Final Rating: 5.3/10
To name your new album after what is considered a staple in hip hop history is courageous. To name your album a sequel to one of your best albums when your most recent work has been a disappointment is risky. To name your new album Marshall Mathers LP 2 when you’re Eminem is clear evidence that one cannot hold a candle to their past.
Marshall Mathers, known to the world as Eminem, broke ground in his heyday by being one of the first rappers to rap about real personal issues as well as being ultra violent and offensive. He combined the two styles of rap to create an up front confrontation with fear and reality, as well as surrealistic delusion to make points stand out.
Eminem’s older material would be a start to finish work of creative force. You’d laugh. You’d tear up. You’d feel uncomfortable. You’d be blown away. As of Encore, an appropriately named album to show one’s overstay of welcome, Eminem has slowly gone downhill, and he has acknowledged it. He’s not a bad rapper. His delivery of words is unmistakable, unmatched, and as good as it ever ways (even better in some cases, like in Rap God). He’s just made many many poor mistakes.
The first big mistake, which is clearly evident on this new album: The music itself. It is true that hip hop is a genre of poetry and word play, but the music is just as important. Eminem hyped this new album by getting rid of the notion that the music, as it was on Encore, Relapse and Recovery, will be bad by promoting the two executive producers Dr. Dre and Rick Rubin (two of hip hop’s best) who worked on Marshall Mathers LP 2.. The bass pops out. The sounds trickle. The production is great. The music itself, for the most part, is still horrible. When songs aren’t being typical and boring (So Much Better, Love Game and Stronger Than I Was), the songs are just weird and downright awkward (So Far being a prime example, even with the pleasant homages to old Eminem songs like The Real Slim Shady, which is otherwise a cringe inducing song). Despite this, some songs on here have inventive sounds and powerful musical choices. Asshole, the best song on the album and one of his best songs in years, has bombastic marching band sounds with the kind of space synths that El-P would be proud of. Rhyme or Reason, which samples The Zombies’ Time of the Season, has Eminem exchanging words with the lyrics of the sample and the gasping in the sample adds both relief to the harsh lyrics and a sense of fear as Eminem keeps shooting off on his own father.
The second big mistake is the people he collaborates with. Now, there is nothing wrong with the people he has worked with on here. Eminem works best with other rappers, however, that feed off of his lyrics. Kendrick Lamar is on Love Game and does a fantastic job, yet his style and flow do not match the downright lackluster song itself, where as a song with both Eminem and Kendrick Lamar should be an album highlight if anything (both having been prodigies of Dr. Dre). Rihanna, a singer with no problems, is featured on a song that is rather corny musically and thus her place on the album feels like a gimmick when before, on the overplayed yet superior Love The Way You Lie, she felt like Eminem’s good conscious trying to shine and was more effective. Nate Ruess too feels like a gimmick despite him being a relatively good singer in Headlights, a song that could have easily been beautiful but feels far too typical and far too cheesy. The only guest performer that meshes here is Skylar Grey that is on Asshole, where Grey speaks on behalf of the general public everywhere in her radioed-in vocals. It isn’t that these guests are unwelcome. They just came in on the wrong day because there was a typo on the invitation.
Eminem’s lyrics and rapping itself has actually improved, somehow. He is still on top of the world as being one of the best rappers in mainstream music. The only link I can think of between this Marshall Mathers LP and the former is Eminem’s use of offensive taboos to strike points. Where as his offensive lyrics on his worst albums felt like Eminem lost touch of what made his obscenities good, Eminem seems to have remembered on this album some of the time. He uses shockingly hard hitting lyrics to raise personal points, such as his acknowledgement that he will never be as good as he once was, that the absence of his father still proves to be a struggle in his life despite having made a legacy for himself, and that he will one day have to experience death and will have to see how his name is spread. The odd lyric can be overly silly and incomparable to his best days, but for the most part, his lyrics are the most noteworthy aspect of this album (aside from his better than ever flow). He does resort to attacking groups of people too often, but in the end, he is attacking himself and what he has been called throughout his life first and foremost. His channeling of Slim Shady and his alter ego’s instinctive hatred is clearly evident here. If that isn’t a good thing to you, this album is basically not to be heard at all.
Eminem calls himself a Rap God the year Kanye West releases Yeezus and declares himself “A God”. Kanye West’s album, polarizing for its minimal and abrasive tone (I’m one who considers this album breathtaking and brilliant, to be clear) took chances, so you could feel his power if you were all for the album or you would at least respect him for trying if you hated it. Eminem is focused on clinging to his past. He’s obsessed with hanging onto the Eminem that once was. He tries to channel Run DMC and Beastie Boys in some songs (like Berzerk and Survival) and he references his passion for Rakim in Rap God. Hip hop is still a young genre. It started merely in the 80’s. His voice has matured and his flow is traveling miles past the music itself. At least if the music itself was worth hearing, we’d forgive him. Someone who has released The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP, and The Eminem Show should know better about what music works, especially since he’s sat in the producer’s chair before. This album starts off with some promises and slowly gets more and more difficult to listen to. It isn’t a come back: It’s a come down. Eminem does have the capability of releasing a stellar album again and truly returning, but for now, the album he quickly presumed would be that return is anything but.
