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Eminem: new album and controversy 1:02
Editor's Note: Holly Thomas is a writer and editor based in London. She tweets at @HolstaT. The opinions expressed in this comment are only those of the author.
(CNN) - One would think that, after almost a quarter of a century, Eminem could have had enough controversy. But if his last letters are an indication, his appetite for scandal remains unsatisfied.
In a new song from his surprise album "Music to Be Murdered By," the 47-year-old rapper points to the 2017 terrorist attack at Manchester Arena. The lyrics of “Unccommodating” include the phrase: “But I am contemplating shouting 'bombs away' in the game as if I was outside a concert of Ariana Grande waiting” (“But I'm contemplating yelling 'bombs away' on the game like I'm outside of an Ariana Grande concert waiting ”).
Charlotte Hodgson's mother, a teenage girl who died in the Manchester attack, called the song "disgusting" and "disrespectful."
- LOOK: PHOTOS | Panic at the Manchester Arena
This reaction is unlikely to be a surprise for Eminem, for whom rapping from the perspective of the atrocious murderers seems to be a favorite presumption, from his iconic "Stan" (2000) to "Murder Murder" (1997) to "Kamikaze" ( 2018). But he must ask himself if his point, which seems to be one in which "murders are not disturbing," is too often done at the expense of the victims, rather than the perpetrators.
Only in "Music To Be Murdered By," Eminem compares himself to serial killers Richard Ramirez (known as Night Stalker), Albert DeSalvo (known as Boston Strangler) and Charles Manson. It also adds a good dose of another of its artistic brands: pugnacious hatred towards women, in addition to some outdated references of pop culture.
Eminem's intention with the lead single from the album "Darkness," which focuses on the Las Vegas shooting in 2017, seems to be good. The delivery is extraordinary. His letter: "Finger on the trigger, but I am a licensed owner / Without prior convictions, so what a loss, the sky is the limit / My supplies are endless, tied as if I were a soldier," he makes a jarring comment about the ease with which people can get firearms in the United States.
But the loaded predictability of the narrative that "Darkness" exhibits, as usual, interpreted from the perspective of an atrocious shooter, played, in part, by Eminem in the music video, can make the listener turn off.
Eminem's inert trick also makes some risky assumptions when, as is the case with "Darkness," the mental health issue is included in the mix. He criticizes that the shooter shows no "signs of mental illness," but the chorus, which shows Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence," resonates with loneliness and suggests that the shooter is suffering.
It is true that many people have hidden mental health problems, but drawing a direct line between people who are sick and people who kill, particularly in a case where the motive of the shooter remains officially unknown, makes potentially stigmatizing assumptions about the disease. mental.
And then, of course, there is misogyny.
The stale reference of "Unaccommodating" to a particular act in Kim Kardashian's sex video, which leaked in 2007, is just another riff in a line that has been repeating for 20 years. Look at his reference to Christina Aguilera in "The Real Slim Shady," which was released almost two decades ago. The joke is the same, and always about the woman. As even a cursory look at your later catalog will tell you, it is far from being your most grotesque.
- MORE: Eminem releases by surprise his new album 'Music to be Murdered by'
"Kim," from his 2000 LP "Marshall Mathers," describes the fictional murder of Eminem's ex-wife. It is a fantasy of domestic violence perfectly executed, expertly composed and enhanced by acute male anger. The continuation, "'97 Bonnie and Clyde," details Eminem scrapping Kim's body, accompanied by his little daughter Hayley.
Both are emblematic of a common theme in their first albums: love tributes to Hayley, along with literally dozens of songs that describe acts of hatred towards women. It is a kind of family emotional dissonance for women everywhere. It implies: this woman is fine, because I somehow made her. But the rest of you is a fair game. (Eminem offered a modest apology to his ex-wife in his 2017 album).
There has been a litany of articles in recent years detailing examples of the first letters of Eminem that would never fly if I launched them now. He seemed to have partially understood the memorandum on homophobia. Or, at least, he understood the message that homophobic insults are no longer approved.
In a 2018 interview with Sway, Eminem admitted that he regretted the use of the word f- in reference to Tyler the Creator in his album “Kamikaze”, saying that it was “too much” and that he realized that he was “hurting many other people to say it. ” But it doesn't seem to have extended that empathy to many others.
Throughout "Music to Be Murdered By," Eminem's physical and ability to rap rapping remains formidable. But the effect is to make the listener feel nostalgic for a moment when his dark alter ego could still have shone. His scandalous talent, not to mention a good dose of white privilege on a historically black stage, has seen Eminem date more than most in the music industry.
More than two decades later, his trick "in the head of the bad guy" is no longer subversive. Your goal could be to expose the truth of how twisted a person's mind can be. But now, it feels like I'm exhausted at all angles.
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