Dec 16, 2016

Listening to 'Cold wind blows' the other day made me think about the whole Stan/Anti-Stan divide. The song itself in my opinion is decent, but opinion on modern day Eminem music is individually down to how you weigh the positives and negatives against each other, and given the abundance of both it's easy to both love and hate post hiatus Eminem at the same time.

'Cold wind blows' in particular has a nice flow and a few really good lines, but the actual good lines are overshadowed by the really cheap and sometimes cringe ones. Cheap lines were littered all across Recovery, and apart from the "Comeback" narrative a lot of it lacked any meaning and was just made for sake of putting words together. Not that doing that is always a bad thing, but what usually compensates for lack of writing ability is the essence of what Eminem now lacks.

MMLP2 was a significant improvement in the quality of lines, but the drawback was the introduction of 'arena rock' type production which to some people was at times unbearably grating made worse by the fact that his more 'Aggressive' styles of delivery combined with his already harsh voice collectively sounded nearly inaudible .



The concept of sounding smooth is foreign to Eminem, which in the past, wasn't a problem as his technical sharpness and the clarity in his delivery was matched by few. Nowadays he suffers in an era where the thing he lost and things he was never good at are the things which define the modern era. Not that it's hard to appreciate his music for what it is, but it feels like it's own sub-genre or rap music, which in some ways can be both a good and bad thing. Great that he's different, but at times his most recent music sounds like the most dated of his entire career.

Back to his lyrical ability, his ability to make rhymes is legendary, and when he puts his mind into making actual content, he makes gems.

Lyrically speaking, this is one of his best verses ever (including both era's). "Karma's headed for Armageddon", for example happens to be my personal favorite line, but also seems to be the attacking point for those who dislike the verse mainly because of the change in delivery and flow at that point. This just shows how a simple perceived negative overshadows one of the best lines Eminem has ever put to paper, and unfairly so.

But how other people perceive Eminem music is borderline irrelevant to me as a fan in comparison to what us as fans see in him as potential to make good music. But at this point it's a gamble of expectations with a relatively low, yet reasonable probability of Eminem constructing another classic.

@EminemSXN

 

Dec 16, 2016

I used to think I'm biased towards Eminem because I've been a fan for so long that I won't be able to admit when he turns sour. But recently I've given up on some TV shows and video games sequels, which I've been a fan for just as long and just as hard. I had no problem in seeing, for example, the new South Park sucks and I've dropped it in an instant. I'm a huge fan of Max Payne games, but I had no problem seeing the 3rd game sucks a---. So I'm confident that I'm still enjoying Eminem's music and looking forward to the new album not because I'm stuck in Stan mode, but he's genuinely still able to keep me interested, impressed and entertained after all this time. I've surprised myself at my ability to quit stuff that I used to love when they start to s---, and that hasn't happened with Eminem.

My conclusion is, Eminem is still amazing and hurry up with the new album.