“Music to Be Murdered By” by Eminem
By James Schaak
Like many celebrities do after they’ve passed the peak of their careers, Marshall Mathers has been experiencing some sort of a mid-life crisis. A scroll through Eminem’s page on TMZ shows that his life since his last album, “Kamikaze,” has been occupied by a couple of bizarre references to using Grindr, wholly unnecessary beefs with Machine Gun Kelly and Nick Cannon, and the death of his estranged father, Bruce. As unfortunate as they might be, these stories do spur lots of questions about Eminem’s love life, how he looks at himself in the pantheon of famous rappers, and the complicated relationships he has with practically every member of his family.
“Music to Be Murdered By,” Eminem’s eleventh studio album, answers none of these questions. However, the first song, “Premonition,” does offer some insight into Eminem’s mindset as he criticizes the critics that have panned his five albums leading up this one. This song, along with a commanding feature from Young M.A. on the second song, “Unaccommodating”, almost tricks the listener into thinking this might be a good album. Then, in the second half of that song, Eminem makes an instantly infamous joke about the Ariana Grande concert bombing at Manchester Arena. From there, the album continues to subject the listener to an hour’s worth of unrelenting, fast-paced shout-rapping (he broke his own world record for fastest rapping! Again! For the third time!) that exists for no reason in particular and explains no stories or ideas.
With that being said, there are several strong points in the midst of the shout-rapping. Like Young M.A., Juice WRLD outperforms Eminem when he’s featured on “Godzilla.” The fact that Juice WRLD tragically passed away due to a drug overdose since the recording of the song, and that the album is dedicated to him, makes the feature feel all the more necessary.
Older rappers appear on the record, too! Royce da 5’9”, an old friend of Eminem’s, is featured three times, including on posse cut “Yah Yah,” where Black Thought, Q-Tip, and Mr. Porter also shine. The song is probably the peak of the album, not only because of the strong features but also because Eminem himself sounds more comfortable when surrounded by longtime friends. A song like “Stepdad,” which crosses into so-bad-it’s-good territory, further stresses the point that Eminem is better and more entertaining when he’s using skills he already has, as opposed to when he’s failing to chase new fads, like on the Don Toliver-assisted “No Regrets.”
Much media attention has been drawn to “Darkness,” in which Eminem raps from the perspective of the 2017 Las Vegas shooter. It begins as if the narrator is preparing for a big show, à la “Lose Yourself,” until it is revealed that the show is the largest mass shooting ever. The video and lyrics for “Darkness” have an energy similar to Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” where, although the artist in both instances is clearly well-intentioned and rightfully concerned, the final product hits just below thought-provoking, both artistically and politically. It’s a Target-brand version of better political pop-rap calls to arms like Beyoncé’s “Formation” or Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.” Eminem’s result seems like the kind of bland, hashtag-politics song that my 10th grade English classmates would’ve half-assedly presented to the class when assigned to pick a song with a “social justice message.”
However, in Eminem’s case, a big part of why the song fails is not just the simplicity, but also because the audience is hearing it from the guy that just ruined a song by making a joke about the Manchester bombing about 15 minutes earlier in the album. Furthermore, when Eminem was at his peak, it was because of spectacularly irreverent songs like “My Name Is…” or “Kill You,” not because he was acting as the voice of reason or humanity. This is not to say that Eminem should be forced to stay in his offensive lane for the rest of his career. In fact, the Manchester lyric is just one of many cringey punchlines throughout “Music To Be Murdered By” that are rarely clever and never poignant, making the listener wonder if the purposefully offensive tactic can work in 2020. Eminem’s shock value is falling flat these days, not even because of cancel culture or political correctness, but because Eminem rose to fame in America’s booming, hyper-powerful economic peak. In 1999, when he made enemies with then-president Bill Clinton for his inappropriateness, it was a pre-Columbine, pre-9/11, pre-reality television, pre-social media America when people were a lot more willing to stay within the confines of civility. Now the president is Donald Trump, a man whose tweets about pop culture figures and comments on women read like a controversial Eminem song. These days, whatever Eminem’s got to say won’t surprise Americans nearly as much as the next CNN headline they read. This all confirms what’s already been known for about a decade now: Eminem seems unable to deliver in a world where he is no longer the most outrageous public figure. Essentially, the man is no longer young enough to compete with rap’s current stars, politically astute enough to compete with the likes of Beyoncé and Kendrick, or vile enough to compete with Trump.
Although, while Eminem only offers listeners fleeting glimpses into his brilliant absurdity and intimate thoughts, there is still value in this record, beyond the Billboard Top 200 record it has set (most #1 debuts in a row). Perhaps the point of this awkward album, and other albums released by past-prime rockstars, is to remind us to take a look at the larger picture of who the artist is as he nears his 50s and the twilight of his career. In Eminem’s case, he has become much like the kind of person he once made fun of. An American celebrity desperately trying, however clumsily, to figure out his own legacy in front of us.