No, not that kind of pass.
I’m taking about a free pass for what I thought was one of the worst albums I heard all year long, his comeback album Relapse. It was beyond sophomoric, void of real song writing, and a continued step backwards in what once was a stellar career.
Relapse was simply mailed in. Eminem didn’t seem at all into the process of making an album. It seemed like he did it because he had to, not because he was ready to come back.
Eminem at a DJ Hero Party
Complex magazine interviewed him and he stated the following:
Making Relapse, I was still working the drugs out of my system, so there was a lot of…just jokey shit. It was a lot of punchline-y, funny, shock value — kind of going back to The Slim Shady LP. And that was cool, but I’ve kind of flipped the page. Now I’m going for songs instead of one-liners. I don’t want to make shit that you hear once and then the joke’s over; I want to make records that you could play a hundred times, a thousand times.
I’m not sure if I’m ready to go back to that well again. I gave him a shot with Relapse after not feeling him for the last few years. And it was a bad idea.
When he’s on his game, he’s at the very top of the MC food chain. But I’m just not sure you can go back so easily. I feel ripped off after Relapse. But if he’s being straight with us, do we give him a free pass?
Photo of Eminem via Wikipedia and shared via Creative Commons
