The title of Eminem\u2019s 12th album announces the death of his alter-ego Slim Shady, the explosive outlet for the rapper\u2019s most audacious, challenging, and riotous thoughts. But instead of being an elegiac tribute, the record is a dizzying, stunning bit of theatre in which Eminem squares off against Slim Shady, trying to contend with a world remarkably and irrevocably changed from the turn of the 21st century when he released two of his best-selling, most culturally significant albums, The Marshall Mathers LP <\/i>(2000) and The Eminem Show <\/i>(2002). Together, those albums sold over 50 million copies and changed radio forever with clever, subversive singles like \u201cThe Real Slim Shady\u201d and the disturbing \u201cStan.\u201d For most of his career, Eminem has had to contend with critics and advocacy groups protesting his lyrics, which were often laden with virulently violent, misogynistic and homophobic imagery. Those who reduced the rapper as simply offensive deliberately miss the point of pop showmanship. The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Gr\u00e2ce) <\/i>is a stunning work of art because it wrestles with questions of propriety and civility. <\/p>\n
Listening to the record is a constantly confounding experience. The repeated jabs at marginalized groups often feel cheap. People with disabilities, trans and queer people, and little people all find themselves in Eminem\u2019s sights. It\u2019s unclear whether these cruel jabs are merely the rantings of a stunted middle-aged man or brilliant sleight-of-hand by a master manipulator. The truth is probably somewhere in the muddled middle, though it\u2019s certainly frustrating to hear a prodigiously gifted tunesmith like Eminem make repeated, eye-rollingly easy jabs at Caitlyn Jenner. (The former Olympian pops up several times on the record.)<\/p>\n
The songs take aim at supposed \u201cwoke-ness\u201d and political correctness and engage in the questionable notion of cancel culture. Much of what Eminem laments as a loss of freedom of speech is merely accountability that public figures face. Of course, the collective pearl-clutching in response to Eminem\u2019s music often reeked of hypocrisy, especially when the ire was selective (What is the worst slur? Which group was the gold medalist in the Oppression Olympics? Which slur was okay to use, and when did he go too far?) Assessing the content of Eminem\u2019s work is complicated because he\u2019s manipulating and trolling his audience. He\u2019s goading us into getting upset\u2014and it often works beautifully. <\/p>\n
Though not normally compared to her, Eminem\u2019s career is similar to Madonna\u2019s. Both Michigan natives built careers on smashing taboos. The main difference is that Eminem relies on shock and awe, but also a prodigious musical skill. He can craft breathlessly intelligent lyrics that belie a lot of the puerile material, making him sound like a schoolyard bully. The record refers to the \u201cdeath\u201d of Slim Shady, which points to the rapper\u2019s calculated construction of a musical persona in which he gets to pour this kind of alarming bile. <\/p>\n
Though Eminem\u2019s work is offensive, one cannot deny the guy\u2019s gifted. On The Death Of Silm Shady<\/i>, he proves that he\u2019s still in full possession of his talents, packing his lyrics with sharp barbs, references, and allusions to popular culture and an unrelenting desire to play out the engrossing drama of his various musical personae duking it out for lyrical dominance. \u201cHabits\u201d\u2014the first full track on the record\u2014is a brilliant introduction to the record and Eminem\u2019s thesis. In the song, he quickly destroys critics who suggest he\u2019s past his prime or peak. When he warns, \u201c\u2019Bout to show your ass why I\u2019m still a pain in it,\u201d we understand that the performer isn\u2019t about to go soft in his middle age and that he\u2019s still going to revel in busting up scared cows. The song is full of braggadocio and defiance and audacious ballsiness, as he takes aim at detractors and critics as well as voices he\u2019d deem as humorless scolds who are too sensitive (\u201cWell, I\u2019m sorry the world isn\u2019t one big liberal arts college campus,\u201d he sneers sarcastically). The song then delves into the various culture war tropes (pronouns, microaggressions, various forms of stigmatizing shading, etc.). In less talented hands, this would be tedious. Complaints about pronouns are nothing new, nor is the cliched reference to a liberal college campus. Many will roll their eyes at a middle-aged millionaire\u2019s rant about pronouns\u2014and they should\u2014but that\u2019s the point of Eminem\u2019s music. He wants to provoke and will skillfully locate the soft underbelly of our collective civility. And he does so quite wittily despite a lot of the deplorable imagery and language he evokes. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just that Eminem confounds his critics; he also confounds his fans. He zigzags from points of view, never letting his listeners feel safe in pinning down his actual belief system. His lyrics are practically stuffed, and his verses are dense, given the various ways he uses language. I\u2019d feel I was pushing it if I called him a pop linguist, but there\u2019s something to how he creates these profane poems, in which he manages to careen from astute cultural critic to snotty adolescent, all within just a few lines. <\/p>\n
On \u201cEvil,\u201d he admits to being \u201cEvil\u2026 Rotten to the core\u2026 it\u2019s obvious that I am not like other people.\u201d Yet again, the rapper is battling with a duality, recognizing the nihilistic tendencies of his Slim Shady persona but unable to completely abandon it. He again aims for low-hanging fruit (queer people are a favorite target of his) when indulging in his most base instincts. Still, the song\u2019s somber, moody tone is morbid and dark, only made more dire by his manner of referencing the many medications he\u2019s taking. <\/p>\n
With a song like \u201cBrand New Dance\u201d\u2014a deceptively easy-going pop number that includes some truly awful allusions to disabled people and the late Christopher Reeves\u2014we see the dizzying effect Eminem has on his audiences. It\u2019s all so galling that it feels almost ridiculous to find offense at some of the despicable language and imagery he employs in the song. On the hit single \u201cHoudini,\u201d he plays a similarly provocative jester, warning his audiences that his return will bring about more baiting. When wrapped in a radio-friendly pop setting like in \u201cHoudini,\u201d we are constantly reminded that as offended as we are by these lyrics, it\u2019s just entertainment.<\/p>\n
The Death of Slim Shady <\/i>comes at an opportune moment in our culture when we\u2019re struggling with the conflicting agendas of various actors, all of whom have been pulling us in different directions. The progressive moments we\u2019ve seen in the last decade or so\u2014particularly when it comes to queer and trans rights\u2014as well as the reckoning we\u2019re going through when it comes to race, gender, consent, and power, has given rise to a considerable backlash. This \u201canti-woke\u201d movement seeks a return to \u201ccommon sense\u201d values that simplify things. Eminem\u2019s place in this conversation is complicated because his point of view is as splintered, contradictory, complex, and divisive as the rancorous debate we\u2019re seeing. He\u2019s obviously loving the shocked reactions he gets from those he offends, and he saves some of his most savage poetry for the \u201cwoke.\u201d <\/p>\n
The album is brilliant but has one major frailty threatening to upend its whole premise. As offensive as Eminem is (and he is offensive), he\u2019s met his match on X, Reddit, or a myriad of other social media platforms. When Eminem first emerged years ago with his Slim Shady persona, we weren\u2019t ensconced in wall-to-wall social media presence. We also didn\u2019t have Trump. (I don’t want to give the former president too much credit, but he\u2019s made a mark.) The legacies of the Tea Party, MAGA, and Trump mean that the rantings found on the record are easily found on the internet. Eminem can no longer claim the mantle of someone simply \u201csaying what others are afraid to say\u201d; there are no boundaries anymore, as people can say whatever they like. And they do. Even as Eminem cheekily invokes debates over trans rights, the internet is rife with users falsely accusing trans folks and drag queens of grooming. <\/p>\n
The album stays relevant and dated because of Eminem\u2019s brilliance at songwriting and rapping. He\u2019s giving voice to a still-growing contingent but possesses an intellect and wit that few of them have. He also regularly struggles with some of the more regressive aspects of these thoughts, playing out this conflict on the record. It\u2019s fascinating to watch and listen to a superstar wrestling with a monster he helped to create. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":35072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6341],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-46949","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-eminem","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46949"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46949"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}