If Eminem were to ask for my advice in regard to making another Marshall Mathers LP, I would’ve told him not to do it. That album itself is a sequel of sorts to The Slim Shady LP. A part “2” after all this time; he’s released four albums since then; would be, at best, pointless. If he insisted on it, I would’ve told him it should match the original not just on an aesthetic level, which is subjective, but on a conceptual level. That means about eighteen tracks; a few skits and several songs that have him rapping-up controversy like he did back in 2000 to beats produced by the likes of Dr Dre, Mel-Man and The Bass Brothers. The addition of a 45 King song would be great. If the album isn’t the same conceptually, I would’ve told him, it will be a sequel in title only and that won’t make much sense.

I don’t personally know Eminem though. Even if I did, he probably wouldn’t be seeking my advice on such an important career move. So here we have it; an album that, as far as I’m concerned, should’ve never seen the light of day; a light that, despite boarded windows, shines into the old house he grew-up in. That means more bars about being a bullied outcast with a passion for hip-hop. Rapping was not only a normalizer but a popularizer, he suggests, so, even at the age of 41, a song about his mother serves as a sort of psycho-therapy session. The difference is that he now says he loves her, “because you’re my Ma,” as if merely giving birth to him is (suddenly) reason enough to love her. He says he cringes when he hears Cleaning Out My Closet. I cringe when I hear Headlights.

This is a sequel to The Marshall Mathers LP, after all, not The Eminem Show or Encore… or Recovery. Yet it sounds more like those (subpar) albums than his third best. Let alone Relapse, which he bashed, and The Slim Shady LP; the best two of only three good albums. With that, his Legacy is tarnished. He’s been my favorite rapper since 1999, but his skills have generally dropped from excellent to barely good since then; he’s more of a rhyme god than a Rap God; and this album is a reflection of that. There are two eight-bar sets on So Far that near prime Eminem; the McDonald’s and Kroger bits; and he easily outwits Kendrick Lamar on their Love duet. Berzerk is trashy though, So Much Better isn’t much better and the Stan sequel is ruined by a bombastic tack-on verse at the end.

Yes, he had the balls to make a Stan sequel. The main beat is the closest we get to a Dr Dre production and the chorus is the best the formulaic guest-list of out-of-place crooners have to offer, but even with a proper ending, it wouldn’t come close to the quality of the original. The Canibus take from C True Hollywood Stories is better. The biggest problem with Bad Guy though, in the context of this album, is that it comes at the start and is followed by a tracked skit that continues LP 1 not from the end but from the part of Criminal in which Eminem shoots the bank teller. Here history is revised, his getaway driver bails and he (Eminem) ends-up shooting and presumably killing himself; a fate that clashes awkwardly with his impeding doom in the trunk of Stan’s brother’s car.

There are LP 1 references elsewhere; he finally gets to say what he wanted to say about giving guns to kids at Columbine, uncensored, now that society has forgotten about them; but spotty moments of nostalgia aren’t enough to make LP 2 a worthy follow-up. You can hear Ken Kaniff on one of the Deluxe tracks; the Wicked Ways beat is the best of the lot; but he should be on the actual album, with Steve Berman, Paul and a 2013 Public Service Announcement. It would be cool hearing Dina Rae on track 13, but a generic stadium anthem like Survival, with Liz Rodrigues, is not. He should’ve cut all the part 2 stuff and went with a different title. Then this would’ve just been another mediocre Eminem album. He hints that it might also be his final album and, at this point, that’s okay too.

It would be a senseless way to go, but his album history has been conceptually senseless ever since he decided to title the first one The Slim Shady LP as if Slim Shady was a one-album character. Now he randomly goes back to not the first but the second LP for one that, aside from its own structure flaws, is filled with songs that have structure flaws. Verses go on too long. I think every verse in a song should be the same length in bars and those bars should go by eights, unless there’s a logical reason for them not to. Choruses are abandoned. If you like the Evil Twin hook but happen to miss it in the middle of the song, too bad. Eminem apparently doesn’t give a “beep” about things like that, which makes him more impressive as a rapper than a song-slash-album artist.

my rating : 3 of 5

2013