Eminem: 3 years later and still having a conversation with an imaginary woman...
Has he gone mad?
Well ignoring the fact he has reportedly holed himself up inside his fortress like Detroit home for the best part of the decade and has a back catalogue of pretty psychotic songs, probably not.
The key is to realise that we can't really date any of his verses post Hell: The Sequel (as to when they were actually laid down). This new verse from Tony Touch's 50 MCs helps to flesh out a certain order of progression so that it should be possible to work out when these verses have been recorded and hence what the album will sound like. Hint: I would guess all these verses have been written/performed within 6 months - 1 year so the title is a little misleading.
So... let’s try and get some idea of where we stand. Recovery was released in mid 2010 so we can assume that his vocals were laid down between the positive reception to his verse on Forever and possibly pretty close to the release date so later half of 2009 - early '10. His flow then became more extreme post Recovery and into Hell: The Sequel and he definitively developed the double time shout into his weapon of choice. These verses were probably recorded late '10, early '11.
Now, without and definitive evidence, things become murkier and it's worth considering how we might imagine his progression to have gone from Hell: The Sequel to his most recently date-able verse on the Shady Cypher. One imagines that it would be a gradual evolution that saw a decrease in the shouting, a weeding out of bad punchlines, and an increase in the number of switch ups within each verse. Obviously we can get a rough handle on dates from release dates but it should be pointed out that they only give the latest time they could have been recorded - for example 50 said that he'd had the My Life beat from S1 since 2010, so Em could have laid his vocals at any point from '10 to the release date.
Based purely off the delivery style I suggest we can date the verses something like so:
Mid 2011
My Life
Symphony in H
Throw it Up
Shady Cypher
Late 2011 - Early 2012
Richard
Our House
C'mon Let Me Ride (not too sure about this one)
Mid - Late 2012
Here Comes
The Weekend
Numb (can literally only hope this was some old verse Rihanna had lying around)
Unfortunately I think that suggests he has move slightly away from the Cypher/Our House flow that I personally would prefer to see. Obviously I might have the order wrong and he might be moving into it, but who knows... I guess we assume he was laying vocals probably late 2012, early '13, but with maybe a few older tracks. The best estimate I can give you would be something akin to Here Comes The Weekend flow-wise, though if we assume he uses less poppy beats on his album then maybe we can attribute the post Our House verses as slight anomalies. Either way, unless there is a radically unexpected departure or I have the dating completely out of whack, then you should expect to see a flow that involves multiply switch ups with the occasional shout for emphasis.
*** Worth pointing out that the name on the tracklist for Symphony in H was Untitled for a while and he references both Tony himself and the date June 8th within his verse so one might conclude that this was in fact a rush verse on June 8th 2013 and gives us an idea of exactly where Em is at right now.
With regards to the song Symphony in H(ate) itself, it's essential to remember context. It's a throwaway, it's just filler, a publicity boost for Tony Touch's album only. Judging Em for the repetitive content would be unfair (not to mention the double standard that accepts Kendrick laying down very similar verses in his new role as feature-whore-in-chief), what can be judged is the faults from Recovery that have been ironed out, namely the flow/shouting and the awful punchlines (not to mention there was a lack of fast food references). With regards to the content I think its worth noting that on verses where he's been required to step up and take it seriously his content has been much improved (Shady Cypher, Our House verse).
What do you think of his recent verses? Of Symphony in H specifically? Do you think my conclusions are reasonable? Is the order correct?
