Last week, Eminem released long-awaited “Relapse” album after taking a couple years off as a semi-retirement. With any Eminem album, you expect a mixture of almost comedy-style raps - mocking celebrities or overly explicit songs about a piece of female anatomy - and hopefully an influential classic (see: “Sing For The Moment”, “Like Toy Soldiers“, “When I’m Gone”, “Mosh” and my favorite Em song ever, “Stan“).
After a couple years away from the game, I felt like Eminem would come back more mature and be able to produce more of those influential classics, addressing any one of the major issues surrounding us these days (recession, Obama, v-neck t-shirts, etc.). Even before the album dropped, I was disappointed, both “Crack A Bottle” and “We Made You”, were the mockery-type music that I hate. I withheld judgment, waiting for the final product, especially knowing that Eminem would be paired with Dr. Dre as the producer.
I thought “Bagpipes From Baghdad” would address the Iraq War, instead the first verse has Eminem pleading to get back together with Mariah Carey (no wonder Nick Cannon is upset). The album is filled with more of the same, with a few exceptions. With the death of his close friend from D12, Proof, I was expecting that would produce another classic, but the album is surprisingly empty of any mentions of Proof - Eminem dedicates the whole album to Proof on the back of the booklet, stating that he tried to write a song for his friend, but none were good enough.
“Beautiful,” “Stay Wide Awake” and “Same Song & Dance” are Eminem’s best on “Relapse”, but overall it comes down to the listener’s preference and what kind of music they like to hear Eminem produce. At times, “Relapse” comes off as more of a comedy album and after such a long break, I would have expected it to be at least slightly funny.
