12 years after Eminem tried to lock up Cage’s career before it even began, he’s essentially co-opted his fellow white rapper’s schtick: Clockwork Orange rap. Or to scavenge the carrion of rappers wounded in his “5 Star Generals” days, this is closer to what you’d imagine the Insane Clown Posse would do, were they blessed with the ability to rap better than anyone outside of Big Punisher, Pharoahe Monch, or Kool G Rap.
Ian Cohen’s Pitchfork review limns the big picture (and most of the ancilliary details.) Relapse is a devisive record, alright. Intended to viscerally convey an anomic unraveling, it’s unsurprisingly schizophrenic, yet shockingly disturbing. Even if you keep in mind that Eminem is more likely to get botox* than he is to serially murder and rape, there’s something unsettling about hearing him unspool fantasies about dismembering corpses, his creepy fixation with Mariah Carey, and that always fun party topic: graphic psycho-sexual incest tales.
Roughly half of Relapse is un-listenable, the other half re-defines the way people can string words together. All of it is practically unsuited for repeat listenings. It’s like listening to The Craig’s List Killer: The Concept Album. Yet there’s undeniably something great here, buried side-by-side with the faux-Goth malevolence, the homoeroticism dressed up as homophobia (Ken Kaniff, again?), and the execrable radio bids. On a purely technical level, this is easily the most adroitly-rapped album of the year. With some judicious editing and sequencing, this had the potential to be a macabre look inside the mind of a madman–think the Gravediggaz had they not been played for laughs.
But as the Steve Berman skit illustrates, there’s too much riding on this album. With the industry imploded, this might be one of the last true blockbuster rap records. Eminem was the last pre-Internet rap superstar**, and the fact that his new record can’t be readily dismissed, is something of a triumph in itself. Unfortunately, Marshall Mathers and Slim Shady can’t co-exist. For Relapse to have fulfilled its potential, it needed a new structural framework, one free of old formulas, familiar plot devices, and trite skits. For longtime fans of Eminem, the good news is that the bottle’s still full–the bad news is that the pills are stale.
* I refuse to believe that air-brushing is solely to blame for causing a 36-year old man to look like the Gerber Baby.
** You can probably include Jay-Z in there too, and Dr. Dre, should he stop doing power cleans long enough to release Detox.
Download:
MP3: Eminem-“Old Time’s Sake” (Songs removed due to bullshit label threats.)
MP3: Eminem-“3 A.M.”
