Recovery: Eminem's Apotheosis

[sandro]

Recovery IMO was an album that HAD to be done, not for the good nor for the bad! Eminem knew the response for Relapse was 'poor' by critics and his listeners (which i find is bullshit relapse is excellent). Recovery to me was to really sell the whole image of being sober and clean,(unlike relapse) having straight thoughts no more accent's which got the most criticism for... also the subject matter, critics claiming he hasn't matured and other shit (look it up). The thought process for the marketing was most likely along the lines of: 'lets just blame that on relapse, his first album back, yeah that'll work. Which it did, Recovery sold millions! the image they 'built' worked. Corny yes, but it was true.. and it helped him sell, especially with the opening single putting to shame his previous critically acclaimed record. It all tied in "Recovery" wasn't a desperate attempt to become relevant but more of a 'comeback' commercially as an artist and boy did it work! he nearly reached super stardom twice and on top of that a 'hit' single with Rihanna! this shit was well thought out by his team. An album which used singles to carry the albums success, hence all the damn fillers on it which is probably why the songs sound so similar, because they wanted people to get that same 'single' sound with the 'hottest producers'

In a nutshell; this album was made to sell the 'brand' Eminem on a global scale all over again aiming for all target audiences.

& we should respect Em for taking that risk (as an artist, choosing that sound in particular) because this could of have some huge negative results.

EDIT: There's numerous interview with Eminem saying after relapse he knew he needed a new sound, and some time in recording 'relapse 2' he managed to find it, or his team did.

I think it's a myth that "Eminem's team" have anything to do with his musical/songwriting decisions.

Eminem's hands-on with everything and controls every aspect of his art. His team is there for marketing only.

When Eminem is surrounded by a bunch of yes-men i'm fairly certain that his team would definitely effect his decisions. Especially if the label was giving him pure statistics on the last record with its general criticism towards his audiences (wasn't a huge variety) he knew something had to be done, and so did his team/label without a doubt especially paul.

[Him Shadow]

Somehow, everybody has managed to completely miss the point, other than Himshadow and, tangentially, Sandro.
It is not about the quality of the art as you perceive it, that thread-as Melanie so rightfully said- has been made dozens of times.
Surely y'all are able to take a completely objective look at the album, completely divorced from your feelings and personal opinion about the album, and actually see what it is?

I actually did that a few days ago... I kind of cleared my mind and left the bias behind me (is it the right phrase? ) and listened to the whole album and turned out I forgot that there's a few songs that are dope and I really like, but nothin' more than that

[mwm5952]

Somehow, everybody has managed to completely miss the point, other than Himshadow and, tangentially, Sandro.
It is not about the quality of the art as you perceive it, that thread-as Melanie so rightfully said- has been made dozens of times.
Surely y'all are able to take a completely objective look at the album, completely divorced from your feelings and personal opinion about the album, and actually see what it is?

How can you call out people in your original post who don't like recovery and then not expect them to respond in this thread??

I don't like the album (doesn't mean I hate it or don't listen to it), because as an Em fan, I appreciate the excruciating attention to detail in his writing. Every syllable has a damn purpose. HOWEVER, on Recovery, he had throwaway lines, verses, and entire songs (see Won't Back Down) littered throughout the album. He changed his entire style of rapping and starting throwing in puns and metaphors (and apologies on T2M) that made lil wayne look like a rap god. Does the window-pane line ruin LTWYL? No, it doesn't. But when you compare that song to his older material, or now newer material, it stands out as sub-par. On top of that, the way he rapped on the album, I enjoyed the yelling for the most part, but the way he lead up to a corny punch line and then paused afterword acting like he blew your mind, it's kind of embarrassing when you know the rest of his catalogue. So no matter what he was going for on this album, it's still subpar when it comes to technical aspects. That doesn't take the importance of the album away, but once the new car smell of the album wore off, and you break it down, it just isn't all that good when compared to the rest of his work.

[HotDawg]

recovery > relapse imo

[kkaniff]

Initially, this thread was supposed to highlight the obviously intentional steps Em has been taking on his path to music immortality.
I gave it a bit of thought and realised that Eminem is a largely uncredited genius in the art of self-marketing and the projection of a certain image.
I was going to give examples; the sheer genius of his feature game- all of Em's features make a point, usually "you're the hottest rapper out and I just killed you, what does that make me?"- the way he creates value through absence, giving each of his records enough time to be fully appreciated ("3 years later they'll go back and re-rate it" aka the Relapse effect), the sheer mythical nature of his presence, the hoodie and the hat even while performing- giving while remaining aloof etc.
It all just screams genius, and I was going to break it down, since I'm a huge fan of all that shit- The 48 Laws and its ilk are practically religious texts to me- but y'all had to make the "Recovery appreciation thread" and my paranoid ass was convinced that it was a plot by sheitan to kill me with sheer internet forum idiocy, so I tweaked it a little bit to serve as a counter to the other thread.
The reason I'm typing all this shit is because, obviously, my intentions in the OP were somewhat muddled by the tweaking and thus it was probably a bit difficult to understand.
I apologise.
My Point Is This since almost nobody seems to get it:
You don't like Recovery, fine, whatever. That is not the issue.
The issue is this; do you appreciate the fact that it is singularly responsible for Eminem's current popularity, that it is the second most important album of Eminem's illustrious career; being the second best selling album of this decade and responsible for his immense social media presence? Do you understand how much of an accomplishment it is to have an almost 5x Platinum rap album in 2010, and to re-emerge as the singular most important artist in music 10 years after the peak of your fame?
That's what this thread is about, not your (irrelevant) views on the quality of the album.

[kkaniff]

I think it was closer to a do or die situation than you think; imagine Kanye having to deal with low critic scores, or Beyonce not having the support of females with low self- esteem (jk)
Em has never been particularly loved or understood by critics, the main thing responsible for his status in the music world is his immense popularity, and Relapse, brilliant or not, wasn't good for that.
I dunno how lucid I'm sounding, I'm a bit tired.

[kkaniff]

^ You make good points, but ultimately, Relapse didn't bring the sort of global music domination that Eminem was used to.
And I don't think was a compromise- which implies that Em wanted to make a different type of music- so much as feeling that making songs about how fucked up he is while he was sober, didn't really make sense.
I thought, and I've said this before, that Recovery captured the essence of that period in Eminem's life perfectly.
And that's what I buy Eminem albums for.