Dec 14, 2017

I was gonna try to give this another few listens before writing this, but f--- it, I couldn’t even get through a second spin.

When compared to the rest of the album, it starts out relatively strong—I’m not much of a fan of the music itself, but thematically it sticks to what I’d want from Eminem at this point in his career, which is an introspective look at his place in rap 20 years in and using his celebrity to speak on sociopolitical issues to a wider audience. But as soon as it gets to “River,” the album pretty much entirely falls apart until “Castle.” Other than “Like Home” and a few other moments, that’s 13 poorly sequenced tracks in a row that are mostly irrelevant or poor rehashes of better songs he made 15-20 years ago. I dunno if I’ve ever listened to another album with such an unjustified length.

Do some of these songs have potential in terms of concept? Yeah, but the choppy flow, bad production, bad punchlines, and overall bad song composition ruin them. It’s been said before but I’ll say it again: Eminem doesn’t know how to make a good song anymore. I dunno if I’ve ever listened to a stretch of an album that’s this excruciatingly boring. When he does somewhat succeed at making a song that sounds decent—“Remind Me,” for example, which is one of the places where his flow sounds the most natural and has one of the better rock sample flips—it fails thematically. It’s apparently about Kim (yes, I know he’s not allowed to use her name anymore), but the song just feels like another made up, self-deprecating story about meeting a nameless woman at a bar.

This album is basically The Life of Marshall, in that it’s kind of a haphazard amalgam of his past albums mixed with a little bit of new territory, except it pretty much only draws from all his bad projects and there's no charm to it. When he does take from his pre-hiatus music, it’s mostly in the form of boring retreads. Half the album sounds like Recovery and MMLP2 leftovers (and even Relapse with “Framed”). I’d put money on “Castle” especially being Recovery era…he doesn’t sound like that when he raps anymore. It feels like he started an album focused on politics/his place in rap but only had like five songs that fit the concept, so he panicked and filled it up with tracks that didn’t make the cut from his past albums so he could put it out in this current political climate.

I appreciate that he’s trying to use this platform for good, and like I mentioned before, being political is rarely “cool.” Buried under the sludge is an interesting, important, and maybe even a good album. But as it stands, it’s an absolute mess. Like @Papa Andy mentioned, songs like “Untouchable” just don’t quite feel finished. It feels like the first draft of a song that needs a few more rewrites and mixes. Like, The Life of Pablo feels more refined than this album and Kanye released it literally unfinished and during a mental breakdown.

“Walk on Water,” “Untouchable,” “Castle,” and “Arose” are probably the best four tracks, and they’re the start to an album that had potential, but this is something he should have stewed on for another year or two. Trump’s not going anywhere in the meantime.

 

Dec 14, 2017

Was funny hearing him do the triplet flow lol. if 2 chainz was on chloraseptic it coulda been a b-----r.