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Album Review: Eminem, "Relapse" (Aftermath)
Once again Eminem has furthered the realm of white rap by becoming the most major MC yet to embrace the recession. At our time of hip-hop disconnect, big-name rappers (excepting T.I.) continue to set their stories in the glamorous and non-existent area code of 2009, where Henny and Ecstasy flow. So Marshall Mathers has kept it crazy real by placing "Relapse" in the the nightmares of middle America, where prescription drugs glide down throats like Patron. Good for Detroit Em and his groundbreaking ways.
No change of style here. What ails the nation remains the broad subject of Eminem. And even though on this new collection the MC's personal history is every much foregrounded, America's sicknesses are what the album's about. The voice of "Relapse" is heartland addiction, second generation. Survivors of meth households, as well as the ones who aren't exactly surviving, will flock to this record. Its first song, a "Saw"-style festival of violence called "3 a.m.," takes the reality of drug-addled, invisible U.S.A. to its logical conclusion: crazed thoughts and outbursts of killing. Obama, your country needs you.
Eminem all but can't help but to deliver his words with disclaiming humor. (Try not to laugh at "I'll pee on Rhianna" or deny his Christopher Reeves impersonation.) And that might be why this hits-driven collection, surprisingly, drags in the middle. Before actually settling down and playing a little bit with Dr. Dre on "For Old Times' Sake," we're dragged through a lot of rhymed murder and sexually violent scenarios. It really wears you out if you aren't a fan of quasi-snuff flicks. What's more, the graphic detail is so blended with the rapper/author's undeniable appeal that it's exhausting, like when your crazy friends come over to visit.
"Relapse," framed as a rehab confessional, plays out as an unmediated expulsion of the demons that drive Marshall Mathers. Even when Mathers raps without inspiration, as on "Must Be the Ganga" there's something punishing about what he's trying to do. Angry Dope Addict Album of the Year.
[Editor's note: This review was partially rewritten on 5/22 to correct a factual error.]