eonerf's Full Review: Relapse [Clean] [PA] * by Eminem
This review marks a first attempt by me to try and shorten my reviews and make them more concise. If you preferred my older style or think I can make further improvements then I would be thankful for some advice!
In the space of a decade, Eminem has gone from achieving massive success and critical acclaim to dealing with drug addiction and the loss of his best friend, Proof. A man who once appeared to be an ever-present figure in the music industry became a reclusive and seemingly turned his back on his former fame.
Despite all his personal problems, it was inevitable that Eminem would come out of retirement. The long wait for a new album finally ended in 2008 when Eminem confirmed the release of “Relapse”. Immediately, this created speculation about the album’s content. Were we going to see a more mature and mellow Eminem? A resurrection of the controversial ‘Slim Shady’ character? Or would it be a return to the uninspired, dumbed down version of Em seen on ‘Encore’.
While the album’s first two mainstream singles, “Crack A Bottle” and “We Made You” were nowhere near as bad as some of the worst songs on ‘Encore’, Eminem sticking to the same ‘corny lead single’ formula didn’t help matters. Both singles featured Eminem adopting decent flows and forms of lyricism plus the type of head-nodding production from Dr Dre rarely seen on Eminem’s albums. However, their inferiority to past lead singles such as “My Name Is” and redundant nature caused me to suspect that ‘Relapse’ would turn out to be a slightly improved version of ‘Encore’.
As it turns out, “Relapse” is Eminem’s first real attempt at a concept album that not only harkens back to each one of his past albums but also unexpectedly moves his music in a more horrorcore direction. ..
The album’s intro, “Dr. West” starts off proceedings by cleverly evoking the intro from ‘The Slim Shady EP’ and sets the stage perfectly for Eminem to ‘relapse’ and transform into the psychopathic serial killer we find on “3 A.M”. Eminem humorously describing his murder spree with the welcome presence of multi-symbolic rhymes that provide the type of eye-catching lines that have been mostly missing in Eminem’s music in recent years (“Right there's the coroner, waitin for you to turn the corner, so he can corner ya, you're a goner he's onto ya, out the corner of his cornea”). Dre also brings the goods behind the boards with a suitable montage of infrequent piano keys and violin strings complimenting the gothic nature of the song. Unfortunately, ‘3 A.M’ is prevented from being anything more than a good song due to the annoying whiney accent Eminem adopts. This gives way to an irritating hook and an uneven flow. Both of these faults damage a song that otherwise would have been great.
“My Mom” sees Eminem revisiting familiar territory by again focusing on his disdain for his mother. Thankfully, he approaches the subject matter from a somewhat fresh perspective that even features him using a bit of satire at his own expense (“I know you're tired about hearing about my mom”) and acknowledging that he isn’t so dissimilar from her after all. The song itself isn’t bad with Eminem finally utilising his normal voice, some humorous lines and booming trumpets courtesy of Dr. Dre that provides an adequate backdrop for the song. However, due to the lack of original subject matter and merely decent lyrics the song is nothing more than slightly above average.
Another return to old ‘Slim Shady’ tactics results in “Insane” which provides “Relapse” with its first true highlight. Presumably making up a story about being raped by his step-father, “Insane” initially seems to be another case of Eminem humorously over-exaggerate a real-life event. However, graphic lines such as “My stepfather said that I sucked in the bed” hints at the unveiling of deep personal secrets. The song also marks the true return of the free-flowing Eminen as he lays waste to Dr. Dre’s sparse soundscape of synths, keyboards and drums using his dazzling word-play and concise flow.
As mentioned earlier, Eminem and Dr. Dre past collaborations have rarely resulted in true bangers being produced. However, most of the songs found mid-way through the album such as “Bagpipes From Baghdad”, “Hello”, “Medicine Ball”, “Old Time’s Sake” and “Must Be The Ganja” all seek to rectify this. Unfortunately, the beats expose the limitations to Dre’s production style which have been apparent for the last couple of years. Take “Old Time’s Sake” for example. While the beat is definitely a banger with its constant piano keys, synths and pounding drums bound to get heads nodding, it also bears a strong resemblance to other recent beats by Dre like “30 Something”. This leads to an awful sense of over-familiarity that has blighted Dre in recent years.
With the exception of “Bagpipes From Baghdad”, which features Dre successfully creating a typical Middle-Eastern club-banger sound, the beats for these songs also force Eminem to carry the songs on his sheer skills due to simply being too minimalistic. “Medicine Ball”, “Bagpipes From Baghdad”, “Must Be The Ganja” and “Hello” feature nice rhyming from Eminem but the lack of subject matter, presumably due to attempts to create bangers of some sort, mean that they act as the album’s achilles' heel. Despite not being bad songs, they contribute almost nothing to the album’s concept and add to the distinct lack of substance on “Relapse”. Had Eminem used this rejuvenated approach to rapping to make more meaningful songs then we could have been looking at a comeback album on the level of “Stillmatic” instead of one that’s merely decent.
Even though I’ve made it sound like the album contains little-to-no substance, the only two songs that do contain any real introspective, “Deja Vu” and “Beautiful’, are significant enough to not only help make the album above-average but also provide Eminem with his best music since 2002. “Deja Vu” is one song that I personally haven’t stopped listening to recently. It contains Dre’s only truly great beat on the album with the guitar, drums, handclaps and organs heard in the background complementing the song’s sombre nature. Eminem’s painstaking and honest description of his addiction to prescription pills, underpinned by the revelation he could have ended like Heath Ledger, is powerful and shocking in equal measures. “Beautiful” is a more than worthy follow-up to “Deja Vu” as Eminem focuses on his attempts to make a comeback and dealing with issues from his past. Whilst these might be typical topics you would expect to find on Eminem’s music, the anecdote and sheer honesty heard on the song make it a difficult one to dislike. “Beautiful” is Eminem’s only production contribution to the album and surprisingly, it is an excellent one. While sampling a recent Queen song might sound like a corny idea, Eminem manages to make it work by going for a anthemic sound that thankfully differs from his usual production style.
However, both these songs are overshadowed by “Underground”, which sees Eminem spazzing out and spitting absolute fire. Constant internal rhyming, alliteration, assonance and highly descriptive imagery are all present in a song that has Eminem’s turning back the clock and seemingly returning to his prime. “Underground” does elevate the violence, sexism and homophobia present throughout the album but Eminem spitting lyrics this great does makes me feel bad criticising a song that easily s***s on most of the garbage I’ve heard so far in 2009.
Prior to listening to the album, the news that ‘Relapse’ was filled with lyrics mainly revolving around murder and rape was one that didn’t go down too well with me. I’ve always wanted Eminem to tackle serious subject matter more frequently since songs such as “Lose Yourself” and “Sing For The Moment” are ones that resonate deeply with me for personal reasons. After all, I possess a soft spot for the type of meaningful music that Nas, KRS-ONE, Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def and The Roots create on a regular basis.
However, I ended up enjoying “Relapse” much more I anticipated. From a technical perspective, “Relapse” features some of the best rapping I’ve heard in recent times. Over the course of the album, Eminem drops constant multi-syllabic rhymes, uses different flows and tosses all thoughts of subject matter aside. No song better represents this then “Stay Wide Awake” where Eminem’s constantly changing flow seem to be on another planet to the one that most today’s rappers inhabit.
Despite being a big fan of socially conscience hip hop, there has been times where I’ve wanted Nas and Common to make more songs like “Queens Get The Money” and ‘Resurrection’. As a result, I found Eminem’s style over substance approach to be somewhat unique and enjoyable to listen to.
Unfortunately, as we all know, choosing to focus on style over substance creates a glass ceiling and in Eminem’s case, this glass ceiling is a particular troublesome one. While Eminem’s attempt to make his trademark subject matter more horrorcore and satirical makes it slightly more refreshing, it is still disappointing that at the age of 37 he hasn’t made a major effort to mature his music. Also, questions about Dr. Dre’s production deserve to be asked as while there are no below-average beats on ‘Relapse, the lack of truly excellent ones besides “Deja Vu” conforms to the belief that Dre is past his prime.
In summary, “Relapse” is a good album but it could have been so much better...
Final Rating: 3.5 Stars
1. Dr. West (Skit) 2. 3 A.M (4 Stars) 3. My Mom (3.5 Stars) 4. Insane (4.5 Stars) 5. Bagpipes from Baghdad (4 Stars) 6. Hello (3.5 Stars) 7. Tonya (Skit) 8. Same Song & Dance (3.5 Stars) 9. We Made You (3 Stars) 10. Medicine Ball (4 Stars) 11. Paul (Skit) 12. Stay Wide Awake (5 Stars) 13. Old Time Sake Feat. Dr. Dre (3 Stars) 14. Must Be The Ganja (4 Stars) 15. Mr. Mathers (Skit) 16. Deja Vu (5 Stars) 17. Beautiful (5 Stars) 18. Crack A Bottle Feat. Dr. Dre & 50 Cent (3 Stars) 19. Steve Berman (Skit) 20. Underground/Ken Kaniff (5 Stars)
Anticipation for Relapse has been building since fall 2008, when Eminem first announced the album title and debuted the freestyle, I m Having a Relaps...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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