Eminem - Revival - Album Review
Eminem is back and sporting a permanent 5 o clock shadow? On the most recent record from Detroit’s rap Icon I cant help but feel a bit torn on both loving and hating it. I anticipated this record since his last record Marshal LP 2, but just like that record this record also contains many featured artists that seem to take more spotlight than Eminem himself. The song “Need Me” sounds more like a Pink song featuring Eminem as more than half the track consists of Pink. Unfortunately also like his more recent records the better tracks here were because of the featured artists and the parts they bring to the songs. The production of the record falls short as well with Eminem’s vocals sound in and out from the mic especially on the track “Believe”. At times it almost sounds like a live recording which works at times. Eminems triplet staccato flow on this track and next one “Chloraseptic” just gets annoying and sounds like Drake meets Big Sean. The over use of samples from other songs really killed the flow and interest in Revival. A lot of poor choices made on this record in the production and samples on this record surprised me to come from such an legendary novice rapper. Some of Eminems bars and lines on this record are more amateur and immature than what was presented on even his 1996 debut indie release, Infinite as well...
However, other times just the opposite also exists on Revival with Eminem bringing some mature confessions and responsibilities to the songs like on the track “Bad Husband” where he apologizes to the mother of his child for past tracks like “97 Bonnie and Clyde” and “Kim” where he fantasizes murdering her and disposing of her body with their own daughter as well as apologizing for more personal faults with being physically abusive with her in his relationship with her. He also apologizes on some of my favorite tracks on the record “River”, a song about an abusive relationship that sounds like a cleansing of sins and admitting his lying and cheating and fuck ups, “Castle” is much more narrative where he apologizes in the form of a letter to his daughter for exploiting their family issues to the public and mentioning her in his songs. This song is up there at the level of “Stan” to me and ends with him overdosing on pills. This reflects a real moment he was in at one time and the next song “Arose” My favorite on the record kicks in with the sound of a life support machine in an ICU and is about his letter to his family if hadnt made it out of his drug addiction/overdose. At the end of the song Eminem does things over differently flushing his pills down the toilet. Its a heartfelt moving track that conceptually mixes well with he track just before. These tracks and moments on this record I did appreciate and was much more of that 8 Mile Eminem we all love.
As I said earlier the record has many featured artists like Beyonce, PHRESHER, Alicia Keys in one of my favorites on the record in the the Donald Trump bashing rap ballad “Like Home”. This song had some pretty interesting word play. Revival also featured X Ambassadors, Skylar Grey, Pink, and Kehlani, but my favorite on the record is Ed Sheeran on “River”. These featured artist really save a lot of the record and seems that that was Eminems intent as well. It really just brings Eminem into a more pop rap world. Seems to be taking a page from G-Eazy’s playbook with this move. Overall most of this record was pretty cringe worthy and far from being one of the better rap records to come out in more recent years and my least favorite Eminem record taking the place of Infinite. There were amateur sounding production issues, immature lyricism and I think there was an over use of sampling and featured artist that seemed to be only a crutch for more sales.
I was surprised and disappointed that a record like this would come out from the great Eminem. I wish he would have tapped more into the off the cuff freestyle approach he presented in his freestyle bash on Donald Trump. Ive posted the video of that below. Its more natural and seems far more passionate and more of a truer Eminem. I actually expected a much more political record. It sounds as if Eminem was trying to go for a confessional letter style concept with every song nicely flowing into one another but with large 19 tracks and poor production the album fails in that regard. I think the record would have benefited from some trimming. However I did enjoy some of the featured artists. Alicia Keys, Skylar Grey and Beyonce’s vocals and contributions were very pretty in their delivery. Eminem did have some heartfelt moments with something meaningful to say. I was a bit torn but I expect his next effort if there is one after this will be much different. If you like D12, Bad Meets Evil, Hopsin, Snoop Dogg, Stat Quo, Big Sean, Dr Dre, Yelawolf, Royce da 5'9", G-Eazy, Denace, Obie Trice, Macklemore, 50 Cent, 2pac, Ca$his, Asher Roth or Machine Gun Kelly you will love this record. My favorite tracks are River, Like Home, Offended, Castle, and Arose.
