interesting to watch him grow as an artist over the years. He has dealt with the issues of fame and addiction along with the changing feelings towards people in his personal life. He had a lot going on that made his music personal and exciting. That isn't to say that "Revival" isn't lacking emotion, but it's often soulless and empty, more focused on being edgy and dark than interesting. Songs like "Framed" would've worked at the start of his career, but now were embarrassing attempts to be cool. Even the final song "Arose" is too much too late as an experimental song about him living life too hard. It's interesting, but by this point "Revival" has created one of the most vulgar, cynical, and uninspired rap albums out there. Most of all, there was no sense that Eminem's life was in any of it. It was all for "the fans" as it were.

So as much as "Kamikaze" is a compelling choice to listen to this weekend, I'm still too skeptical to give him a chance. Whereas I saw growth and interesting ideas over his career, "Revival" was the first one to feel entirely absent of ambition. It was the moment most feared would happen. Sure, he made clunkers before this but not in such a hopeless manner. He was moving onto pop-rap status, and it was far less interesting. Most of all, he was losing his edge. He was't funny or clever anymore. He was just pushing boundaries as an old man, and it's bizarre if viewing his work as an autobiography. Where "The Marshall Mathers LP" could get by on extended riffs about Sonny Bono dying, that was from a man who hadn't lived the life of fame and could get predominantly pop stars to sing hooks on his songs. It's not the worst thing in the world, given that his earliest smash "Stan" featured Dido, but it was more obviously a ruse to sell records than to say something, and that's awful.

It doesn't help that the cover of "Kamikaze" also is a blatant rip-off of The Beastie Boys' "License to Ill" down to the backwards insult on the tail of the plane. While there's a chance that he could bounce back from a bad record, it does feel like he's past the point of putting everything into his music. He's beaten the trailer park life. He's beaten fame. He's beaten addiction and family issues. What is there left to face? I don't know, but he could at least find a better beat to grow into old age with. The current one he's got is more than distracting. It's depressing to see him become one of those artists he started his career hating. He's all about the hooks now (which he often doesn't even sing), whether you like it or not.