Guess what, folks. Slim Shady is back on the charts.
Eminem appeared on a few tracks in the last few months; he was featured
in the single "Airplanes" by B.O.B (where his lost me by playing the mom
card once again) and laid a on top of "Over" by Drake.
It's a vast improvement on the original, I'll say.
So, how about his
fresh new single?
Eminem latest, "Not Afraid" heralds his upcoming album Recovery. There
is a bit of refreshing self-criticism in this track--although I thought
Relapse was worse than "ehhh".
Let's face it: This is just another song from the artist
that's telling us "I'm back, and I'm not holding back." Here, Eminem also declares
that "It's time to exorcise these demons" and "I ain't going back to
that now / All I'm tryin' a say is get back, click-clack blaow."
I respect what Eminem does. His
writing is often sharp--even when he takes risks like throwing out
cultural references with a half-life of weeks. Take it from someone who writes like that, Em--keeping things fresh is harder
than Family Guy makes it look.
So, what's the problem here? Well, Em's been down this road before with
older tracks--like on "Cleaning Out My Closet", where he promises to
vanquish the past and unpacks attacks that will make Patton slap himself
with an attache case and crap himself.
The follow-up tracks, though, while avid, reach a standstill when the emotional
baggage he's rapped about ad nauseam comes back. Hearing Eminem boasting about a coming smack-down, then seeing him
relapsing and blaming it on his mom, success, or whatever, is
aggravating. The disappointment just lingers with everything else he
does, and it's shameful to bring up.
I get the feeling it might happen again.
The new album Recovery is a few weeks away, so we'll see if Em cleans
out his closet this time around. If he takes a trite path and brings up
his mom or Mariah Carey again, then I'm gonna simply abstain from Slim
Shady's stagnant act.
I'll really do it, I swear.
