Eminem – Relapse

Subtlety has never been Eminem’s strong point, so perhaps it isn’t fair to expect a change this late in the game. Over the course of his new album, Relapse, he joyfully divulges his masturbation habits (hint: they involve Hannah Montana and aloe and lanolin), fantasizes about Kim Kardashian’s ass (not once, but twice!), and raps about “slicin’ n’ dicin’” his cousin and drinking the bloody bathwater. You know, nice stuff.

And yet Relapse contains some of Marshall Mathers’ finest songwriting. “Beautiful,” which should have been the album’s closing track, is the best thing he’s recorded since “Lose Yourself” — like most of Eminem’s best material, there’s nothing complex or ambiguous about the lyrics, some of which almost seem painfully simplistic (the song extends that worn-out cliche about “walking a mile in someone’s shoes” into a full hook).

But this is precisely why it works: it’s real. There are no pretensions, no gimmicks, no artistic striving-for-a-greater-purpose cop-outs. It resonates on a basic level, and you can feel the pain. Quite often the most powerful emotions thrive on the simplest ideas, and almost all of Eminem’s best tracks prove this.

There’s some sub-par material, though. The lead single, “We Made You,” is not horrible (and certainly not the disaster that blogs were making it out to be upon its release last month) — but it’s strangely insignificant for an album which otherwise tackles such dark subject matters as drug dependency and, of course, the 2006 death of Em’s friend and collaborator, Proof (who is curiously only mentioned on one track, despite being a heavy influence on the artist’s recent seclusion).

For old time's sake: Dre and Em

As a further note of criticism, Eminem’s biggest problem is that he relies far too often on wacky, childish songs — as if he’s afraid of making a whole album of tracks like “Beautiful” and “Lose Yourself.” Every time he starts to strike a heavy chord, he backs up and gives you a fart or dick joke. Early on in his career, it worked (to a certain extent, anyway), because it was sort of endearingly juvenile. The reactions he garnered from these shock gags gave him the amount of controversy needed to become (arguably) the very last superstar of the traditional music industry.

But today, with Em nearing 40, it just seems a tad lazy and predictable. So although “Crack a Bottle” is catchy enough, its hook — “Crack a bottle, let your body waddle; don’t act like a skinny model, you just hit the lotto” — is moronic enough to make you wonder why it was included.

Oddly enough, the sketches — which were finally starting to disappear from rap — are not insufferable. Many of them seem to carry a thematic purpose; the opening, “Dr. West,” features Jimmy McNulty (sans his inconsistent Baltimore accent). “Tanya” is interesting because it develops the notion that Relapse, as a whole, is a concept album — specifically, a concept album about a serial killer with split personality disorder. One could argue that Marshall Mathers is the hero and Slim Shady is the killer, a sort of rap-equivalent Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the latter of whom emerges after a night of drink-and- drugs.

That’s the serial killer spitting rhymes with a Jamaican inflection on “Same Old Song & Dance” (“First victim I had, she was a big one; big movie star, a party girl, big fun … she gets in, and I begin to lynch her with with sixty-six inches of extension cord”). This creates a safe distance from which Em is able to disassociate himself, but doesn’t discredit the grime and morbidity of the track.

“Deja Vu” tackles the publicized drug addiction head-on, and is one of the album’s better cuts. No coincidence, then, that it’s also one of the heavier songs, lacking Em’s goofy voices and shock-value lyrics. And the closer, “Underground,” is a full-on rap assault — Eminem stepping up to the plate after nineteen tracks and unleashing a final hell upon his doubters. The similarities to Jay-Z’s “Takeover” abound in tone, spirit and purpose. “A lotta people ask me where the fuck I been at the last few years / hell, I dunno. But I’m back now.”

Relapse is a solid album, and an assured step up from 2004′s Encore. It sees Eminem hitting back hard, ready to reclaim his rap throne. The real question is whether he deserves it, and Relapse doesn’t entirely provide an answer…not yet, anyway. Relapse 2 drops later this year.

Rating:

Tagged as: eminem, relapse