Eminem Leans on Old Habits for ‘The Death of Slim Shady’: Album Review

“You created me to say all the pieces you didn’t have the balls to say,” raps Eminem, or, extra technically, his alter ego Slim Shady on “Responsible Conscience 2,” a minimize off the emcee’s twelfth album “The Dying of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce).” Over a brooding, stormy instrumental, Em takes the unique music’s conceit — taking part in dangerous man to Dr. Dre’s sounder thoughts — to pore over the injury that Slim has inflicted on his profession and artistry.

In the long run, although, Em has had sufficient, and pulls the set off on the character that manifested the darkest corners of his id. Or did he? “Paul,” he frantically tells his longtime supervisor Paul Rosenberg over the cellphone. “I had this dream, it was fucking loopy, it was just like the previous me got here again and the brand new me and took over my mind and had me saying all this fucked up shit.”

It’s a well-worn conceit to cap off an in any other case compelling idea. And it’s tantamount to how usually Eminem can get in his personal approach, even when he’s working on the very best potential lyrical aircraft. Like lots of Eminem’s albums, “The Dying of Slim Shady” rests on tropes and themes he’s explored again and again. There are quite a few whacks at Caitlyn Jenner and Christopher Reeve (20 years after his loss of life, thoughts you); transphobia, fatphobia and homophobia; digs on the mentally disabled. Just about all the pieces you’d anticipate from Eminem, ever the provocateur.

In fact, he’s had loads of detractors over time calling for his cancellation — a newscaster says as a lot on the album’s “Breaking Information” interlude — however that is par for the course for the 51-year-old, and regardless of what number of Lizzo jokes he cracks, it gained’t dent his legacy. And it makes the album precisely what it shouldn’t be at this level in such a storied profession: predictable. “The Dying of Slim Shady” was promised to be an idea album, one to be skilled from entrance to again, one thing new and recent within the Eminem canon. And in some methods it’s, letting Slim out of the cage for one final hurrah in a concerted try to shock and awe, which he does generally to nice impact, different instances not.

However he’s been right here earlier than, and the idea begins to put on skinny while you notice that Slim isn’t actually going anyplace. In any case, who’s Eminem with out Slim Shady? Mawkish and tepidly reflective, because it turned out on 2017’s “Revival.” It’s damned for those who do: lean an excessive amount of into the specific entropy of his Slim Shady persona and it’s callow and low-brow; keenly observe the world round you with a fine-point pen and also you’ve misplaced your edge.

So he largely settles for the previous on “The Dying of Slim Shady,” an album buoyed by its technical prowess and bogged by its crass subjectivism. Eminem’s hyper-competence as an emcee has staked declare for him as the most effective rappers to ever grace the mic, so it’s a marvel that he can’t all the time discover a approach to usefully deploy it. For each “Renaissance,” the album’s opening salvo that expertly toys with homophone in a vital tongue-lashing, there’s a “Model New Dance,” a three-and-a-half minute wisecrack the place he encourages listeners to “dance till you’re wheelchair sure” to allow them to bust a transfer like Reeve. (The joke, in case you missed it, is that Reeve was paralyzed.)

You possibly can both giggle together with or cringe on the album. You possibly can marvel on the lyrical aptitude conveyed on the Dr. Dre co-produced “Lucifer,” one of many file’s finest, or bristle at its dated reference to Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s relationship. Or each. It’s onerous to inform the place the enjoyable begins and the comedy ends right here, in a approach that Eminem’s music has usually challenged listeners to reconcile with their very own ethical standings. And in that approach, “The Dying of Slim Shady” succeeds in making you query what being politically right actually means. If solely this territory hadn’t been trodden for many years.

The place Eminem does excel is within the album’s moments of self-reflection, mining from his personal actuality. “Non permanent” that includes Skylar Gray is Eminem at his finest, an ode to his daughter Hailey that options archival audio of her as a child and is meant as a remembrance of his love for her when he’s now not right here. “Someone Save Me,” constructed on a pattern (or re-recording) of Jelly Roll’s “Save Me,” has the same impact, taking part in as an apology to his kids for selecting medication over them.

These songs convey an emotional intelligence and self-awareness that Eminem has persistently proven all through his profession. And it’s what contributes to Eminem’s enduring legacy. He’s a contradiction that allures, totally able to analyzing his personal tribulations however not above sandwiching them between scat and rape jokes. In that sense, “The Dying of Slim Shady” is extra of the identical — not all the time dangerous, however not all the time good, both.