Amadeo wrote:These aren't the days of The Way I Am. There is no label pressure on Eminem anymore. Every album is basically a guaranteed cash cow. They were probably thankful he was even putting out music in the first place, since the label was losing money in his long absence.
Not at all. Interscope was expecting Relapse to be huge and it didn't hit near their expectations, even though it sold really well. It was obvious they were pushing for a more commercial sound on the next album.
Eminem makes shitty music now, but he makes shitty music that he wants to make. If the label had any say on what he did, they'd remove the embarrassing "butt police" punchlines from his songs with Rihanna. But no, doesn't happen.
Labels would never change individual lines because they were bad. They would only ask him to remove something or censor it if they thought it was too offensive like the Columbine line. And the reason he "wants" to make those shitty punchline songs is because he saw that's what all the popular rappers were doing when he came back and he thought that's what the people wanted. I don't see how that's not obvious. He didn't just decide one day to fill his verses to the brim with horrendous wordplay.
As for your other points: Eminem never really worked with good rappers in the first place (even early on). He works with rappers he likes, and on a very rare occasion, that rapper will be good (Jay-Z/Royce Da 5'9, both of whom he still works with today).
He normally works with his label mates and friends.