Gauging Eminem’s ‘Revival’
Best are the grown-up tracks; review.
At 45 years old, Eminem is more insecure than ever.
The rap veteran opens new album Revival with Beyoncé-assisted piano ballad Walk on Water, in which he confesses a loss of confidence after being dismissed by critics and fans, whose sky-high expectations for his recent output were unmet.
But with the exception of his continued misogyny (more on that later), Revival eeeE isn’t the misguided ship many feared it would be after Em released hype track Untouchable, his well-intentioned attempt to be “woke” by taking on the perspectives of a racist white cop and African-American man (which is about as cringe-y as it sounds).
In fact, the rapper’s ninth album (and first solo effort since 2013’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2) is often quite moving as he gets vulnerable about personal subjects he broached from a far more resentful perspective as a younger man. Bad Husband, for instance, is a public apology to his ex-wife, Kim Mathers, detailing the tempestuous breakdown of their relationship but ultimately concluding that they’re “not bad people, just bad together.”
Album standout River, featuring Ed Sheeran, puts Eminem in the shoes of a guilt-ridden lover trying to absolve his sins after cheating. And the closing one-two punch of Castle and Arose is written as letters to his daughter, Hailie: cataloging a near-death overdose on pills and his newfound desire to rewrite past mistakes.
He isn’t afraid to get political, either. After an admirable yet lyrically clunky freestyle opposing President Trump in October’s BET Hip Hop Awards, the rapper eviscerates the commander in chief once again with the scorching Like Home. Comparing Trump to Hitler, he denounces white supremacy and the transgender military ban, but ultimately he calls for unity, rapping: “He was gonna try to tear apart a sacred land we cherish and stand for ... let’s hear it for the start of a brand new America without him, and be proud of where we’re from.”
Where Revival falters, perhaps unsurprisingly, is in Eminem’s treatment of women. To his credit, the contentious violence that long plagued his lyrics is gone, yet he continues to objectify female bodies. On the I Love Rock ’n’ Roll- sampling Remind Me, he graphically leers over a curvaceous woman, asking her to “excuse the locker room talk” and “spend the night with the guy most are terrified of.”
He takes it a step further on the head-scratching Heat, grossly echoing Trump’s “grab ’ em by the (expletive)” brag and saying, “About the only thing I agree on with Donald is that.”
Joke or not, it’s a jarring bait-andswitch for Eminem to make after spending much of Revival trying to convince us that he’s a more enlightened, mature artist. But as he wonders on Believe, a legacy-affirming reflection on being a middle-age man in a young guys’ genre: “How do you keep up with the pace and the hunger pangs once you’ve won the race?”
For now, we’ll commend the strides he has made and hope for better next time. Download: River, Like Home, In Your Head