Eminem Is Mostly in Defense Mode on ‘The Death of Slim Shady’
Eminem – The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)
Shady Records/Aftermath Entertainment/Interscope Records
About 20 years ago, Eminem became more boring than he was offensive, and more exhausting than he was entertaining.
Since unloading his fourth major-label outing, Encore, in 2004, the Detroit wordsmith has prioritized verbal aerobics over rhyme economy, and what were once incisive and justifiably defiant stanzas morphed into needless calisthenics, as genuine wit decayed into rote shock-value talking points. That trajectory has overshadowed the virtuosity of his immaculate first three LPs, and it continues to do so on The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), which, despite being a concept album, remains largely as uninteresting as his post 2000s-output.
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For this one, Em engages in a battle with his infamous alter ego Slim Shady, and sometimes the results are fun. “Houdini” is a low-stakes Shady satire that sees Em let loose, and “Guilty Conscience 2” is a self-interrogative “me versus myself” track with decent execution. While the hooks aren’t memorable and the beats are flavorless slogs you’d never throw on at a barbecue, Em remains a phonetic phenom: His “Candace O” jabs on “Lucifer” are nearly as quippy and flawlessly rhymed as the bars he traded with Jay-Z back on “Renegade.”
Unfortunately, Marshall too often uses his prodigious dexterity to defend himself from cancel culture rather than break new ground, and what once scanned as piercing irreverence feels like an especially sterile episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. The limited range of his topics halts the kineticism of his raps and any thematic progress, making it all a monotonous exercise in redundancy. Factoring in a lack of sonic experimentation and an utter dearth of anthems, The Death of Slim Shady doesn’t really live up to the drama its title suggests. Em is largely in defense mode; it’s a self-consciousness that leans closer to stagnation than catharsis.
Spending so much time acting as his own lawyer, Em forgets that being offensive isn’t as bad as being forgettable. – GRADE: C-
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