Eminem: Review of “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)” – guess who’s back, with less bite than ever | Eminem

The album Death of Slim Shady is full of memorable lines. Some are memorable because they showcase their author’s unparalleled skill as a rapper: they whiz by in a perfectly articulated, rhythmically precise torrent of homophones, references and puns. Some because their raunchy, nihilistic wit provokes exactly the reaction their author presumably intended: a kind of horrified laughter you let out in spite of yourself, followed by a wave of guilt so overwhelming that you don’t want to highlight the line in question for fear of being damned by the association. And some are memorable because they arrive with a dull, shrugging thud, the unmistakable sound of an artist trying too hard to shock. Perhaps the most telling line comes on Lucifer, which, with its Dr. Dre-produced, bouzouki-sampling beat, has all the makings of the album’s strongest track. “But Marshall,” says Eminem, addressing himself as he often does, “it’s like you came from the year 2000 and stepped through a portal.”

It’s a lyric that seems to strike a chord with The Death of Slim Shady’s raison d’être. Eminem has cut a curious figure over the past decade, still reliably posting incredible sales numbers—every album he’s released has gone platinum in the U.S.; his 2020 single Godzilla reached nearly 10 million sales worldwide—while seemingly struggling to find a place for himself in a musical landscape that has changed dramatically since his early 2000s heyday. Is he the dour keeper of traditional hip-hop values ​​jettisoned in an era of mumble rappers and Auto-Tune, as the indignant verbal attacks he launched against a younger generation of artists on 2018’s Kamikaze suggest? Is he a markedly different character from the twenty-something nihilist who sold 25 million copies of The Marshall Mathers LP and used his eccentric poetry against the alt-right, as a series of freestyles and guest appearances in 2017 suggested? Or is he simply the sulky, middle-aged reactionary his more prescient critics might have predicted, railing like a Daily Mail columnist about millennial snowflakes and wokeism?

Conveniently, a sustained wave of early ’00s revivalism has allowed Eminem a more straightforward path on his 12th studio album. The exalted keeper of the hip-hop flame and the MAGA-hater of 2017 both make appearances (the former in the lyrical references to Big Daddy Kane, Poor Righteous Teachers, Wu-Tang Clan, and underground duo Cella Dwellas; the latter in some lyrical attacks on right-wing commentator Candace Owens). But the album’s real purpose is a sort of historical re-enactment of an Eminem album from over 20 years ago, embedded in a somewhat convoluted plot about the reformed, mature Marshall Mathers once again obsessed with his nihilistic alter ego Slim Shady, who wants to turn him back into the person he once was. There are tracks that sound like throwbacks to Eminem’s past: the single Houdini contains an obvious throwback to his 2002 hit Without Me; the opening track “Renaissance” has a distinct hint of “Lose Yourself.” There’s a follow-up to “Guilty Conscience,” an infamous track from Slim Shady’s 1999 LP, and an interlude called “Guess Who’s Back,” which sees longtime character Ken Kaniff back in the fold.

It’s so single-minded in its reimagining of early ’00s Eminem that it sometimes seems oddly anachronistic. There’s a jab at “woke” culture here and there, but far more lines using the long-outdated term “political correctness.” There are references to Eminem’s addictions, despite the fact that he’s been clean and sober for 16 years. There’s an entire song poking fun at Christopher Reeve, who died 20 years ago: As it turns out, the track was actually written for 2004’s Encore, but pulled after the actor’s death. There are tapes of Eminem’s daughter Hailie, who is now a 28-year-old married woman but is still a small child in the context of the recordings here, as she was on 2002’s My Dad’s Gone Crazy. There’s an interlude that suggests the album will be received with protests so fierce that they turn into riots. It’s hard to listen to it without thinking, yes, that’s what he wanted.

The days when Eminem could provoke such angry reactions seem to be long gone, as evidenced by the reaction to Houdini. Some people online made a half-hearted attempt to stir up outrage over the line mocking the incident in which Tory Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion, but no one really bit, perhaps because there were more entertaining things to do in hip-hop. Where does a sick gag about Megan’s shooting sitting next to Kendrick Lamar, who has a number one US hit with a song claiming Drake is a pedophile? Complaining about Eminem’s sick gags is a bit like complaining about there being too much toilet paper on the toilet paper shelf at the supermarket.

This fact has clearly not been lost on Eminem, who nevertheless goes out of his way to cause offense. There are jokes about people with disabilities, about rape, about the sexual misconduct allegations against rapper/mogul Diddy, about overweight people, and about finding trans women unattractive. Eminem indulges in a certain amount of “having everything and eating nothing,” and follows many of these lines with lyrics denying or apologizing for them, as he is supposedly locked in a battle with his alter ego. Occasionally, the grim stuff lands a queasy punch. More often, it feels so desperate that it commits the cardinal sin of being boring and repetitive: Put it this way: If Caitlyn Jenner got royalties for every time her name was used as a punchline, she’d be an even richer woman.

Still, there are things to enjoy about The Death of Slim Shady. Eminem’s technical skills are as impressive as ever: impressive enough that his claim that rappers attack Lamar because they’re too afraid to doesn’t seem like a completely empty boast. The guest appearances from underrated Atlanta rapper JID and his Shady Records partner Ez Mil are strong. Aside from Lucifer, a few tracks also work purely musically. The grim menace of Road Rage shifts to acid-fueled electronica in exciting fashion. Guilty Conscience 2 ramps up the tension gradually and effectively. The staccato strings and soul vocals of Bad One are used incredibly well.

Yet for all its attempts at time travel, The Death of Slim Shady feels like just another late-period Eminem album. It has hits and misses in equal measure. It’s not bad enough to be considered terrible, and not good enough to be considered great. It’s bolstered by technical prowess, but suffers from a creeping sense of aimlessness. It’s another massive hit, no doubt, but it’s not enough to counteract the pithy statement Questlove recently made about Eminem: that he’s a man “who may have nothing left to say, but has quite a talent for saying it.”