Review Summary: A great concept album that's held back by a couple pesky old habits.
The cultural significance behind Slim Shady cannot be understated in the slightest. If you were an impressionable youth in the year of our Lord 2000, like me, you’ll have probably gobbled up every saliva-soaked onion ring from this rebellious white-tee-baggy-jeans-wearin’ Slim Shady character and everything he stood for. In 1999 Marshall Mathers was in the throes of planting Semtex on American culture’s weak points with
The Slim Shady LP. A year later, he hit the detonator with
The Marshall Mathers LP and caused an unstoppable cultural revolution – a tempest that either swallowed you up and spat you out looking like a Wish version of Slim, or you didn’t make it out at all because you were on the receiving end of Marshall’s fatal weapon, the pen. The cause for this hysteria isn’t hard to pinpoint; even with his image and incredible proficiency out of the equation, Eminem’s greatest qualities were being able to internalise and commentate on his own influence, as well as putting a spotlight on the glaring contradictions within a society that wanted him silenced. Which is why “The Real Slim Shady”, like so many other songs from that album, is such a timeless masterclass in songwriting – a track that highlights Eminem’s astute foresight and commentary on a landscape that was deprived of (with the exception of a few other acts in the mainstream at the time) artists with an unadulterated earnestness to them. Unfortunately, for all of Slim Shady’s sharp wit and honesty, as a character, he was a brash adolescent with a youthful rebelliousness to him, something Eminem realistically couldn’t sustain forever. The problem, however, is that it has been the very metric used to judge his work ever since dropping the character in 1997.
I am guilty of this as much as anyone. Post
The Eminem Show the quality of his material has been volatile – a constant struggle with identity, experimentation, and even before today, nostalgia-baiting. We’ve had bizarre collaborations with artists that, twenty years ago, would have been slaughtered, figuratively speaking, by Eminem; weird stylistic preferences that don’t mesh with his best sounds; and an overabundant reliance on technical prowess to compensate for his inability to write engaging songs. So believe me when I say, I had deep reservations for this twelfth studio album,
The Death of Slim Shady (Coupe De Grace). It had everything going against it: a cheap, clickbait-y title (one that could be interpreted in a couple of ways, most pertinently, arguing that Slim Shady died twenty years), and a single for it that was parading around in a Slim Shady skinsuit. It all came off overwhelmingly soulless – a handful of ripe, succulent memberberries to distract you from Em’s creative bankruptcy, or so it first appeared. When “Tobey” dropped, the gamut began to reveal itself in more intriguing ways. Thematically, the concept of Eminem going against Slim Shady is undeniably engaging, but sonically “Houdini” and “Tobey” side-by-side presented a dichotomy of egos going at it, executed in a surprisingly efficient way. Together, both tracks showed a nice mixture of contemporary Em mixed with his turn-of-the-century roots, and this was largely down to the fact real care had gone into the instrumentals themselves.
My biggest gripe with anything after
The Eminem Show is the music itself, which lacks the ostentatious, funky memorability of his works prior. Like so many other artists, there tends to be an integral player or core ingredient that makes someone’s music special. For Eminem, it’s clear as day the Bass Brothers were the essential component to his songwriting, since they were responsible for some of his biggest tracks, and as they moved away from Em’s music so did the quality. With the album’s singles there was real promise being shown, but regrettably, there’s been an opportunity missed with
The Death of Slim Shady (Coupe De Grace)’s overarching sound, as it would have been cool to hear a mixture of old school beats, in the vein of his Bass Brother records, with a modern-day production style and MO. We do get to hear Slim Shady’s charismatic voice from time to time, but unfortunately there isn’t anything too similar instrumentally speaking, bar “Houdini” and “Brand New Dance” which ape Em’s circa 2004 sound. That being said, even after the fact, the music doesn’t feel like an addendum in the writing process. “Tobey” has surprising depth and nuance to it, that, on the surface, seems repetitious and guest-heavy, considering Eminem is only in the last third of the track, but with more listens it unearths a wealth of subtleties. It’s an atmospheric powerhouse that uses an upbeat linchpin jingle, juxtaposed with haunting synths and electric guitar chords that hiss in the background to effectively build up the track. Couple that with BabyTron and Big Sean for setting up Eminem’s bars and the song becomes the best thing Eminem has written since “Killshot”. Other highlights like “Lucifer” has this devil-may-care vibe to it, with a sashaying rhythm, jangly guitar part and this gospel undertone which adds flavour, while “Brand New Dance” has this unhinged Primus vibe to it (which walks a fine line between incredibly irritating and amusing). Outside of these flamboyant numbers, tracks like “Trouble” and “Guilty Conscience 2” ground the record where needed by stripping down to hard-hitting hip-hop simplicity. On the whole, at just over an hour, the album does a great job of balancing the right styles and sounds. Sure, some of the instrumentals retain issues I’ve had with Eminem’s works for decades now (namely “Temporary”, “Somebody Save Me” and “Bad One”), but I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t a massive improvement that attempts to iron out a lot of the tasteless songwriting plaguing Eminem’s work since Jeff Bass’ departure.
In short,
The Death of Slim Shady (Coupe De Grace) is the best record Eminem has done since
The Marshall Mathers LP2; making it markedly superior with a concept that is undisputedly the crowning draw of the album.
The Death of Slim Shady (Coupe De Grace) sees Eminem struggling with his alter ego in a way not too dissimilar to how Evil Ash comes into being in The Army of Darkness movie. It’s this goofy back-and-forth with Eminem as we know him today wrestling with this relic from the past, and frankly, it’s a joy to sit through just to hear what happens next. The overall takeaway from the record’s messaging is Eminem letting you know he’s so far removed from this edge-lord doppelganger everyone wants to hear, he’s having to physically make an album killing him off. The distain is most prevalent on “Evil” and “Guilty Conscience 2” where he disses himself for punching down and saying things he regrets today, albeit still acknowledging he made an ungodly amount of money from it in the process. That being said; this isn’t a public apology that begs forgiveness, quite the contrary. Eminem sees the potential in bringing back Slim Shady, as it affords him the opportunity to scorch the earth one more time – aiming at cancel and victim culture, political correctness, feminists, beta males and the LGBT community, as well as calling out classic individuals like Christopher Reeves, Caitlyn Jenner and R.Kelly, or contemporary figures like Candace Owens, Megan Thee Stallion and Amber Heard, to name a few. What makes this so fascinating is the framing. In essence, Slim Shady does the majority of the heavy lifting during the touchy parts, while Eminem himself tries to play the rational personality in it all, and I think it works pretty well here. One could argue he’s using Slim Shady as a scapegoat for all the edgy stuff being said in
The Death of Slim Shady (Coupe De Grace), but given how well the concept is developed, you can overlook this.
So look,
The Death of Slim Shady (Coupe De Grace) isn’t a blazing return to glory, but it is an intriguing album filled with some legitimately light-hearted and funny moments – something I feel has been sorely lacking in his material for years now – the battle between Eminem and Slim Shady is a great concept that is explored pretty competently here, and the instrumentation, while far from perfect, captures the essence of what he’s trying to accomplish here. There are some missed opportunities for sure, and the back end of the record regresses back to awkwardly forcing pop elements into his sound (flying close to
Revial vibes *yuck*), but the guest list is strong and the music is largely consistent throughout. I will concede this album wouldn’t be half as entertaining had it not been for the concept, but with it, Eminem creates some of his highest moments in decades. The question remains on what this means for Eminem in the future. With “Temporary” and “Somebody Save Me” in mind conceptually, one could conclude this is Marshall Mathers’ swansong, but if it isn’t, with Slim Shady buried, where does he go from here?
