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

“You created me to say every little thing 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 Demise 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.

Ultimately, 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 telephone. “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 typically Eminem can get in his personal means, even when he’s working on the best attainable lyrical airplane. Like lots of Eminem’s albums, “The Demise of Slim Shady” rests on tropes and themes he’s explored repeatedly. There are quite a few whacks at Caitlyn Jenner and Christopher Reeve (20 years after his dying, thoughts you); transphobia, fatphobia and homophobia; digs on the mentally disabled. Just about every little thing you’d count on from Eminem, ever the provocateur.

After all, 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 Demise of Slim Shady” was promised to be an idea album, one to be skilled from entrance to again, one thing new and contemporary 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 typically to nice impact, different occasions not.

However he’s been right here earlier than, and the idea begins to put on skinny once you understand that Slim isn’t actually going wherever. 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 when you do: lean an excessive amount of into the express 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 Demise 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 among the best rappers to ever grace the mic, so it’s a surprise that he can’t at all times discover a technique to usefully deploy it. For each “Renaissance,” the album’s opening salvo that expertly toys with homophone in a crucial 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’ll be able to both giggle together with or cringe on the album. You’ll be able to marvel on the lyrical aptitude conveyed on the Dr. Dre co-produced “Lucifer,” one of many document’s finest, or bristle at its dated reference to Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s relationship. Or each. It’s exhausting to inform the place the enjoyable begins and the comedy ends right here, in a means that Eminem’s music has typically challenged listeners to reconcile with their very own ethical standings. And in that means, “The Demise of Slim Shady” succeeds in making you query what being politically appropriate 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. “Short-term” 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 not right here. “Any person Save Me,” constructed on a pattern (or re-recording) of Jelly Roll’s “Save Me,” has an identical 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, fully able to analyzing his personal tribulations however not above sandwiching them between scat and rape jokes. In that sense, “The Demise of Slim Shady” is extra of the identical — not at all times dangerous, however not at all times good, both.