An Eminem diss, like an Elon Musk soundbite, or a Taylor Swift video, circulates in ways and in realms that the words of Jay-Z or videos of ICE raids never will-so the argument goes. “Roll your eyes, but Eminem’s Trump-skewering freestyle mattered,” offered Pitchfork. “The most revolutionary thing here isn’t Eminem’s substance or style but his intended audience,” wrote The Atlantic. At the time, the song was begrudgingly praised for drawing a line in the sand. “And if you can’t decide who you like more and you’re split on who you should stand beside, I’ll do it for you with this: Fuck you!” Eminem said to fans who supported Trump. Revival and its curved reception mirror the moment after “The Storm,” the unofficial song Eminem performed at this year’s BET Hip-Hop Awards. But lingering there is an implicit assumption that the problem with Revival is the cluttered music clouding the politics, that somewhere out in the multiverse is a golden director’s cut that’s nimbler, gripping, and maybe even listenable, an alternative version so good and rapped so, so well, that Eminem could gestate an anti-Trump movement powerful enough to topple the chief troll himself. These are reasonable responses to an album that reaches so far and comes up so short. He’s an immensely important artist who still has things to say that only he can say, and I hope he continues trying to figure out how, because those things are important. Eminem still has plenty to say, but even his newfound political consciousness can’t steer him away from some of his worst instincts. On Revival, Em does have something to say, but too often his greatest attribute is getting dragged down by his most glaring insecurity. It was good of him to try, but he taints his own intentions so often that you can’t call it successful. Still, reviewers have tended to focus on the good intentions buried beneath all the bad raps. Revival is a meandering open mic staged as a State of the Union.įor Eminem, politics is just another rap battle. Anger, toward himself and the world, continues to be Eminem’s fuel, but he frequently drives in circles, rage revving him up but taking him nowhere. But with confessions slotted between fuck offs, apologies followed by insults, and mantras wedged into belabored puns, it’s hard to glean a coherent political or artistic belief from this quagmire. It’s been argued that early-aughts Eminem harnessed white male anger in the same way that Donald Trump does in the present, and therefore this about-face against the same forces is meaningful, if not convincing. Eminem is clearly reckoning with the present moment and his place within it, albeit in the most Eminem way possible. Across seventy-seven torturous minutes, Revival insults Donald Trump at length, narrates both sides of a police officer harassing a black American, mourns his inability to top The Marshall Mathers LP, admits to formerly abusing his ex-wife, and relates the panicked thoughts of a murderer on the run with Ivanka Trump in his car. I don’t know if I’m going to gain a fan,” he told NPR. My goal is to either hopefully change some minds or just say screw it because if that person didn’t like me to begin with. “As much as I love our country, we got shit that we got to work on. Eminem wanted this album to matter, to effect change, to soundtrack the revolution, to unite a divided nation.
Worldwide, stans will get their money’s worth.īut Revival wasn’t just for the stans. There are offensive jokes, scenes of gratuitous rape and murder, trademark complex rhyme schemes, loud, insert-singer-here choruses, and more than a few samples of past Eminem songs. Revival, his ninth album, is the multi-millionaire rap star’s latest attempt to resuscitate his relevance, and it’s as backward-looking as its predecessors. You can see it in their titles alone: Relapse, Recovery, The Marshall Mathers LP 2. Since 2009’s Relapse, each one of his albums has promised to molt the frayed pelt of the last and reproduce that lost golden ’90s glow. Eminem has spent a decade chasing the highs of his early career, twisting every syllable and knob in pursuit of laughs, reactions, and recognition. The future of the Eminem franchise is always the past.
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