Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The Death Of "The Real Slim Shady"
"I miss the blonde hair and the awkward doo rag..."
On perhaps his finest song, “The Way I Am”, Eminem lashed out against the pressure of having to continually record a “poppy sensation that got [him] rotation at rock and roll stations.” An irony that gets lost when you consider that he’s spent his career doing that exact same thing over and over to continually diminishing returns. It’s been a long time coming but Marshall Mathers finally got his wish. After five solo albums, two D12 albums, and tens of millions records sold, Eminem finally got to release a single that isn’t “My Name Is.” Eminem’s latest single, “Not Afraid,” bares no resemblance to the pop culture-lashing, pop chart chasing singles that have made him a mainstay of TRL (that still exists right? No? Well, don’t I look like an ass!) for over a decade.
“Not Afraid” is a bombastic yet a paradoxically sober affair with Eminem beating his chest and crowing that he is prepared for a life of sobriety and responsibility after years of portraying himself as an unhinged, drug-addled gremlin both in his music and his personal life. If the song has a direct predecessor, it would be T.I.’s post-weapons charge anthem, “No Matter What,” in both tone and delivery. Both songs aim at being anthemic and Eminem remains as technically virtuosic as ever but if you close your eyes, it would seem as if the words were coming out of Tip Harris’ mouth himself. The flow is so obviously similar that it seems as if Eminem locked himself in his rehab suite and listened to “Paper Trail” ad infinitum while he nursed himself into sobriety.. Even the basic song structure and subject matter bare almost identical similarity where as Tip stood defiant in the face of a long jail sentence, Em stands against the difficulties of post-rehab sobriety. If one were completely cynical, one could easily accuse Em of biting Tip’s song wholesale which makes sense if you consider that T.I. was one of the few non-Shady/Aftermath artists that Em worked with during his post-Encore/Proof’s death exile from rap music.
Ignoring issues of artistic thievery for a moment, the ultimate problem with “Not Afraid” is that it seems far more flaccid and generic than Tip’s titanic anthem. Eminem seems unsure of how to make music outside of his typical oeuvre. “Not Afraid” not only lacks the caustic wit of the Slim Shady era but it bears none of the bitter catharsis of his darker, more personal work like “Kim” or “Kill You.” The song works like a B-grade “Lose Yourself” content to kick lyrical clichés that sound as if they are the lesser aphorisms of inspiration pimps like Tony Robbins. When Eminem says that he’s “not afraid to maker a stand,” one is forced to ask “Against what?” The self-seriousness is almost laughably Keith Olbermann-like.
The question remains is how will this new Eminem function beyond this song in the absence of the artistic crutches he usually relies on. His upcoming album, “Recovery,” suggests an album that will be reaching towards something that approaches maturity but can Eminem sustain an entire album without reaching into his old bag of tricks. Does the public even want that? What if the single is received far worse than it’s predecessors and Eminem is forced to go back to the Slim Shady reserves for one last run? It’s easily conceivable that if “Not Afraid” flops, he will be making dated Tiger Woods jokes before you know it. (It should be noted that “Not Afraid’ is #2 on iTunes as I’m writing this so my postulating could be as easily redundant as an Eminem pop culture reference.) Still if the execution is slightly rote, it’s hard to fault Eminem for taking such a chance on a song like “Not Afraid” so late into his career. Eminem remains one of the few viable album-selling monsters and one must be tempted to stick with the formula that keeps him successful. If he’s going to remain a viable artist, he has to change with the times. The question is what left does he have to say?
Read the comments for a chuckle, too. All these Eminem-produced beats on Relapse and Recovery are so bad.
It's just hilarious to me how so many people are so utterly clueless about Eminem's attitude towards music. "What if this first single flops, yo??? What if he doesn't sell as many UNITZ as his prior records? What about his CAREER? What is he going to do at this STAGE of his CAREER?! What's his commercial strategy?! What if this album FAILZ?"
How Eminem actually talks about the "commercial aspects" behind the scenes:
Eminem: Yo Dre, this could be the first single, or whatevuh. It's kinda catchy, and kinda corny.
Dre: Yeah dawg, this is hot. I could see this gettin big. Lemme talk to Jimmy.
Eminem: Aight. I'm gonna go beat Just Blaze in some one on one, then play a little Donkey Kong. Peace.
