Hi, everyone. Slimthony Shadetano, here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Eminem album, The Death of Slim Shady.

Here we have the latest full-length LP from legendary Detroit rapper, songwriter, and producer, Marshall Mathers, AKA Eminem, AKA Slim Shady. He is back, back again with his 12th official commercial project here.

This is Eminem's 12th album, where, of course, it's a concept thing where he is, surprise, surprise, reliving his past, specifically through the Slim Shady exaggeration of his actual self, his drugged-out, edgelord, offensive persona that if you're familiar with his life and career, he actually shares a lot in common with, it's not some character he made up whole cloth. Which is why in concept, the idea of bringing back Slim Shady to, I don't know, kill him, psychoanalyze him, it's interesting. Even if this is all a part of a formula that Eminem can't seem to get away from lately. Because since He's actually growing and maturing as a person over the course of his career, it feels like these days, Eminem, a lot of his focus and effort is spent convincing people that he's still got it. When I say that, I don't just mean the ability to rap, but also the edge that made him the star that he is today. This has led to a discography that sees him bouncing back and forth between different sides of himself.

While no doubt, Eminem has changed a lot as a person since his big break in the late '90s, through a mix of audience capture and maybe old habits dying hard, it seems like there are parts of him that just won't go away. I think on some level, he's sincerely trying to explore that idea on the Death of Slim Shady, which, again, in the abstract, I think is a good idea. It's a good solid concept, especially for a music star whose life and progression is as storied as Eminem's. Whether or not it's executed well, though, is another question.

Like my guy, Eminem here, when writing this review, I tried to think about it in a meta way, try to conceptualize how I could go about it to where it would meet everyone's needs or get across my qualms and criticisms with the project. Because honestly, I don't want to get bogged down spending minutes of time in this video listing off a bunch of lyrics that you know and I know are offensive and are obviously intended to be offensive. It's not that I want to avoid talking about these bars because they're above criticism or anything like that, I just don't see the point because their appeal or lack thereof is obvious and just plain-face. So again, explicitly, I say I am not going to do that in this review. What I am going to do is point out the fact that the narrative and the framing around this album and its story doesn't really make sense.

When you look at Eminem and his most recent string of releases, Slim Shady, the character, the guy, the edgelord, did he ever really fully leave? I mean, for sure, Marshall has had his moments of emotional and personal maturity across some of his latest records. That is true. But even his early work has that to some degree. And on top of that, there's never been a massively long span of Eminem's career where that edgelord side of him has completely subsided, especially for it to come back with a vengeance in the way that it's supposed to be here.

But either way, if I'm taking this record as cheritably as I possibly can and accepting Marshall at his word, that this whole thing is like a theater piece where he is embracing an older version of himself, then I can actually appreciate quite a few tracks on this record for what they are. Maybe working multiple South Park references into a single track is a bit too on the fucking nose and also muddies the alleged intentions behind this record a bit.

But you know what? After multiple listens, I will say I mess pretty heavy with "Brand New Dance." It's got this silly ass, quirky ass, Luigi's mansion-esque beat. And rap-wise, Eminem has a delivery that has a distinct, Slick Rick-type timbre to it. And yeah, the whole track is essentially this massive and callous joke at the expense of the late Christopher Reeves. It's careless, it's mean, it's obviously trying to be that. But still, I'm impressed at just how much focus Marshall puts on this topic in just trying to dig as many ridiculous punch lines and bits of wordplay out of it. There's even galloping samples in the goddamn instrumental. It is deeply and profoundly demented and depraved in only a way I think Eminem can be.

Even later on the record, there's some illusion to this track being from the mid-2000s era for Eminem and it being left off of a record because Reeves had passed away. Considering this is the same era of Eminem's music that brought us a beautiful deep cuts such as "Fack," that makes sense. I think saying this brings some very important historical context to this record and Slim Shady as a character or a persona broadly, because it's not just Eminem who has evolved over the course of his career, it's Slim Shady, too.

The representation we're getting of him on this album isn't the depressed, struggling, anti-hero underdog that many people still love to this day on the original Slim Shady LP. No, what we're getting instead is the rebel without a cause, edgelord, annoying, weird guy that honestly gave Eminem his first discography L. Because when you look at Encore, comparatively, it's a much shittier album than every record that came before it at that point in Eminem's catalog, which again makes me wonder why we're doing this and why we're here, why Eminem thought a digging from that point in his career, that inspiration was going to result in great music.

Either way, further tracks on this record aren't quite as overtly kooky and are a bit more sensible in tone when it comes to Eminem exploring this darker side of his mind that he can't quite get rid of. Be that through the song "Evil," which has much more approachable rapping, a stronger chorus as well, where, yes, Eminem is embracing that edgelord side of himself, but simultaneously has these funny aside moments of clarity like, "Don't me what I can't say / That's gay / And not the good gay, either / Where two men fuck each other and hate beaver."

The song "Lucifer" tries to strike a similar balance as well, though I do think it is maybe trying a bit too hard to be offensive and living in a bit of a fantasy world. Again, I know the point here is for Eminem to embrace this persona, but I feel like his commentary on getting canceled and cancel culture is a little out of touch, especially considering kicked off Twitter. Eminem isn't known for spending hours of time on Twitter posting edgy shit. And as far as getting canceled and wrapped goes, I think Ye proved you could push it pretty frigging far and still end up getting a number one album out of it. And Eminem, even being as crazy as he is on this record, I don't think he's willing to go as far as to praise Hitler or say slavery was a choice. He's clearly not that desperate to piss people off.

Following this, though, we have tracks like "Antichrist" as well as "Fuel" featuring JID, both of which pop off hard as hell. But deeper into the record, we see Eminem once again trying to fully embody this older version of himself. Just like during that Encore era, all it results in is just obnoxiously grading music that you don't want to listen to because the guy rapping and writing it is just vomit inducing. Of course, I'm talking about tracks like "Road Rage" as well as the main teaser to this whole thing, "Houdini."

Things on the album narratively come to a head on the track "Guilty Conscience 2," which if you're familiar with the Eminem catalog, is basically the sequel to that amazing and classic track with Dr. Dre, which was a first major instance of Eminem in his career, doing exactly what he is doing here, using Slim Shady as a character to explore bad behavior, the evils and temptations that lurk in the darkest corners of his mind. Meanwhile, Dr. Dre on the song plays opposite to him in a good cop, bad cop way. Angel on your shoulder, devil on your shoulder, pushing you in one direction or the other. Except now in the follow-up, Guilty Conscience 2, it is Eminem, the older, more mature, changed version of himself, arguing and battling it out with the Slim Shady persona. They're locked in this mental struggle that tries to, in a way, analyze why exactly Eminem can't let go of this side of himself. In so many words, Shady tries to make the case that the Slim Shady character is essentially an excuse for him to embrace words and behavior and so on and so forth that he doesn't have the guts to do by himself. Eminem claims this is Shady being just basically full of shit and eventually just puts a bullet between his eyes. It's not a bad track. In fact, I would say it's one of the best tracks on the entire album. The issue is that this is just track 13 on the record, and there is still quite a bit of album to go.

For the rest of it, I think Eminem struggles to maintain the narrative focus of the LP. You have to wonder after literally killing Slim Shady on the record and waking up from this whole thing as if it's a nightmare. Is the persona done? Is it over? Are you a changed man? Have we made it clear? Which side of you you are? What separates you from the Slim Shady persona? Not really, which is why I think things get a little muddy and confusing on subsequent tracks like "Head Honcho," where Eminem referring to himself as himself, says that there's essentially no civilizing a savage. Or on the track, "Tobey," featuring Big Sean as well as BabyTron, which, going into the record, was a single I thought was great. But on this track, I feel like Eminem's words make the narrative a little confusing because on "Guilty Conscience 2," he blames Slim Shady for various beefs he's been involved in over the years, as if these were terrible scuffles that he regrets in retrospect.

Simultaneously on this track, he essentially just says, "Yeah, fuck it. I mean, I'll beef with Melle Mel. I don't care." Meanwhile, what's even more confusing is on the song "Bad One," in so many words, Eminem essentially admits to just loving, offending people, and again, using the Slim Shady character to say stuff he wouldn't normally say. Which isn't that what you told Slim Shady to his face in your dream, what made him full of shit, and then you shot him? Which the fuck is it? I'm not even sure Eminem knows.

Even with emotional highlights on the back end of this record, such as "Temporary" as well as "Somebody Save Me," where Eminem is really, once again, recovery era style, going into personal struggles that he's had with either addiction or just his shortcomings as a father. Even with that, unfortunately, this record is not a signifier of real personal growth for Eminem. That's not to say, again, he hasn't changed or grown as a person in all of his years since making it big as a rapper. I just don't think he displays that growth very well in a narrative fashion on this album.

This record is not a come to Jesus moment. If it is, he's certainly not explaining it very well, and it's most definitely not a phoenix rising from the ashes. If anything, this album is pretty much of Eminem telling us, "Hey, this shitty, unlikable, cringe version of myself that made me famous years and years and years ago, it's not going anywhere, and it's here to stay. It's a part of me. And there's probably no changing that. Sorry, not sorry." Which is a pretty piss poor admission, I will say, and makes the story of this album like a non-story. Why are we all lining up to hear the tale of a guy who doesn't change at all? It's just so funny and also sad to see that somebody can reach the top, reach the peak in the way Eminem has and have all this success and have all of these opportunities, and yet still not be able to fully overcome a mindless bully perpetuating a cycle of abuse and cruelty.

I never usually end reviews like this because I think it's lame, but Oscar Wilde once said, Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth. Or in this case, every mean little internal thought that he has that he's too chicken to say in any other context, which is why I'm feeling a light to decent 5 on this album.

Anthony Fantano, Eminem, Forever.