Album Review: Eminem - Revival

Being a latecomer to the Eminem party, I've only been a fan for about ten years. So, I've been a fan during what a lot of fans would deem his less-than-stellar period (basically everything from Encore to the present day). That being said, I thought his previous album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, was a pretty damn good album. It struggled in a few areas, namely with some production choices and certain song choices. I felt that the deluxe version of the album had bonus songs that deserved to make the album because they showed how Eminem could write more mature songs with a good message and flow style. But it was still a fine effort overall. Thus, I went into this new album with some higher expectations, hoping that Eminem would perfect the kind of sound we got on most of The Marshall Mathers LP 2.

Fast forward four years later to the present, and we have his newest album, Revival. Hot off the BET cypher which targeted Donald Trump and his supporters, Revival is an album that had the potential to piss off a lot of people, and it felt as if Eminem was attempting to set the tone with the cypher. Moreover, after releasing Walk On Water, it felt that maybe Revival would encapsulate Eminem's career as a whole. So, it felt that we could potentially get an emotional album as well.

The aforementioned Walk On Water begins the album with a decent hook from Beyoncé, and is an introspective look into Eminem's career and how he handles expectations, critics, and how he approaches his own life at this stage of his career. It's not the best song he's ever written, but it's a decent start. That introduction is followed by two half-baked efforts with Believe and Chloraseptic. Two songs that don't really have much impact, with the latter being a troubling attempt to poke fun of mumble rap. Trust me when I say that you don't need to hear Eminem make fun of mumble rap. Also, who is Phresher? He adds nothing to Chloraseptic and is just a pointless feature overall. Speaking of pointless, Untouchable is Eminem's attempt at tackling current racial issues in America, and while his message is there, the music simply is not. I've seen reviews talk about how the message is important, and it is. But when the music is butchered so badly, it becomes an exercise in futility. It falls on deaf ears. It's half loud, Cheech and Chong-sampled rock rap with half chilled hip-hop inspired rap. It's not good, which is unfortunate, too, because Eminem has been political before, and with much more poignant results.

Following Untouchable, you begin to realize quite quickly what the problem with Revival ends up being. It has no idea what it wants to be. It's all over the place, and has the same trappings that have plagued Eminem's latter day albums for the most part. You go from social commentaries on race to soft-pop rap with Ed Sheeran. River is okay in itself, but is essentially Love The Way You Lie, Pt. 2, and that's not a good thing. It is the very definition of playing it safe. You follow these lackluster efforts with a track like Remind Me, which features a lazy sampling of I Love Rock 'N' Roll, and before you know it, you have Like Home, the next anthemic song attempt to hammer home a political message. The inconsistencies appear around every corner. I'm fine with Eminem switching up the lyrical content, addressing his political views, his family life, his career, etc. But when these topics are handled in such a haphazard fashion, it's easy to lose interest. When an album seems less focused, the listener will be less focused on what you have to offer. Eminem just isn't hitting it home like he used to, and it shows.

This is Revival in a nutshell. Glaring inconsistencies, with awful production choices (again with Rick Rubin?), odd sampling, and mixed content. There are many tracks where you can see what Eminem is trying to say, and you can almost feel the lyrics to a certain point. But the songs lack any sort of execution whatsoever. There are, however, some bright spots to be found on the album. Tracks like the Slim Shady-tinged Framed, and the one-two gut punch of Castle and Arose, show Eminem at his absolute best. But even with these more impactful tracks, you get clunkers like Tragic Endings, Bad Husband, Heat (ugh, more rock rap), etc. I won't even get started on Need Me, which is a Pink song that features Eminem. I'm not even sure how that makes an Eminem album. Maybe if the hook was decent or the song had more impact, I could understand its placement on the record. Unfortunately, it falls flat like many of the 19 tracks on Revival.

One of the worst aspects of Revival is its production. 2017 has been a year full of well-produced hip-hop and rap albums. Kendrick Lamar's DAMN., Rapsody's Laila's Wisdom, SZA's Ctrl, Joey Bada$$' All-Amerikkkan Bada$$, Vince Staples' Big Fish Theory, and so on. To have a rap album come out at the end of the year that sounds like Revival is baffling. It is stale, cliché, and abrasive in the worst ways. I continue to be confused as to why Eminem uses Rick Rubin for production duties on many songs. Not that Rubin is incapable of producing decent hip-hop, but when you get a combination of iffy songwriting and awful production values, you have nothing to hold onto. Thus, you're stuck with an album of mostly uninspired sound. Some of the songs sound like they never evolved from the demo stage. It's just a mess.

Revival is Eminem having an identity crisis. There are some great tracks on here, and times where I feel Eminem is on the right track. However, these times are few and far between, and on an album of 19 tracks, it begs for more consistency. I'm not even sure why Eminem called the album Revival in the first place. He already "revived" Slim Shady on MMLP2 and no one ever really doubts his skills as a rapper in the game. It feels as though Eminem had several different ideas for themes and topics, and decided to throw them all on an album to see which ones would stick. Sometimes that can work. Sometimes you can have a satisfying hodgepodge of song content. Unfortunately, this is unsatisfying in the worst way. The worst part of it all is that you can hear Eminem pushing through on some of these songs, showcasing why he has such a legendary reputation. But there just aren't enough of these moments on Revival, and on a 78-minute album, that's simply not good enough. Calling Revival disappointing would be a significant understatement.