Eminem’s fans face the fact
When I was 10 years old, Mum confiscated my copy of Eminem’s compilation, Curtain Call: The Hits.
Her hardline call came after she heard the horrifically derogatory song Fack .Iwas outraged but life went on, and Marshall Mathers didn’t re-enter my mind a whole lot until my 18th birthday, when Dad wrapped up the CD and gave it back to me.
Like a time capsule for the late 1990s and early noughties, retrospect shows just how genredefining those songs were.
My Name Is, Sing For The Moment, Lose Yourself, Without Me, Cleanin’ Out My Closet. Hell, if you didn’t have some kind of emotional meltdown to Stan can you even call yourself human?
But the gift of time also shows how little Eminem’s music has changed, and one month after the rapper released his 10th studio album Kamikaze, it seems he’s lost his edge.
Not edge in terms of popularity or public interest, but edge with regard to putting out anything fresh and exciting.
By contrast, the artists of that era still holding our attention have been forced to diversify, and taken it in their stride.
Jay-Z is calmly riding the Dad-wave, Kanye is reinventing himself for the umpteenth time, and Lil Wayne spent four years taking stock, getting everything just right, and returning with a bang. Eminem is just angry.
Angry the music he was making in 2002 doesn’t hold the youth like it did, angry at journalists and critics for talking about that, and angry other white rappers have moved in on his territory. That anger used to be shown towards authorities, power structures and ‘‘the man’’; now, it’s directed at his haters, a theme that reads as insecure and desperate.
Technically, Eminem is one of the most talented rappers to walk the Earth, if not the most talented. But technical ability can only get you so far.
The other major player is context, something Eminem is increasingly losing his grip on with every passing album.
There are very clear gems hidden among the post-2009 records, but more often than not, those singles include a superstar pop vocalist to make it commercial-radio friendly, and his verses come off largely unmemorable.
On 2010’s Recovery there was Love The Way You Lie featuring Rihanna, and motivational, rising-from-the-ashes gym banger Not Afraid.
In 2013, The Marshall Mathers LP2 gave us another Rihanna hit, this time The Monster ,as well as Berzerk, a song that paid homage to his early releases but sounded hugely out of place on the airwaves.
Last year, on Revival, the biggest names in pop culture –