Dec 15, 2017 Pretty generous review. The whole article is worth a read, but here’s the conclusion: The saddest part about all of this: Revival is probably the best Eminem album in a decade. Four years ago, on The Marshall Mathers LP 2 Eminem was rapping in Yoda voices and making blo-jo- noises and pretending to s---t a police dog during a skit. He doesn’t do any of those things on Revival, and he also manages not to let off with any homophobic epithets. There are only a couple of r--- jokes! That’s progress! He sounds more focused and motivated than he has in a while. He clearly cares deeply about the act of rapping. But his music continues to be a pure endurance-test slog. Revival is a glaringly clumsy 79-minute word-salad lurch. That’s just all Eminem knows how to make now. It’s who he is.
Dec 15, 2017 Nicely written but I dont agree with a lot of their points. Rick rubins tracks were the f---ing worst yet they said they were a nice refresher, also how does not having homophobic and r--- jokes make it a better album? At this point id rather hear more of them since society has become soo sensitive about r---/homophobic jokes, but Em is kinda too old for that now. Definitely not his best album in a decade, nah.
Dec 15, 2017 Because context and execution matters. He used to do it in a clever, tongue-and-cheek way, and in 99-02, it used to shock people. That’s why reviews of his earlier work would pay lip service to the fact that some content was “troublesome, problematic, etc.” but didn’t really dwell on this. That body of work had too many redeeming qualities to be marred by this. The shock value wore off over a decade ago (when’s the last time GLAAD protested Eminem? 2001?) and the execution has fallen from brilliant to barely listenable. Without any of these redeeming qualities, it’s just empty, garbage hate speech. And this comes from someone who has no problem with content that is offensive to society when it is delivered in an innovate, artistically valid manner.
