But tracks such as these, which are supposed to be the coronation tracks of “The Marshall Mathers LP 2,” are cheapened with empty lines like “You like normal? / Fuck being normal.” “So Much Better” comes to a juvenile climax when Eminem confides, “A woman broke my ha-art, I say ha-art cause she ripped it into pa-arts and threw it in the garbage.” He then insists that he will not say the “L-word” anymore, following up with a primitive scream, “I lo-lo-lo-lo-lesbian!” Eminem can still rap, as he proves on “Rap God,” on which he shifts into hyperdrive, at one point spitting lines at a mind-numbing 6.5 words per second.
But on “The Marshall Mathers LP 2,” he begins to move away from lyricism in exchange for wordy tripe and shock value. The album opens with “Bad Guy,” a song that immediately pays tribute to his achingly tragic “Stan.” But instead of pulling at the heartstrings, Eminem fuses the storyline of “Stan” with his characteristic proclivity for shock humor, shouting, “Slim, this is for him and Frank Ocean, oh, I hope you can swim good, now say you hate homos again!” to the sound of a car driving off of a bridge.Īs always, Eminem is furious and unforgiving, taking pride in his willingness to spit lines that other rappers wouldn’t dare say. But like many rappers before him (most famously Nas, who titled one of his many mediocre albums “Stillmatic”), Eminem comes off as desperate rather than experienced. Nobody knows this better than Eminem himself-on “The Marshall Mathers LP 2,” he seems even more obsessed with his own career’s demise than ever before, even going as far as to name the album after his critically acclaimed “The Marshall Mathers LP” of 13 years ago in a bid to recapture his more potent years. But on his most recent album, “The Marshall Mathers LP 2,” Eminem sounds burdened rather than empowered by his verteran status. The Detroit artist has been rapping about the end of his career for so long that it’s easy to forget that his erratic discography spans almost two decades. Marshall Mathers is now 41 years old, and on his new album, he sounds every single one of them.