{"id":6467,"date":"2018-01-28T23:50:24","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T04:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=6467"},"modified":"2018-02-05T09:37:20","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T14:37:20","slug":"eminem-revival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/eminem-revival\/","title":{"rendered":"Eminem <br>Revival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/eminem-revival.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-6470\" src=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/eminem-revival.jpg\" alt=\"Eminem, Revival\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/eminem-revival.jpg 250w, https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/eminem-revival-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>After 20 years in the game, Eminem is at an interesting place in his career. At this point, everyone has seen all his tricks. Meanwhile, rap radio has changed a lot in the four years since he last released a record, and he\u2019s always been about shock value and pop culture references. So it is with eyes very wide open that he\u2019s released his ninth album, <i>Revival<\/i> (Interscope Records).<\/p>\n<p>The album was prefaced by the single \u201cWalk on Water\u201d featuring Beyonce, which seemed to hint that <i>Revival<\/i> would be a more introspective and mature outing from Eminem. Over a drumless track punctuated by sounds that invoke that he\u2019s writing and tearing up letters as he\u2019s performing, the track seems designed to head off criticism before it starts. Call it the \u201c8 Mile strategy,\u201d where he says it about himself before you can. Fittingly, it\u2019s also the opening track on the album. As a statement of intent, it\u2019s effective. As a song, it\u2019s fine, but the combination of two of the biggest stars in music shouldn\u2019t just be fine. The biggest problem is that the Beyonce role could have been played by anyone. It seems more like a box to check rather than a true collaboration. It\u2019s also a bit of a head-fake, as <i>Revival<\/i> seems to be exactly the Eminem album you\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n<p>Well, not entirely. There are some new wrinkles. The Slim Shady\/horrorcore aspect seems largely tabled. Even on \u201cFramed,\u201d which is the closest to the Shady of old, the gleeful psychopath is absent, replaced by a character whose actions are a result of drug use and who seriously believes he\u2019s being set up. While in the past the first-person was \u201chim,\u201d here it\u2019s clear that he\u2019s a character. A more mature version of Eminem is also present. Re-examining the relationship with his ex-wife Kim, who fueled many of the scorched-earth aspects of the early albums, as well as how his life has affected his daughter Haille, <i>Revival<\/i> shows that the 45-years-old is capable of getting his grown man on. Sure he\u2019s tackled such subjects before (on 2004\u2019s \u201cMockingbird,\u201d for example), but here it has a different weight. In addition, Em is more explicitly political, turning the fury he once displayed for Limp Bizkit and boy bands towards Washington and police brutality.<\/p>\n<p>On the flipside, Eminem can\u2019t seem to leave the juvenile attitudes behind. On \u201cOffended,\u201d he gleefully leans in because that\u2019s what\u2019s expected from him. But his punchlines are on a dad joke level. And do you want Eminem sex rhymes? Well, you\u2019re getting two songs worth. There\u2019s seems to be a huge hedging of bets, like he needed to make sure not to completely alienate longtime fans.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest problem with <i>Revival<\/i> is that its identity is all over the place. At a patience-testing 77 minutes, the album swings wildly from one place to the next. He goes from ignoring current music trends to forge his own path to jumping feet first into them. It\u2019s telling that the guest singers have such a large presence and the only rapper assist comes from Phresher on the very trap \u201cChloraseptic.\u201d Eminem has worked with Rihanna on his two biggest latter day singles, but it\u2019s strange to hear Ed Sheeran on a track. The songs aren\u2019t bad, but they do seem to feel obligatory rather than inspired. The problem is that because Em can do so much, he tries to do it all, and it winds up being too much. Though the collaboration should be a slam dunk, of the four tracks produced by the legendary Rick Rubin, one, \u201cWalk On Water,\u201d is okay; another, album closer \u201cArose,\u201d is a strong song; and two, \u201cHeat\u201d and \u201cRemind Me,\u201d may lead you to throw your listening devise across the room.<\/p>\n<p>The upside is that Eminem is rapping his ass off on <i>Revival<\/i>, with a stunning amount of new technical flows and cadences and just verbally doing things that are legitimately awe-inspiring. The problem is that it all never really comes together. Taken in bits and pieces, <i>Revival<\/i> is the record you\u2019d want from current day Eminem, but as a whole, it doesn\u2019t live up to its name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After 20 years in the game, Eminem is at an interesting place in his career. At this point, everyone has seen all this tricks. Meanwhile, rap radio has changed a lot<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[34,2145,1167],"class_list":["post-6467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-review","tag-eminem","tag-interscope-records"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Eminem Revival - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/eminem-revival\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eminem Revival - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After 20 years in the game, Eminem is at an interesting place in his career. At this point, everyone has seen all this tricks. Meanwhile, rap radio has changed a lot\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/eminem-revival\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheAgitReader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-01-29T04:50:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-05T14:37:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/eminem-revival.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dorian S. Ham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@agitreader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@agitreader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dorian S. 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