But the closing waltz (!) is his finest Slim Shady cut in years, and “Talkin’ 2 Myself” has dated well, especially his admission that he had to stop “dissing people for no reason.” Recovery laid the groundwork for something better than Revival, that’s hopefully still to come. The strangely buried production mix never quite gels with his rapping style, despite the first-time involvement of such hip-hop legends as Boi-1da and Just Blaze, and he abandons his skits and original characters for the most part (bye Ken Kaniff!) to mixed, overly earnest results. Worst of all, in this context, the fact he still makes rape jokes (“Just escaped from the state pen for raping eight women who hate men") is more infuriating than it was when he didn’t know better.Īt first, Recovery sounded like Eminem’s worst, a defeated attempt to bury his sound and at long last try and catch up to what rap actually sounded like. The hooks are platitudes, the production often sounds like Rubin tracked at an airport, and Em’s verses are so hamstrung he fails to land both punchlines (an Anna Nicole Smith joke in 2017?) and polemics (nothing here as on-point as that BET cipher). He's also using his privilege for good by calling upon such fellow icons as Beyoncé and Rick “99 Problems” Rubin to assist him in eviscerating police racism and the callousness of this presidency. Revival comes with the most noble intentions of any Eminem record, and admitting to his past abuse and manipulation of Kim - as well as his regrets about Hailie and nearly dying from his pill addiction ten years ago - are all brave subjects to tackle. At his low point, it’s still incredible how well he could flow, even if the content wasn’t necessarily all that.Įminem’s newest album comes at an unfortunate historical juncture: a time when he’s called upon to say something meaningful about the world’s fraught state to the largest audience of anyone in his genre, and an age where he is absolutely struggling to rap like he used to. Dre turns in some amazing beats here towards the start (“My Mom,” “Insane,” “Bagpipes from Baghdad”), and Eminem himself earns a couple showstoppers on the arena-ready “Medicine Ball” and the closing “Underground,” whose bizarre rhythm is unlike any you’ve ever heard in rap, yet he never strays from the beat. The serial-killer schtick feels creepier and more gratuitous than ever because it rarely leads to a new or funny situation on tracks like “3 A.M.” or “Stay Wide Awake,” and singles like “We Made You” and “Beautiful” were diminishing returns of lighthearted and impassioned fare like “Without Me” and “Mockingbird” respectively.īut Dr. Marshall Mathers himself considered this a low point only a year later, commenting on Recovery that he “ran them accents into the ground” - and he’s not wrong. Here are his eight major-label efforts, ranked in ascending order of greatness.
The next year, he released another chart-topper, Recovery.The most imaginative and morally tortured rap superstar to emerge in Biggie’s shadow, Eminem has been shocking us, surprising us, and making us laugh out loud for nearly 20 years, as well as annoying and infuriating us plenty. Out in 2009, Relapse was as disturbing as anything he'd released, and recast the pop culture spotlight on the bratty kid from Detroit. The 30-something was busy bouncing in and out of rehab and trying to decide whether or not to rekindle a relationship with longtime girlfriend Kim. It took Eminem five years to complete a follow-up. Eminem's third record, The Eminem Show, dropped in the summer of 2002. After teaming up with Elton John at the 2001 Grammy Awards (to quiet the resounding charges of homophobia), he went to work on the semi-autobiographical film 8 Mile. His second album was darker, loaded with moody singles "Stan" and "The Way I Am." Eminem's private life soon mirrored his bad-boy image, and he found himself getting divorced, sued by his mom and arrested for weapons violations. Combining cartoonish rage, ear-tickling beats, a distinct flow and gushing rhyme skills, he drew the praise of critics and the scorn of rap-hating political interests. Dre behind the boards, the Detroit emcee quickly became a cultural touchstone. Eminem crashed the mainstream in the late '90s.
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