Eminem

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8078653/eminem-revival-makes-chart-history-with-eighth-consecutive-no-1-debut-on

This was the previous album. I assume this one will get to #1 if Revival did.

Who holds the record presently?

(xpost – I see that article answers the question)

Was driving around the other day and my wife was in control of the music. She starts playing something and I'm all, what the hell is this? And she goes, it's the new Eminem. And I say, why, you didn't listen to the last three or four new Eminems, and they were bad, too. And she says, hey, I just saw this was out to today and wanted to listen to it. (30 seconds goes by) Yeah, she goes, this is bad. And then she turns it off.

Folks making fun of his style are endlessly funny to me. Sometimes when I'm out for a walk I start coming up with ridiculous angry Eminem rhymes. "Like a constable I am constantly able to beat your head on a table til you bleed red like Day-glo or Fay-go or whatever shit glow, no, flow, 12 inches of snow won't stop this shit show, like a ho you don't know showing up wrecking homes were you go when you want to be alone and atone for some shit that you done, like signing your name in the snow with number one, or worse, number two that I got from you when you shit your pants like you were two, wrapped it up once your ass blew, oh whoops, did I offend you? whoopiedoo..."

That said, I just played the Oops! Slim Shady Did It Again mashup a couple of hours ago, and I still absolutely love it.

I kind of like the backing track in The Fall, sounds like a Jim Jonsin production and I love his work. he has worked with Eminem in the past so it could actually be him but no idea if the credits have been published for this one.

Production-wise this is probably his best album in a while. I haven’t been following his career much tbh but I can’t remember liking any of his backing tracks for like a decade.

"More self aware than Malmsteen" might be a new standard in faint praise

that Chris D'Elia clip just kills me, I can't get over it

Malmsteen at least seems to be having fun

Em was fun once (or at least, jokey)

yeah that's the thing he's lost the kinda antic Looney tunes "hi kids do you like violence?" aspect

yeah in some weird way his stance now is more that of an offended person

I still like the bonkers Em flow, and I would be riding HAAAARD for this thing if was just an EP of tracks 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10 (i.e., just the mixtape energy stuff with none of the sad reflections, Marvel crossovers, ex-girlfriend/bad-boyfrend whinges)

I honestly think the Em flow is really just a continuation of a crescendo of the ideas of MCing that started with Moe Dee/Caz/Melle Mel, sent through G Rap and Kane, and ultimately spawning like (to point to two extremes) both Biggie and Skribble Jam competitons.

Obviously rap has changed and people expect more than just raw chops, but my Twitter feed of middlebrow media people and weird twitter goons is def ~interesting~ in how they protest too much about the Hopsin/Logic/Cole/Eminem axis of chops but it was only like 4 years ago when every rap tweet/thinkpiece was like "Future said 'You as cold in your heart, you as cold as your heart' and I started weeping openly and inconsolably in the mall" and it's like, idk, maybe hipsters have kind of a narrow idea of what this genre is and a shallow understanding of what it's traditons are.

https://i.imgur.com/cuNbv9z.jpg

am i so out of touch?

no it’s the children who are wrong

"Normal" is like a Weird Al style parody of a Drake song.

whiney I'd like to think my taste in rap is at least as irrelevant as yours and I love rappity rapping but the thing that gets me is is soooo joyless and not fun

the Black Thought ep from this year he's going off and I find it so much more musical and actually perhaps even better technically in some ways because he can be super technical while still flowing

Hopsin is garbage it's beneath me to even listen to

Logic seems fine but boring

J Cole drives me up a wall I hate his personal

I definitely feel you on the emporers new clothes aspect of reading existential ennui into every SoundCloud dude autotune drooling into his cup

but yeah Em is so exhausting now

The Jean Grae/Quelle Chris album was a gift, so engaging and playful and sometimes sad but genuine skill and old school early Dee weirdness and humor

Hopsin has some real corny libertarian-ish views, Logic can be cloying with his Mensa-membership-card schtick, Cole is like a parody of a Nas stan. I probably wouldn't throw on any of their records for fun, but its absolutely insane to say these guys can't rap their asses off. The whole "shocked elmo because white guy heard someone rap fast" meme really does sum up that chops are absolutely unfashionable and uncool, which – whatever, like what you wanna like – but it runs counter to what rap was from like 1973 to like 2003. And also discounts that these guys are making some of the most popular rap albums on earth even though a bunch of people who have heard a Gaslight Anthem album thinks they're wack

everyone on earth agrees Em can rap just like everyone agrees Malmsteen can shred. how much value should be placed on that in isolation depends on what type of listener you are I suppose

like how many of the ppl dismissing Em now do so on the basis that his internal rhyme schemes of syllable rate have fallen off

*or

everyone on earth agrees Em can rap just like everyone agrees Malmsteen can shred. how much value should be placed on that in isolation depends on what type of listener you are I suppose

― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Tuesday, September 4, 2018 10:25 AM (three seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with this

I'm just saying rap itself was a competitive, skills-based artform from its earliest years. And while, yes, the genre can/will evolve; I think it's ridiculous to completely dismiss the people who still keep the tradition moving forward.

It's like *telling* that old Eighties/Nineties rappers in my feed are goo-goo-eyed for the new Em, but ILXors are passing around ... Chris D'Elia routines.

Feed vs. squad.

I thought he was at his best when he was at his most reactive/reactionary a la "Without Me." Now that he is not or is certainly much less culturally relevant (imo?), as popular as he may remain he just hasn't found much of a way to write/rhyme himself back into the narrative, and said internal rhyme schemes definitely skirt self-parody minus a big picture hook on which to hang their absurdity.

It's like *telling* that old Eighties/Nineties rappers in my feed are goo-goo-eyed for the new Em, but ILXors are passing around 

you are definitely the master of I'm not saying I'm just saying posts where you don't actually say anything just somehow imply that everyone except you doesn't like rap in the right way

I got fuckin vhs tapes of mtv raps don't come sideways like I give a fuck about gaslight anthem

I gave you a specific example of the new Black Thought which is dope that you purposefully ignored...or the new Ka/Animoss thing is incredible, both are more lyrical and musical than Em

Hopsin,Cole logic of course the can * but they can't seem to do anything with it

at that point do we need to stan for Smack DVD/Youtube battle dudes like Daylyt or Iron Solomon?

cuz honestly that's what Em reminds me most of nowadays

Royce is doing much better records in the last few years if you want an example of someone in his own camp

also there is a semi popular West Coast guy named Kendrick Lamar who is pretty popular which seems to suggest that the problem isn't necessarily that people hate skills when they are applied to actually meaningful and dope music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1572Ij0t1E

Unbelievably bad even for 2019 Eminem

yeah, he does sound really bad on this mash-up posted by the "Official Video SLR" YouTube channel!

Yeesh they should have payed the money for a Nelly verse instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfl3N9nesRg

maybe more Devo

lmao dude

I am... into this album

I don't know what to do with this information

Middle fingers put em high
That's why they call it a bird
'cause you put it up in the sky

A few of the early songs were almost enjoyable but I got to that ^^^ and decided to bounce. (I also skipped "Stepdad" and "Darker" a few seconds in.)

I am very into "Darkness" and "Yah Yah" so far

yeah i mean, sometimes he's sheer lunatic technical virtuosity takes it to a very weird place, his verse on yah yah is nuts

I always do this with new Em records, check it out in hopes of enjoying the viscerally thrilling rapping, which there's always plenty of, but then inevitably get fatigued by the self-pity, tired jokes, and the nauseating syrupy stadium hooks. Not worth it.

(the definition of insanity etc)

I'm trying to think of some rock musician/guitar player analogy for Eminem - a technically virtuosic asshole that deploys his skills in the service of some of the stupidest aesthetic decisions possible.

all I'm comin up with is Ted Nugent.

(I know Em doesn't share his politics but still)

based on early peak and quick decline and being a blonde bastard, maybe Rod Stewart

Rod Stewart has rarely lost his charm.

I'm trying to think of some rock musician/guitar player analogy for Eminem - a technically virtuosic asshole that deploys his skills in the service of some of the stupidest aesthetic decisions possible.

this is Yngwie Malmsteen

Now here's to LL, Big L and Del
K-Solo, Treach, and G Rap
DJ Polo, Tony D, ODB, Moe Dee, Run-DMC
Ed OG, and EPMD, D.O.C., Ice-T, Evil Dee
King Tee, UTFO, and Schoolly D, PE, and BDP
YZ and Chi-Ali, Rakim and Eric B., they were like my therapy
From B.I.G. and Paris, Three Times Dope, and some we'll never see, and PRT
N.W.A and Eazy-E, and D-R-E was like my GPS

I enjoyed this

can't spell yngvie malmsteen without e m i n e m

I always do this with new Em records, check it out in hopes of enjoying the viscerally thrilling rapping, which there's always plenty of, but then inevitably get fatigued by the self-pity, tired jokes, and the nauseating syrupy stadium hooks. Not worth it.

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, January 17, 2020 1:49 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

If you made a playlist of the just sick rap songs from the last three albums, it would make a pretty good album

if I put a strict 45-minute cap on it, sure.

I'm trying to think of some rock musician/guitar player analogy for Eminem - a technically virtuosic asshole that deploys his skills in the service of some of the stupidest aesthetic decisions possible.

all I'm comin up with is Ted Nugent.

― Οὖτις, Friday, January 17, 2020 12:55 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

nuge is kind of a hack though