The sad and lonely life of an Eminem fan in 2018

I find it a bit odd that this article is positioned as the perspective of a disillusioned fan but the article never goes into Eminem's technical skills that keep him relevant (despite the author/apparent fan's wondering how he's still popular?). Really, this author doesn't sound like a fan of Eminem at all, but whatever. It's not like that's a perspective that's particularly relevant to the actual article.

Eminem is undeniably one of the best when it comes to the actual act of rapping. Even if he was waffling with his recent albums, tracks like Killshot still have some of the best wordplay, flows, and wit around. When he's in the zone, he flies further, faster, and more furiously than the vast, vast majority of the genre. But I wouldn't say he's ever been consistently good at making music. It was always his lyricism and flow that put him up there, and it was when he had something to say that he could put those things to good use.

I find it hard to judge Eminem as an artist, he's definitely one of the most polarizing people in music for various, scattered reasons. This is basically going to be an unstructured idea-dump ahead, I find it difficult to put my thoughts about Eminem as an artist in any sort of order.

I went through his discography recently and I was surprised how inconsistent and all over the place it was. Even the early "classic" albums have a lot of things that either didn't age well or were greatly oversold from the beginning. His rap talent was always there but a lot of the overall music wasn't the best. It really was about his crazy stories, allusions, references, and general wordplay to see what he'd put together next. A lot of it felt dated but the man could put together words like nobody else, and that still stands out today. Of course, he has plenty of tracks where it all comes together to make songs that are all-time greats, like Lose Yourself.

But, to be fair, a lot of his discography back then was shocking, even to listen to now. I can't even imagine how shocking it would have been back then, when a lot of what he said was far less "normal" (dubious thanks to 4chan and heated gaming moments). Some tracks dropped the word "faggot" like it was candy, I never even assumed that he'd have songs like that even after all these years of his reputation. It was that much. But, at the same time, it never struck me as, you know, Full Stop homophobic—it's clear that the guy has a huge problem with women to the point of misogyny but his homophobia only extends about as far as using the usual homophobic schoolyard insults. He also tapered that off (finally) in only his most recent few albums, but his problem with women continues. Meanwhile, I hear lyrics from other noted artists before and during Eminem who didn't use homophobic language nearly as much or as wantonly, but who openly opposed homosexuality in their lyrics. It's something Eminem never did (to my recollection).

But on women... wow, does this guy have issues with women. Weirdly, all the biggest Eminem fans I know are women, but I came out of my trip through his discography believing I would be deeply uncomfortable with his music if I was a woman. It was definitely targeted to a few women in his life but you can hear through all his references, jokes, and allusions that he was mad at them. Perhaps in the music it was an extension of how much two specific women affected him (and it seems that the various women Eminem was involved with haven't really had anything too negative to say about him as a person). But he seems to be self-aware about this too, he's admitted multiple times that he's got a bias against women that is largely on him (though, I still think he's extended past the amount of patience allotted, he's calmed down on it a lot more in his recent albums).

It seems to me that Eminem was always self-aware about what he was: someone low-down, unimportant, problematic, and damaged, but who somehow blew up and couldn't really process or handle it. I learned recently that his classic albums are considered "horrorcore" but that feels somewhat false to me, as a way to soften what he was really doing. Even with his Slim Shady persona, it wasn't so much a shield that he could pretend he was someone else (a lot of his music ties him and Shady together) but instead a character he could use to be the darkest and most absurd side of himself. His work was one of someone who used this form of art as an outlet for all kinds of stress, rage, trauma, and pain. And most of it was caused by women in his life—his relationship with his mother and his on/off girlfriend both seem very unhealthy, in real life and in his music. He took his personal demons, put them on the public stage, and then made them even larger and more performative. I think the value in Eminem's music isn't really the music itself, but the translation of his experiences into this shocking art.

One thing that struck me the most was that you could hear when Eminem got sober in his music. Somewhere during the recording of Relapse, you can hear a significant difference between the songs he was sober for and the songs he was still using on. It's sad to say but he seemed to be of much better performance when abusing drugs. Without them, the songs got too vague and "high-level"—impersonal and waffling. The drug abuse seemed to have removed his inhibitions, creating that drive and anger which spurred him on to making his usual controversial music. I can only imagine how this, and the responses to his new sober music, must have been to a guy who just finished coming out of a major battle with his inner demons—to finally conquer them in a big way, only to find yourself worse off at something that defined you. I'm amazed he didn't have a big existential crisis over it. All his recent albums seem to be coming from this context.

But the music is bad. I don't know who is making the production choices anymore, but they need to be replaced. I suspect it's ultimately Eminem himself, as even with different producers, they all end up sounding the same. More pop hooks, a lot of sloppily applied classic rock, and then some half-decent bars. Even tracks like Rap God are let down immensely by the bad music production, even though Eminem's lyricism is going strong.

Kamikaze really does feel like somewhat of a return to form, back to when Eminem had something to say and could bend words to his whim to say it. I say somewhat because some songs are really good, and some are really bad. It's definitely a front-loaded album. Much is made about the optics of Eminem making fun of current rappers and trends but I don't see anything wrong with that. This seems to be par of the course in the rap game, and rappers are still throwing barbs at each other. Why is it bad if Eminem comes in and, you know, kamikazes his way into the fold? It's a lot of fun to hear someone with Eminem's talent and skill with words come in and do an absurd, comical take on current rap trends. Honestly, a lot of the people he called out don't have much talent at those things, and Eminem has always prized lyrical skill in other rappers. It's kind of funny that this article deliberates whether Eminem was sniping at Kendrick or not by referencing him when there's plenty of material out there covering how much the two are into each other.

Ultimately, I came out of my trip through Eminem with the impression that he is something of a lighting-in-a-bottle artist, someone with incredible raw talent and drive, but also someone who is unable to handle his self and who wears his traumas and issues too openly on his sleeve, clearly unable to handle them in a healthy way. His particular personality also was the type to respond negatively to any media attention, and he got tons of it. It feels like he should have burned away a long time ago, a product of his time. And perhaps he would have if his raw talent and skill at rapping wasn't so damn high. Him taking a hiatus, getting sober, and then going through this huge slump really must have shaken the guy—his path to self-betterment is hamstrung with being collectively worse for it.

In that vein, I sometimes wonder why in this new era of being open and honest about mental health people don't seem to consider Eminem in that conversation. This is a guy who clearly has a rage problem and was medicating himself with copious drugs. He's also proven himself almost entirely unable to cope with things like loss and media attention, acting out like a maniac frequently in response to them. Everyone treats it as somewhat charming when Kanye is doing similar (e.g. that latest Letterman interview when he clearly shows that he's unable to consider other perspectives), but it feels almost ignored when Eminem is making the news. There's a conversation to be had about responsibility, and how much Eminem has in some capacities, but I feel like he gets less leeway because he seems to be finally getting a grip on himself these days. He's never been as publicly irresponsible as Kanye, encouraging others to act worse. Eminem always kept it to himself, accepted his own faults and transgressions, and encouraged others to not be like him. He's been a bit extreme in real life, but never to the extent of his music, and not to the extent of many other rappers—and even then, that scaled back significantly since the drugs.

It's difficult to discern between Eminem the person, and Eminem the persona, and it seems like there may have been many points in his life where it was difficult even for him. But I never got the impression that Eminem was someone who set out to cause harm so much as speak to his own, and then did it in the complete opposite of an elegant manner on purpose. He set out to cause a mess by being a mess, and accidentally fell into god-tier superstardom.