“The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)” by Eminem – The Minnesota Daily

Eminem has fallen flat on his face with his twelfth studio album, “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce),” released Friday. Eminem has become a shadow of his former self in recent years, with his 2017 album “Revival” representing his particular fall from grace, but with his latest LP he’s somehow managed to dig his rap career even deeper into the grave.

The once-respected rapper known for his unmatched inventive wordplay in the late ’90s and early 2000s has produced an album so terrible that it almost disregards his great contributions to hip-hop. This album has constant lyrical errors over mediocre beats that make the album extremely difficult to listen to all the way through.

23-year-old former Radio K DJ Rogan Isbell is a fan of Eminem’s earlier work, but says the rapper has clearly declined since his heyday.

“It just seems like he’s been gone creatively for almost 20 years,” Isbell said. “It’s hard for me to call him one of the greatest rappers of all time when you see other people have more consistently found ways to change in the rap game, while Eminem can sound like an old man yelling at the clouds.”

Isbell said Eminem should have retired by now.

“There’s no shame in giving up,” Isbell said.

Emimem’s lyrics are meant to be provocative, but on this album he consistently tries to provoke in the lamest way possible by repeating the same catchphrases and old-fashioned pop culture references.

Second track “Habits,” featuring singer-songwriter White Gold, is where you hear pretty much everything that’s wrong with this album. It’s one of many songs where Eminem is upstaged by the featured artist while patheticly attempting to stir up outrage in his lyrics.

“Women are mad and men seem to be getting giant clits / Yeah, I probably annoyed some feminists,” raps Eminem.

Even when the lyrics aren’t fancy, they’re woefully unimaginative, like when Eminem raps in “Habits” “in Pakistan gettin’ chased by a pack of stans” – a far cry from the wordplay that made him a legend in the first place.

Later on the same track, he takes things up a notch with a few more embarrassing bars when he raps, “Here come the censors, like the Avengers / And they gather around like Prince, then turn a word like ‘ginger’ into the N-word / All these pronouns that I can’t remember.”

There isn’t a compelling beat on the album until the seventh track, “Lucifer,” which was co-produced by Eminem’s mentor Dr. Dre. Unsurprisingly, the song is ruined from the start by Eminem’s lyrics, as he raps boring verses about “getting kicked off Twitter and TikTok for being so damn annoyed.”

The first minute of the ninth track, “Fuel,” is surprisingly good, which is no coincidence since Eminem doesn’t say a single word during it. Instead, Atlanta rapper JID takes the spotlight for one of the album’s few good moments.

The album’s first single, “Houdini,” follows shortly after, and features one of Eminem’s dumbest sample flips ever. The song miraculously feels like a breath of fresh air, a testament to how terrible this album is, because this song is still pretty bad.

Eminem turns down the cringe factor and gets serious on track 15, “Temporary,” which features frequent collaborator Skylar Grey. The song is a touching tribute to his daughter Hailie and stands out as a pretty good song in a sea of ​​garbage.

One of the album’s few good moments is “Tobey,” in which Eminem is outdone by up-and-coming Detroit rapper Babytron as he cheekily raps, “Tobey Maguire got bitten by a spider / but look, it was a goat.”

Eminem repeats the same line later in the song, and it just doesn’t land as well, which underscores the fact that Eminem isn’t funny on this album, no matter how hard he tries.

The rotten cherry on this album is the final track, “Somebody Save Me,” which is drowned in cheesy, sentimental, 2010-style production. It’s a forced, tender moment that’s not even a quarter as good as “Temporary.”

The Eminem who made great records like “The Marshall Mathers LP” is nowhere to be heard on “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce).” The 51-year-old couldn’t resist resorting to ill-conceived lyrics throughout his 64-minute project as he desperately tries to become relevant again.

Avoid this album at all costs.