kkaniff wrote:"Em is at his best not when he's
looking inward and documenting his
life for you to 'relate to', but when
he's provoking and creating"
....
Lose Yourself
The Way I Am
Marshall Mathers
Sing For The Moment
Cleaning Out My Closet
'Till I Collapse
Are some of his best work, all examples of "looking inward and documenting his life..." equal to and even exceeding the brilliance of his flights of fancy.
Personal songs are what made Eminem the musical icon he is today, they're what he's known for.
"Lose Yourself" is in-character, and has an emotional concept that looks outward, that speaks to the listener with a purpose - it is not Eminem saying 'hey I went through this', it's Eminem using his talents for the purpose of inspiring, storytelling... this is him creating.
"The Way I Am" is introspective, but it was still new - and was a reactionary response to pressure, it came out of him as a burst of energy in response to stress happening RIGHT THEN, and it's far more than Eminem looking inward and saying 'hey, you feel this too?' - there's political points in there, social commentary, and it serves as the leading conceptual line and bridge for the entire album - "I am whatever you say I am" - becoming the misconceptions for an entire record.
"Marshall Mathers" - you call that true introspection? Like most of MMLP, that's him taking his life and exaggerating it, ficationalizing it, and provoking and poking fun. He's isn't just saying 'hey I went through this, you did too? cool, relate plz x'. It's part-fiction, part-conceptual.
"Sing for the Moment" is more socio-political than it is personal. That's him looking outward more-so than inward. It includes some personal elements of his life, some personal views (as all of his work does), but he captures what he does as an entertainer, he raps about it through a political lense and his potential benefit on youth... this is far from an introspective document.
"Cleaning Out My Closet" is an all-out attack... these tracks you're mentioning are part-conceptual because he has an aim other than the listener just relating to them unlike something like "Beautiful" where he's just reaching for that reach back. On this track, he's attacking his mother... he's using his talent as a means of settling a score... again, that's not really what I mean.
"Till I Collapse" is Em rapping about rapping; rapping about his place in the game. Using his passion and his view of himself as fuel for a little pump-up concept...
Eminem using his life as FUEL for concepts is not what I am saying is bad or shit or simplistic. He does that even in "Kill You" or something which on the face of it may seem purely provocational or 'insane' artistically. None of these examples are really that...
Eminem is at his best when using his life to fuel concepts or semi-conceptual rap, songs with a reason to exist outside of purely telling us 'hey, I went through this' - all of the songs you've listed have a reason... and aren't really that at all. Most are in-character, political or conceptual.
Plus, when he was new and fresh and none of his life stories were known... these topics were new topics even to him, which is why he could rap about them so passionately or angrily. But at this point, probing his personal life or trying to reach in to that limited well always results in what feel like total retreads. And he's much more talented than just 'hey, I had a bad day', which is what his core fans seem to want OVER, and OVER, and OVER...
Seriously, how many times do you need to relate? How many times do you need to know he goes through shit too? Don't you want something a little bit more ambitious than transparent documenting? Isn't he capable of a LOT fucking more than that.
PERSONAL is not the problem. You're listing songs with personal elements... all of his songs have personal elements or stories or views from his life. That is not what I mean. I mean, when a song is nothing more than 'I went through this'... it's a lame use of his talents.
God, that's so unimaginative and boring @ just wanting him to do that all the time.
