My MMLP2 review

[EminemInsider]

Note: Ratings are all sort of relative to what he's capable of today, and I was pretty forgiving of his technical flaws if he did some things I really liked in the song.

Bad Guy: This is an idea that shouldn't work, and if you think of it as a Stan sequel, it's hard not to think of it as corny. But I don't think of it that way - this is an intro, and the sequel aspect of it is more or less tongue-in-cheek. Eminem is showing how he would go about doing a Stan sequel, if he were to do it. The switch at the end lends itself to this as well. Second verse is one of those, "hey, I can choose to rhyme simple shit at the end if I want, biiiitch" moments that I don't particularly care for. He's aware of the fact that it's simple and is delivering it with a sense of amusement in it, but it takes away from the quality of the song as a whole. The third verse is where it picks up, where he mocks himself and weaves everything in nicely. The ending is absolutely brilliant and haunting lyricism - love the line, "I'm the polyps on the back of your tonsils eating your vocal chords after your concerts." As Amadeo said, this is how to do the double entendre stuff correctly. The verse is much more impressive on paper, though, like a lot of Eminem's verses these days, as his flow is so choppy. I do like the "devil" effect in this instance to contrast everything from the earlier verses. The one line I could do without is the "talking shit and backing it up like clogging toilets" line. The peaked/full potential punchline in the 3rd verse made me cringe the first time I heard it, but after thinking about it I didn't mind it as much. It's on par with what the supposedly "good" punchline rappers would come up with. I could hear Copywrite rapping that, for example.

9/10

Rhyme Or Reason: First verse is one of the rare instances on the album where Eminem generally gets the alignment correct. He still has some of those unnatural long pauses where he waits to start the next bar, but his flow in this verse is impressive. The Yoda impression makes me smile. Brilliant ending lines to lead into the hook. He sings the hook pretty well - the low layer sounds similar in tone to his chorus on So Bad, which is how he should sing most of his hooks. It seems like he's making fun of his tendency to rhyme bad/dad/mad in the beginning of the second verse. I got a chuckle out of it, anyway. This and the third verse are much choppier than the first. Third verse is significantly better than the second, however. "And quit tryin'a look for a fuckin reason for it that ain't there" will end up being the most underrated line on the entire album.

8.5/10

So Much Better: Decently designed flow in the first verse, but the stuff about some chick fucking other rappers...not a fan. Chorus is both catchy and kind of embarrassing. Traces of Puke. Pretty well-designed flow in the second verse, too. Sort of a mix of cool Eminem and embarrassing Eminem. Song is catchy.

6/10

Survival: Eminem shouting over heavy metal...no thanks. Rhyme to the rhyme to the SHOUTED RHYME! *Pause* Continue...rinse, repeat. Screw-dri-VIS. So there's nothing for me to (say really fast) fallbackon. Eminem needs to throw this style in the trash. His rhyme schemes are still top notch, but his delivery and emphasis make me want to not listen to him.

5.5/10

Legacy: Pretty impressive how he maintains that rhyme scheme throughout the entire song, all 3 verses...even if he does repeat a lot of the same words for the long-I parts. The muffled effect on his voice is cool. Still ending in the middle of/....sentences, and continuing to the next rhyme/...scheme. He builds up to the shouting, which adds to the intensity and makes for a satisfying release. I got a kick out of the whole thing leading to the "Fire Marshall" concept for a persona that I assumed would just be a one time thing. Maybe he reads this board. The coolest "brag track" he's done so far...in part because he's mixing it with the truth.

9/10

Asshole: Boring syl-la-ble bouncing flow in the first verse. This song was pretty much doomed from the start, putting Skylar Grey on there. Horrible production...whoever thought of this is out of his mind. Second verse is incredible, but he's in the middle of that horrible beat. He needs to use THAT voice and flow on a more regular basis. If he rapped like that full-time, all other rappers would bow to him.

5.5/10

Berzerk: Yeah yeah, it's an ode to old school rap...doesn't mean I have to like it. I don't like Rick Rubin's style, either. Don't like the first verse. After that, he's all over the place...which is better than monotonous shouting, but why would I choose to listen to this, exactly?

5.5/10

Rap God: All over the place. It's nice that he can rap triple time like Mac Lethal, but all this track really is is him trying to show off a bunch of different flows. It's like he doesn't get that nobody with any brain cells has ever questioned whether or not he can flow. And given how poorly structured his timing is most of the time these days, all he's doing is convincing people exactly the opposite of what he wants to convince them of. What he's saying just isn't interesting to me...at least until the "they're asking me to eliminate some of the women hate, but if you take into consideration the bitter hatred I had/Then you may be a little patient and more sympathetic to the situation and understand the discrimination " part. That was the one highlight on the song for me.

5.5/10

Brainless: Finally, a little bit of his old style. This is the most recognizable he is on the album, although I can't help but be reminded a little bit of Canibus with his voice in the first verse. That reminds me - same thing with the beginning of the last part of Bad Guy. This is some of the best aligning he does on the album, and the chorus is classic Eminem. "Insert insult here" was a brilliant touch in the third verse. Then the acceleration in his flow and the voice around the "this hip hop shit" part is another example of the Eminem delivery I want to hear much more of. That's him letting the "legendary underground emcee within" take over...if he went with that guy full-time, he'd get every ounce of the respect he craves. Ending is hilarious..."Insaneness ain't even a word, you stupid FUCK." Eminem is almost too articulate for rap music now, which might factor into his poorly structured timing on other songs. Maybe the pills caused him to forget exactly how he used to put on the slang/w1gger thing and repress his linguistic knowledge so he'd fit in. He could probably teach English classes at this point.

9.5/10

Stronger Than I Was: Not sung nearly as well as Hailie's Song. This is him using his solid low vocals and poorly harmonizing them with terrible high vocals for way too long in a song. Pretty interesting flow on the rap verse, but it's still an example of him not truly having any connection to what he's saying, but just forcing it into the flow how he desires. Don't hear anything that indicates it's from Kim's perspective, as people on here have suggested. Haunting tone, though...kind of seems more experimental in nature.

6.5/10

The Monster: "Eh, I'll only rhyme 2 syllables here." Eminem needs to realize Rihanna's only purpose in life is domestic abuse songs. Are those traces of the accent I hear in the beginning? If only it were as detailed rhyme-wise as Relapse. I can hear this one being played to death on the radio...and making me want to vomit. More of that forced flow that he's been doing to death. Land the syllables, split the sentences when necessary (which is often), shout the last word of a line so you can make it sound intentional when waiting for the next bar to start. At least it's not Not Afraid.

3/10

So Far: As I've said in other posts, Eminem's Joe Walsh impressions were pitch-perfect. Kind of say something to the "raping doezn't require talent" people. Eminem would be a much better rock singer than any rock singers would be rappers, even now with polyps on the back of his tonsils eating his vocal chords. Eminem really sums up his life and personality in this song...being a fish out of water as a celebrity/being rich, and how he finds it hilarious himself. Embracing his redneck roots. Then making fun of not being computer literate and having no clue how any of this stuff works. This is him rapping about whatever he feels like and not caring whether da rill hip hawp fans and rappas think it's "corny." Still suffers from the misaligned sentences, but given how entertaining it is, I can live with it.

9/10


Love Game: Splitting sentences, splitting sentences, splitting sentences. More "my chick is fucking all these rappers" content. Kendrick Lamar..."hey, he just changed up his voice to another fake rap voice and I can't understand him, this means he killed it!" "I want you bad as the head shattered on George Zimmerman?" ~sigh~ You called TheSaurus a cock-swallowing novelist...bitch, that does not make sense. Eminem goes back into, "rapping fast is more impressive than letting people hear my rhyme schemes"-ville in his second verse. Some of the flows sound cool/impressive, but the fact that he's all over the place makes the general sound of it "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" background noise to me.

4/10

Headlights: I should hate this because he turns into a giant pussy and renounces Cleaning Out My Closet. I can see Eminem seeing his mother's mental state deteriorating (Alzheimer's?), I can see him being saddened by his estrangement from her enough to write a song as a tribute to her...but renouncing a song from his prime years, one that was probably justified given that she took what she didn't help him to get? I cringe just thinking about all the "he'z maturingz, instead of being immaturez like da old dayz" retards hearing that and feeling vindicated. I also think it's kind of a dick move to try to apologize to her but then tell her, "your mental state's deteriorating slow." Yeah, I'm sure that's what she wanted to hear from her son as he was apologizing. Still, what he did for much of the second verse was Eminem at his finest. He hit a zone when he arrived at transitioning from "Debbie Mathers" into "deadbeat dad was" and "every address" and "desert cactus." That's prime-Eminem caliber rhyme connecting. I like the first verse a little more than Amadeo does, too (with the exception of the first few lines). As he gets warmed up, he starts to sound in complete command of what he's doing and more creative with his flow. The part where he almost goes into singing "and I was the man of the house, the oldest, so my shoulders carried the weight of the load" is quite well timed.

9/10

Evil Twin: Cool Angry-Eminem delivery. This delivery goes well with the beat. Long pauses and some sentence splitting, but for some reason he reminds me of his underground days on this. Ending up at, "you're lucky I don't tear it off you"...that's late 90s Eminem. Nice "outrospective" lyrics looking at his career and the response as he discusses the idea of "Slim Shady." Too bad he didn't release this before the Breaking Bad finale. It would've been nice to play this at the end when Walt was walking into meth lab for the final time. There is no Slim Shady, and there is no Heisenberg. They're just names for the same person. Period.

9/10


Overall: This is what Recovery should have been, more or less. I do wish he'd 86 the splitting of sentences at the rhyme, the long pauses after shouting the last word of a line, and the punchlines...but I'm not getting my hopes up that that'll ever happen, so this is probably the best album we're ever going to get from him post-The Eminem Show.

[Kill You]

6/10 for So Much Better, get the fuck outta here.

[Whitefox]

Pretty nice review. But somehow I hate track-by-track reviews.

[therapist]

I'd give it a higher score but I respect your opinions .

[Iris2]

Probably the only good review I've seen so far. The completely useless songs like Survival and The Monster hurt the album a lot. But, the creativity of the album is undeniable.

[Trimss]

dead @ love game review

coondrick sux

try again

[Kill You]

"coondrick" is better than Kangay

[yoda you can call me]

Probably the only good review I've seen so far. The completely useless songs like Survival and The Monster hurt the album a lot. But, the creativity of the album is undeniable.

both track have a place on the album imo, granted, they have mainstream appeal, but the concept and lyrics of both tracks are dope, ems third verse on monster is dope as fuck

[SoldierShady]

whew. Good thing no1curr about your opinion.
Coo' thread doe.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

Fair, So Much Better is an 8 though... I can see why you don't enjoy the fast rapping, i think it's impressive on Rap God and Love Game but its not always good to listen to.

[CrashBand]

Nice review. Apart from the flow issues, I also dislike the punchlines. They're not necessarily as bad as Recovery, it's just that I find punchlines out of place, period, especially on a song like Bad Guy where it's essentially story-telling.

[Amadeo]

Great review. I'll let you deal with Menzo's retardation.

I was a little harsh on Headlight's first verse. I was so disappointed by the flow of "Desert storm, and both of us put together could form an atomic bomb equivalent to chemical warfare, and FOR-ever we could drag this on and on." The rest of the verse from this point on is solid.

Agree to disagree
That gift for me up under the Christmas tree don't mean shit to me
You're kicking me out? It's fifty degrees and it's Christmas Eve
"Little prick, just leave!" Ma, let me grab my fuckin' coat
Anything to have each other's goats while we always at each other's throats

This is great lyricism on paper, and a perfect way to sum up their turbulent relationship. Especially with the way he connects the coldness aspect (Christmas Eve/fifty degrees/grab my coat). This is like a mini-version of Our House with an almost identical impression of his mother. She must have kicked him out hundreds of times.

I've already raved about the second verse, but it's some of his most moving lyricism in years. "All you did, all you said, you did your best to raise us both! Foster care, the cost you bear!" This part is epic voice-acting.

The ending to the first verse and the beginning of the second verse being the same line make me wonder if he originally crafted one whole verse and decided to split it in half.

And yeah, given how long it took him to craft this album, I don't think we're going to get anything better...unless he spends five years on the next album.

[Amadeo]

=> Implying "The Monster" was a bunch of two syllable rhymes = Incorret

That was only in reference to the first verse, idiot.

He adds a couple syllables to the main scheme here and there, and a few internal rhymes...but it's mostly two syllables he's rhyming.

[Kill You]

Don't you just love when they only respond to the part of the message that makes them not look stupid?

[Amadeo]

Don't you just love when they only respond to the part of the message that makes them not look stupid?

You make Menzo look sane and rational. Twice the Stan, and twice the retard. You give Eminem fans a bad name.