by EminemBase » Dec 18th, '10, 13:34
This thing of "he was ''''on'''' drugs 'here' and 'here'" is really ridiculous.
I've done a lot of drugs, and am an addictive fucker, pretty much been addicted to or totally hammered; coke, ecstasy and codeine and experimented with or used LSD, ketimine and weed. People keep saying 'on' drugs like it's a permanent thing...
I can tell you from experience - They don't change your fucking personality when you are off them. It's not like he was literally ON drugs 24/7. Around SSLP etc. he was just popping pills at shows, after the shows - he returns to his total normal self.
And as far as we know, he wasn't popping pills when writing or making those songs and yet they still turned out like they did. The drugs were not the source of his artistic genius. I've heavily hammered drugs and they do not change you at all, they only change you when you are on them. Lets say you have a three day binge on coke (which I doubt he even went that far, from what he's said) - You're 'on' drugs for those three days then have a few days of recovery / depression.
But after that you snap back to yourself, it does not interfere with your normal thoughts, they leave your system. So fucking mystical traces of ecstasy weren't want helped him make The Marshall Mathers LP. The reason he was so great back then was because he's a reactionary artist and he got the ULTIMATE reaction(s) back then.
That's why he kept getting better and better from SSLP to TES then once people were used to him and it was dying down, he began tail spinning and losing inspiration. Why do you think he was so desperate to shock people on Relapse and Recovery. He's begging for a reaction, it's his fuel. He doesn't need it but it's the absolute key to his genius. The Marshall Mathers LP was one giant reaction.
The fact that he happened to also do drugs (when doing shows etc. not writing) is a total coincidence in terms of the quality of his lyricism. It's irrelevant when he's back to normal, plus from what he's said he was never addicted back then anyway. It was casual. So it's like wishing he'd wear a certain t-shirt or eat cheese again. It's superstitious, not reality. He may definitely be a different person, am sure he is - I change a lot in two years let alone 10 but none of that old fire had to do with getting high off fucking pills or doing mushrooms. You couldn't even write on mushrooms, you'd laugh yourself to death at the shape of the fucking pen. So he obviously wrote all of that sober.
Thing is nobody sees him / artists as actual humans. We forget that between albums - that's where 99% of his life and development occurs. So whist we can only see his life in a timeline of albums and thus plot his development from tracks, thinking he can quite easily snap back to a track 10 years ago just because it was only a few albums ago. But in reality, think of how much life you live in a year alone. How many thoughts you have, how many things you read, people you speak to, small changes that occur etc. He was a DIFFERENT MAN back then. You are not going to get the same music, not to mention the fact he's purposely trying to sound different.
So it's not a total inability, it's an artistic choice to change and evolve. But drugs have nothing to do, well... certain drugs may have inspired the odd thought, line or song but they did not make him the person he was and to suggest they were the reason for his entire artistry is fucking absurd.