And then there's "Bagpipes From Baghdad". Much like The Love Guru, it's so painfully unfunny that you can't even bother to act offended. If Relapse were Eminem in Michael Myers mode, it would be fantastic, but instead he's gone Mike Myers or even Robin Williams, subjecting us to "wacky" accents and a delusional sense that he still has a grip on what's edgy.įavoring a voice more staccato and pinched than ever, Eminem jacks off to Hannah Montana, hunts Lindsay Lohan for sport, sings about Valium in Auto-Tune, clowns Jessica Simpson, and raps a verse in character as Christopher Reeve. Though saddled with a terribly awkward rhythm that Eminem thankfully ignores, "Underground" finds him laying waste to a murderer's row of horror movie franchises with focused, devilish glee. It's smart for Em to revert to the shock tactics of his glory days- Encore was a Chinese Democracy/HIStory-style catastrophe of self-exile with no real exit strategy. Got all that? Congrats, you're now four songs into Relapse. Cringe at Eminem advocating roofies at a kegger? Get ready for the term "felching" to enter the public consciousness as Eminem gets anally raped by his stepfather in a tool shed. Recoil when he threatened to push a fat girl off the high dive in swim class? He's now murdering his cousin in a tub and drinking the bathwater. Do a double-take when he rapped "I just found out my mom does more dope than I do"? This time, you get to untangle the knotty word thickets of "My Mom", wherein young Marshall gets bullied and tricked by you-know-who into an addiction to prescription pills. Star Trek isn't the only franchise reboot expected to do big numbers this summer- instead of the 13-year-old who got into The Slim Shady LP and found that underground shit he did with Scam, Relapse is for that guy's little brother who's 13-years old right now, and Eminem is fully committed to upping the ante for today's desensitized sensibilities.
It's appropriate that the title character from "Stan" has become web argot for "obsessive fanboy," because Eminem drives both Stan and stan alike crazy in the same exact way- by completely ignoring them until it's too late to make amends. Relapse makes it abundantly clear where the line gets drawn in 2009. Eminem is divisive the way BIG people are. But did you know that after "We Made You" hit the airwaves, major networks ran segments on whether Eminem's "controversial" new video went too far? Let's think big picture here: In some corners of the indie community, people quibble about whether Wavves are overhyped, even though 99% of America have absolutely no fucking clue who they are. After all, nearly every piece of promotion that's led up to the release of Relapse has caused the internet to stop whatever it was doing and form a unified chorus exclaiming how washed up it made the guy look. You might think calling Eminem "divisive" in 2009 would give him too much credit.
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