Nov 9, 2015

One thing I think is important to take into consideration with Relapse is everything that happened from Encore to Eminem's overdose and finally rehab.

Look at Encore. It was full of simple, below standard songs. The rhymes were simple and lazy. He couldn't write at the time. And he was stuck in this kind of writer's block for years.

It's a major change in life to go from being addicted to substance to going cold turkey and getting sober. Especially for someone like Eminem who hasn't been sober in a long while, practically never wrote or recorded sober. You don't just snap back to normal.

At certain point Eminem started writing complex rhymes again and felt some clarity in thinking. Being so out of touch with the rest of the world he didn't know how to sound when he gets back with an album. The rhymes are there, the flows are there, it's just the subject matter that's not there. He wanted to sort of reinvent himself, he wanted to do the Slim Shady, but couldn't quite get it right yet. He asked Dre what do people want, and Dre said "they want you to go crazy again". That's how Eminem interpreted "crazy" at the time.

Think of Relapse as finally being able to rhyme properly. After the Encore slump, just being able to rhyme with complexity to it was a huge milestone. We can't imagine what it was like to get out of that drugged out zone and how clouded his thinking was.

My point is, say what you want about Relapse, but it was certainly a huge step forward from the drugged out Encore style writing he couldn't get out of for years. The content is not working for a lot of people, but the context of what was going on behind the scenes is important to recognize.

Eminem was proving to himself that he can rhyme again. The content may have been a misguided take on "go crazy again" but it's not important. He was out of the lazy drugged rhyming pattern and that was enough for the time being. Honestly, it's amazing he got out of his addiction alive.

 

Nov 9, 2015

Here's the thing, the album is bad

 

Nov 9, 2015

Everything about the album was Dope af except for the accent at times. Sometimes it was cool like "Same Song And Dance", some times, it just got plain annoying af...like on "Old Times Sake"