by Short T
Ever since I saw the “Hi, My Name Is” video on TRL, I have been a fan of Eminem. His goofy and funny lyrics and visuals kept a nine year old me entertained. At ten years old, I listened to my first Eminem album. My sister’s copy of The Marshall Mathers LP lived in my CD player for a minute. 13 years later, we have the sequel to that monumental album that made Eminem one of the biggest rappers in the world. He went from Dr. Dre’s artist to an artist after “Stan”, “The Real Slim Shady” and “The Way I Am” were released. It’s really hard to not compare the two albums when everyone is expecting it to be just as good and you have Eminem acknowledging the choice to make a sequel to arguably his best album on the opener, “Bad Guy”.
“Bad Guy” is the sequel to “Stan”, as the main character of that song is resurrected in the form of the little brother that lost his older brother to Eminem obsession. I thought it was clever how they made fun of the album title with the lines:
And hey, here’s a sequel to my Mathers LP
Just to try to get people to buy
How’s this for publicity stunt? This should be fun
I really tried to look at this album separately but I couldn’t. I was looking for a song on here as good as “Kill You” and I found “Asshole” featuring Skyler Grey. I wanted a song about his love life like “Kim” and I got “So Much Better” and “Lovegame”. I wanted songs about his life before rap then “Brainless” and “Legacy” reached my ears. “Headlights” was the only song I was not expecting. After years of disses, books, and lawsuits, Marshall Mather finally opens up and expresses how he really feels about his mom. Apologetic to what he has done to her and sympathetic that both of them had to deal with being abandoned by his biological father. “Rhyme or Reason” shows that Marshall Mathers is not yet forgiving to his old man just yet.
The lack of features is another enjoyable bonus. Kendrick Lamar, Nate Ruess from fun., and Skyler Grey all added to the overall feel of the songs with their performances. Kendrick Lamar shares his own bad experiences with love on “Lovegame” (Sherane should be loving all this free promo). How similar K.Dot sounds like Eminem on his verse is scary. The Rihanna featured “The Monster” is too sugary; it’s easily for audiences to like. This is surprising that this is the second (Second!) collaboration with arguably the biggest pop star in the world from the guy that would pick his next targets by what’s popular. On this album, we get a mature white Detroit rapper that we were used to in the past. “So Far” has him reflecting where he is in life and the past decisions in his career. “Better Than I Was” was another surprise since I never heard Eminem sing this long during a song since “Hailie’s Song” and it wasn’t till later that I realized that this was supposed to be from the perspective of his ex-wife, Kim.
Unfortunately, the production keeps me from liking “Berzerk” that much. There is too much going on with the production on “Lovegame”. The minimalist production of “Rap God” and “Evil Twin” allow Em to black out for six minutes using different flows and jumping from subject to subject showing fans and critics that he is still the same MC that takes his craft seriously. As of now, I’m giving it a 3.5, the production held the album back, but I know that the more I listen to the album the more I’m going to realize it’s a 4 star album.
