Does Eminem look different to you? Or is that just me?
Surprise! Surprise! Your favorite MC sold 600,000 copies of his latest CD, Relapse this week.
What does this tell us? Eminem is the best rapper, ever? Nope. Just that America is still infatuated and in an ongoing love/hate relationship with Mr. Mathers; a relationship that I ended 3 years ago...
What makes an album like Eminem's sell 600K copies? What makes an album with an unnecessary number of references to vicodin, valium, and/or rehab sell 600K copies in the first week? Is this what Eminem fans were waiting for?
I've purposely held off on my review of Eminem's album primarily because I wanted to be (as) objective (as possible) when reviewing Relapse. Based on my preliminary review of his first 2 singles, in my past article "Eminem is killing again," I'm assuming that many of you won't like this review. After listening to this album about 10-11 times:
Point blank...plain and simple...I believe Relapse is just that; a relapse.
Re-lapse: [v. ree-laps] 1. to fall or slip back into a former state, practice, etc;
Based on that definition, this album is absolutely a relapse. A slip back to Eminem circa 2001-2. A former state that we all laughed and sat jaw-dropped over 7-8 years ago. If you look at the album, as a whole, there is very little pertinent content and/or development of Eminem as an artist. I don't know Eminem personally. I'm sure that he has grown as a person; become more knowledgeable of the industry, the business, and his demons. Unfortunately, he chose not to truly highlight that growth and/or development in this work.
I sat excited, like most of you ready to listen to an album full of the life that Eminem lived over the past 4 years; his on/off again divorce; the trials of being a dad; the violent death of his best friend; overcoming the drug addiction that almost killed him. I wasn't expecting a dark album like 808's. I wasn't expecting a radio-friendly album. I wasn't expecting an album about Eminem turning to God and going back to church. I was expecting a more realistic (and less horrifying) account of his challenges over the past 4 years. I mean, come on. 4 years away from this fickle industry.He's lucky that he still has a fan base that find him relevant.
I will not dedicate this entire article to slamming this album. I will say that Eminem has infused some tantalizing flows and cadences that I haven't heard from him in the past. His flow seems to be a bit more fluid in some songs, and more appropriately choppy in others. It seems that his flow is more appropriately linked to the individual song.
I've attached a pretty decent interview between Eminem and Tim Westwood. The interview is about 15 minutes long where Em addresses "the voice," hip hop, Nick Cannon, etc. Enjoy!
Check out some of my other articles:
Where are the ladies in hip hop
Comments
i kind of agree with this review to a certain point but his first few albums were so sick that they cannot really be matched and i think he knows that anyway no matter how much mediocre stuff he releases im not gonna be like hating on him because of how solid his older songs were. instead i'll just wait for when he realises and goes back to how he used to be, i would like him to still be on drugs to be making good material but at the same time dont really want to see the guy go through so much s
I haven't listened to the album yet but I did find the three singles to be almost unlistenable. A friend of mine said the rest of the album is really good and with such a long time period after Encore, which I also found to be pretty much terrible, I just don't believe that there will be much to this album. I'll have to reserve judgement until I listen to it but I'm just not looking forward to it at all.
dawg u shouldn't go so hard at em......listen thats 600,000 in the in North America but a mili worldwide and plus we still have relapse 2 comin so take a chill pill relax!!!!!.....ur an examiner but u also must be sped
Eminem is the GOAT end of story no one ever will come close to him on the mic
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