Em the perfectionist?

[Jimmy Conway]

don’t know if any other rapper is going, “Yo, we need a .1 dB up on that high hat” - that’s, like, the least amount of decibels you can go. Most people probably would not even hear a dB. But I’m sitting there: “No, it’s gotta have the exact right relation- ship with the snare and vocals.” That’s where I get carried away. Someone’s gotta literally come pry the fucking album from my fingers, because I’m still tweaking. And probably no one hears the difference.


It’s self-diagnosed. I could cop out and say it’s from music, but it’s not that. Once I got sober, I started noticing shit about my- self. Like, if I ran on the treadmill, if I had it in my mind that I needed to burn 500 calories, I hit that exact number. Part of me wonders, “Do I do it because I’m OCD or because I don’t want to be a quitter?” But then I sit there fucking with the drums on the mixing board for two hours, going, “Fuck, that snare is not right.” Now, I don’t know if it was always there and it was just always repressed with drugs.


So, I guess Em just left the OCD at home for Recovery, BME and every feature post Relapse?



It's weird to think of him dedicating that much time to his music and there being so many obvious flaws in them.

Especially back in the day he'd finish songs in a couple days.


Maybe OCD is fucking up his thoughts before the go from thought to finish song.

[emusic]

Don't get things confused.

His standards for what is good changed, not his perfectionism.

I am perfectionist, and If you were a perfectionist and you thought it would be good to paint a room fully blue, you won't relax till every part is blue exactly like you imagined it. Although painting a room fully blue won't look good to others.

He perfected those styles to the point he felt this is how it should sound like (he thought it sounded good, and tried his best to make it look like that) it was something totally different from anything he did before.

And it's not like all post Relapse music was shit, a lot of good music came out of it.

[Drax207]

^ Yep. He made his verses on "I Need A Doctor" in two or three hours, which are some of his best post-comeback verses if you ask me.

And I agree plus Skylar was in tears when she heard him recording these. He also did a great job writing Dre's verse

[Mr Change]

Oh look, another post that points out Eminem flaws since his return but for some reason (no reason) leaves out Relapse from the discussion.

Just because you're OCD or you are a perfectionist doesn't mean what you arrive on as 'complete' or 'perfect' is as good as someone else would think, or good at all for that matter.

There were things that kept Recovery, the BME project, and his guest features from being positive, but don't act like Relapse is omitted from this just because this forum has a fetish for it. It's a fricken album where he spends the whole time speaking in tongues and accents about stalking women, raping women, and killing women. Yet Em is obviously expressing his perfectionism because it doesn't feature pop-stars. (OR teh awsum multieez OR cuz teh concepp right? tutawl masturpeace)

I know I may have picked a part out of this post and addressed it over everything else, but I couldn't help myself.

[EminemBase]

Well I definitely think he's obsessive about detail, you can hear it in his writing, but...

He can't be THAT bad, because true perfectionists get nothing done, a lot of the time. it leads to chronic procrastination and obsessive standards which are never met, see: Dre / Detox.

I'm a perfectionist. Or a lazy cunt. Not that I ever produce anything amazing, but I totally can see why Dre is not close to putting out Detox and when he speaks on it - he's probably driving himself absolutely fucking crazy. I was near tears the other night because I couldn't even start a task. For months.

[unmissingpiece]

Well I definitely think he's obsessive about detail, you can hear it in his writing, but...

He can't be THAT bad, because true perfectionists get nothing done, a lot of the time. it leads to chronic procrastination and obsessive standards which are never met, see: Dre / Detox.

I'm a perfectionist. Or a lazy cunt. Not that I ever produce anything amazing, but I totally can see why Dre is not close to putting out Detox and when he speaks on it - he's probably driving himself absolutely fucking crazy. I was near tears the other night because I couldn't even start a task. For months.

That's me too a lot. It's so hard for me to get anything done, because I procrastinate like crazy. I get really depressed and frustrated when little things are off, and I can cry forever if my marks drop a little.

I think Em really can be a perfectionist at times in some aspects of his music. Didn't he say he procrastinated on working on MMLP2, leading to that 3 year gap? Not that making music doesn't take time but..

[Squiggles123]

Well I definitely think he's obsessive about detail, you can hear it in his writing, but...

He can't be THAT bad, because true perfectionists get nothing done, a lot of the time. it leads to chronic procrastination and obsessive standards which are never met, see: Dre / Detox.

I'm a perfectionist. Or a lazy cunt. Not that I ever produce anything amazing, but I totally can see why Dre is not close to putting out Detox and when he speaks on it - he's probably driving himself absolutely fucking crazy. I was near tears the other night because I couldn't even start a task. For months.

This is spot on.

A lot of my teachers used to call me a perfectionist when I was at school, especially in the subjects I was the worst at (art mainly), it ties in with being afraid to fail and I struggle with that a lot too. I work casual at a couple of places but I've never really been able to get a full-time job because I'm afraid to apply myself in case I fail, which is obviously better then not trying at all. I start a lot of things and never finish them similar to what you are saying EmBase and It really does drive you crazy and is depressing, I try and write but I usually just move on to the next thought before attempting to finish the last, which is why when I wrote a 16 for that mosh pit cypher on here it was a pretty big thing for me personally, just to finish it. /endrant

Basically being a perfectionist is more often a bad thing then good.

[emusic]

Well I definitely think he's obsessive about detail, you can hear it in his writing, but...

He can't be THAT bad, because true perfectionists get nothing done, a lot of the time. it leads to chronic procrastination and obsessive standards which are never met, see: Dre / Detox.

I'm a perfectionist. Or a lazy cunt. Not that I ever produce anything amazing, but I totally can see why Dre is not close to putting out Detox and when he speaks on it - he's probably driving himself absolutely fucking crazy. I was near tears the other night because I couldn't even start a task. For months.

Your're right. But I think Em has it as bad as the rest of us. He says you have to pry the songs from me, and he's never pleased %100 with what he does, and part of him being modest is because he really isn't satisfied with his work, when someone praises anything I do, I feel a sort of shame, like I'm fooling them, because I couldn't really make the works the best it can be.

BUT he learned to deal with it better.

I'm learning to do that, for example I make myself "work without thinking", I also started to work on Uni projects early, because I know I'll work the shit out of it, and I'll never be satisfied. I'm making myself more active (doing anything, helping others, making tea for whoever asked...) so I get use to working, so doing something becomes less of a chore.

Two years past of my life where I just ate and got fat and slept, my brain constantly thought of writing and reading, of the things I want to dedicate my life to. But I was watching time passes by.

Being a perfectionist is advantage sometimes, it makes you work harder to reach that exiting perfect image (it makes you see a bigger image than others.) It can be a disadvantage if you get caught up in the overwhelming perfect image in you head, It could paralyzes you from fear of the amount of work you have to do to reach it. That's why breaking tasks to smaller tasks help a perfectionist start.

All my dad does now, is sleep and eat and sleep some more, he is so helpless and lazy (he always was lazy and depressive) I always felt that a big part of it is because he is perfectionist. I fear becoming like him, so I'm really doing my best to focus on my writing and work hard "without thinking" or over analyzing what I'll do so much.

So to get back to Eminem, he worked hard on himself, Dre made it take the best out of him.