Eminem's ninth album Revival is too long, too serious, too wordy and has too many lines about butts.
Eminem's ninth album Revival is too long, too serious, too wordy and has too many lines about butts.
Eminem has always rapped like he's slightly constipated. On Revival, he clenches, grabs his thighs and squeezes out his worst album yet.
Want proof? "I'm lookin' at your tight rear like a sightseer / Your booty is heavy duty, like diarrhoea," he raps, bizarrely, on Remind Me, a song produced by Dr Dre and Rick Rubin that reimagines Joan Jett and The Blackheart's I Love Rock 'n Roll in the worst possible way.
Like the rest of the album, it's a train wreck. Why would the 45-year-old, widely considered the most successful rapper alive, join forces with two of music's greatest producers, sample a rock anthem, and spend most of it rhyming about butts?
Revival is full of questions like that, most of which go unanswered. Why are the beats so bad? Why are the puns so lame? Why are there so many desperate grasps at the past? Why are there so many words?
Once you get to the end of its 77 minutes, the only answer seems to be this: Eminem appears to be flushing his career down the toilet.
It shouldn't be this way. On his Donald Trump freestyle attack at October's BET Hip Hop Awards, Eminem proved he had a suitable target for that gnarly aggression of his, one that could suck attention away from tired topics like his family dramas, celebrity beefs and made up sexscapades.
Despite some clunky lines, Eminem proved the world was ready for him to drop a wordbomb on Trump. There's a bit of that on Revival. "All you got are race cards / Better get the swastika with your name carved in it / Should be your trademark / Cause hate's all you played off," he raps on Like Home.
Other targets include police brutality, sexual inequality and Bill Cosby. That's commendable but completely jarring when he's showing off his wokeness one minute, then imagining Ivanka Trump in the boot of his car, installing a stripper's pole in his basement, and making people sniff his farts the next.
Those clashing topics aren't Revival's only problem. It's an album so long you'll need more than 20 minutes just to make it through the first four tracks, has so many words there's a 15-second sequence on Offended that contains 71 of them, comes with an intermission, and includes hooks that don't land from genuine pop juggernauts: Beyonce on the cloying Walk on Water, Ed Sheeran on the completely mismatched acoustic River, and Pink on the cinematic squeals of Need Me.
There is one saving grace. On Revival's last track, Arose, Eminem steps into a confessional box and finally shows some self-awareness, referencing his drug use, his relationship with his daughter, and his flailing legacy. "I'll put out this last album / Then I'm done with it," he raps, forecasting his own demise. "One hundred per cent finished / Fed up with it."
It takes nearly 77 minutes to get there, but Eminem finally finds some words that resonate. It's just a shame they have to be about his retirement, because Revival proves that's his only logical next step. Unless he needs to go to the toilet first.
Eminem - Revival Label: Interscope Stars: One Verdict: Eminem buries himself with his own words
