Eminem’s new album, Relapse, is set to hit shelves on Tuesday. It’s his first album since 2004. Thanks for Myspace allowing you to hear entire albums early, I was able to see what’s up and give my two cents on this album.
I will tell you right now, if you are an Eminem fan, you will probably not like this review. I have never been a huge Eminem fan, but I do think he’s a talented rapper/lyricist and was expecting him to hit me with something good since he’s just coming back from a long break.
20 tracks including 5 skits. The track list goes as follows:
Dr. West (Skit)
3 A.M.
My Mom
Insane
Bagpipes from Baghdad
Hello
Tonya (Skit)
Same Song and Dance
We Made You
Medicine Ball
Paul (Skit)
Stay Wide Awake
Old Time’s Sake
Must Be The Ganja
Mr Mathers (Skit)
Deja Vu
Beautiful
Crack a Bottle
Steve Berman (Skit)
Underground
All beats were produced by Dr. Dre except for “Beautiful”, which was pretty much the stand out track on the album and was produced by Eminem. It just seemed to work better than the rest of the album.
It seems as if Eminem tried real hard for shock value on this album. He does a lot of gay-bashing and tries real hard to get under people’s skin. As you may have already read online, “Bagpipes from Baghdad”, is a song about Mariah Carey and their short lived romance. He goes on to bash Nick Cannon and say a lot of horrible things, which got Cannon to fire back. Then you have your typical Eminem, like “My Mom”. We’ve heard this track a million times, on all his other albums.
I have a lot of trouble with Eminem’s rap persona (is he gangsta, is he comedian?) and that really turns me off to his music. I am entertained by the “funny” Eminem, and can often dig the darker, more horrorcore styled raps, but I think that rapping over West Coast beats just doesn’t suit him well.
I feel that he’s a talented rapper and a very good lyricist, I just think the wrong producer discovered him. Dre’s beats on this album are tired. They are not evolved in any way. After hearing some of these beats, you might think Dre made them for one of his own albums 10 or more years ago.
As far as catchiness goes, I would say that the singles “Crack a Bottle” and “We Made You” are the only slightly catchy songs.
Throughout the album he also used a weird voice. He shortens up his vowels or something and it makes it sound like he spent the last 5 years in a foreign country. It’s pretty irritating.
I would much rather listen to rappers such as Atmosphere, Aesop Rock, Sage Francis, Eydea and Abilities, or the Beastie Boys over this album.
It doesn’t matter what I think though. 17 year old kids are gonna go apeshit all around the world when this CD comes out.
If you don’t think my opinion is valid, go ahead and pick up the cd.
Videos for “We Made You“ and ““3 A.M.“,can be found on Youtube. Embedding is disabled though.
Please, feel free to post your opinions about what you think.
Last edited: Jul 01, 2009 @ 10:49 PM, 262 days ago
