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Review Summary: Do you foo’s listen to music - or do ya just skim through it? Some average schmuck recently became a millionaire after publishing an extremely brief book on ‘how to enjoy watching an American football game’. It is amazing that knowing what to watch while viewing a football game is something that fans take for granted, and something that is actually considered wisdom to some people. Similarly, in Hip hop, a very diverse genre, listeners often don’t focus their minds in the right way to enjoy the type of music in front of them.
The new Eminem/Shady Records album, Shady XV , is a quintessential example of an album that can only be enjoyed by a certain dedicated type of listener. This album initially comes across as very rough musically. Yet, with repeated listens and possibly a few readings of the song’s lyrics, the former glory of Eminem displays itself on this album. Listeners may initially be turned off by Eminem’s lack of enjoyable rhyme patterns, but eventually his clever rhyme schemes show themselves, and not only do they become easy to follow, they are also extraordinary for their intricacy alone. This album is like cheap liquor, you just need to get through the bad taste until you can’t taste anything anymore. Once you get over the overload of rhyme schemes and lyrical topics, the album becomes enjoyable for precisely what made it initially upsetting. The insanely dense topics and complex rhymes suddenly become a coherent hyper-speed journey through your brain, creating a brilliant movie that flashes in your mind, once you are able to follow the songs. It's this emotion Eminem tries to instill in his listeners today, he tries to take their minds into a version of "Rap God"'s music video.
It is not just the way Eminem arranges words like some masterful puzzle-solver, but also the thought-provoking concepts expressed in the music. One unfair criticism of Eminem has been that 'he raps about the same things as he did decades ago.' Music, rap especially, has never been solely about innovation. Furthermore, an artist or group can be innovative without changing their subject matter one iota. You don’t have to progress from making love songs to discussing astrophysics to be a great musician or profound poet. This is not to give credit to the claim that Eminem has not evolved his subject matter, he has, but it is important to note that he is so clever he is able to make even his mundane life story awesome through sheer wit. Something about hearing the story of a twenty-something year old pizza guy becoming the CEO of a record label strikes a note in this reviewer’s heart, and whether Eminem is displaying his frustration with women through blatant vulgar misogyny or intelligent poetic introspection, he always manages a way to add another chapter to his story. Some stories are just worth hearing in intricate detail, and some stories are worth hearing more than once. Even when he is just being frivolous with misogyny, homophobia and random violence, he makes his raps fun. He loves rapping just to to do it now days, and you can tell. He isn’t just doing this for attention or to stir controversy anymore; he just does it because it’s fun. He reminds us all to take a step back and have a laugh about making fun of each other. He reminds you of what it was like to be a kid.
I am on the same life path as Eminem, and will soon be CEO of a million dollar company, so I will generously share my million-dollar wisdom by telling you this: to enjoy rap: you need to listen to the lyrics. As Judge Judy once said “You hear me, but you aren’t listening.” This album has some significant faults, there are a few bad hooks, most notably on the track “Twisted”, and some lackluster beats, most notably “ShadyXV”, but the rapping is essentially flawless, even revolutionary. It is not just Eminem who succeeds as an emcee. Em is actually out-shined by Slaughterhouse on the tracks “Psycopath Killer” and “Y’all Ready Know”. Yelawolf also manages to keep pace with Eminem. D-12 also kills it on the track “Bane”, spitting complex dark gloomy lyrics over the best beat on the album. Slaughterhouse and Yelawolf are some of the best mainstream rappers on the planet right now, and Eminem is living on Mars. To not enjoy this album is to not try. If you have your mind set on this album being another disappointing version of Relapse it will become that to you. Yet, if you try to have some fun with this album, it doesn’t take much more than a some positivity and zig zags to realize this album features the best rapping of the year, by far.
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Album Rating: 3.5
something about this clicked with me on like my fifth listen
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Similarly, in Hip hop, a very diverse genre, listeners often don’t focus their minds in the right way to enjoy the type of music in front of them because they don’t know how.
What a horrible way to begin a review. No matter your intention here you've just started off with "I know how to listen to this, but you don't. Let me explain how you are wrong via my apparent superior listening prowess"
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Yeah i really struggled to not sound like that and rather to imply this just takes a few listens and maybe a read of the lyrics (next paragraph).
You are right though, it comes across like that even after I try to make up for it in the preceding and following lines. : /
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"I am on the same life path as Eminem, and will soon be CEO of a million dollar company" lol ok then
| | | Album Rating: 1.5
'What a horrible way to begin a review. No matter your intention here you've just started off with "I know how to listen to this, but you don't. Let me explain how you are wrong via my apparent superior listening prowess"'
It's aight though because he's going to be CEO of a million dollar company
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'What a horrible way to begin a review. No matter your intention here you've just started off with "I know how to listen to this, but you don't. Let me explain how you are wrong via my apparent superior listening prowess"'
LOL are you serious, that's how you act 86% of the time
anyway good review actually
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Actually it's 87% of the time. Maths right?
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something like that and math
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Good review man, but it reads higher than a 3.5 to me.
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I'd say this reads like a 3.5 - you praise his rapping, but point out a couple major flaws as well.
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"Music, rap especially, has never been solely about innovation."
Way to insult your favorite genre lol.
But the review was actually pretty good so I pos'd it.
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"has never been solely about innovation"
I don't see how this is insulting. he's saying there's other important stuff besides how forward-thinking an artist is, which is a fair argument
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Fuck eminem
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
"To not enjoy this album is to not try"
Yeah nah but other than that general attitude in the last paragraph this isn't a bad review. I just can't truly enjoy Eminem nowadays due to the jarring misogyny and homophobia that seems to just be thrown in cos "this is what people liked about me before, right?"
I'll listen to this once at some point but likely no more than that, sorry. Unfortunately some people have actual reasons to not enjoy the music you personally appreciate
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
I don't get your criticism because you rate eminem's early works high, when he could have actually been considered a serious homophobe/misogynist, but now that he has gone to great lengths to apologize and stress he is just screwing with people who take the power of 'bad' words too seriously, now you are upset with his lyrics?
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Yeah, I honestly don't understand your wording throughout the review. I feel as though you talk down to your readers, and several times in this review you essentially mention that if people don't enjoy this, they simply don't get it:
"Similarly, in Hip hop, a very diverse genre, listeners often don’t focus their minds in the right way to enjoy the type of music in front of them."
and
"To not enjoy this album is to not try. If you have your mind set on this album being another disappointing version of Relapse it will become that to you. Yet, if you try to have some fun with this album, it doesn’t take much more than a some positivity and zig zags to realize this album features the best rapping of the year, by far."
I hope you understand that this is meant as a critique and not an attack. Many hip-hop aficionados will not find this to be a good listen, and it won't be because they didn't try to enjoy the album. It bears no mention here, as you have been able to discuss and relate your points elsewhere in your review quite well.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off
I don't get your criticism because you rate eminem's early works high, when he could have actually been considered a serious homophobe/misogynist, but now that he has gone to great lengths to apologize and stress he is just screwing with people who take the power of 'bad' words too seriously, now you are upset with his lyrics?
I'm guessing that his feelings are along the lines of "his shtick is getting old" or something like that, also damn this has way too many negs
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it's alright, when LambsBread becomes CEO he can buy off this website and remove all the negs at will lel
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@Johnny: You're right, I guess I kind of just glazed over the word "solely."
"it's alright, when LambsBread becomes CEO he can buy off this website and remove all the
negs at will lel"
Can he also add more genre tags?
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Need a "real hip-hop" tag tbh
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