by Joey Ross on May 19, 2009

Beautiful, Crack a Bottle, Déjà Vu, Eminem, Eminem Show, Encore, Marshall Mathers, Medicine Ball, Rap, Relapse, Relapse 2, Slim Shady, Stay Wide Awake, Underground, We Made You

Eminem’s new album, Relapse, is far beyond dark and disturbing. The first eight tracks Marshall Mathers, Slim Shady, or whatever identity you want to see him as, addresses his mother, himself, and the American society and pulls no punches. Drug use, rape, drunkenness, and general darkness are prevalent. Mathers is bringing to light the issues he did not in Encore and the Eminem Show. It is like holding up a mirror to your friend or family member who spends more time in the bar or brothel and making himself/herself look deep into their own eyes. It’s not fun, but deemed necessary by the artist, so then it must be respected. 3 am and My Mom are the ugliest and the prettiest with new beats, flows, and lyrical devices that will entertain those who don’t find it disturbing.

We Made You is Eminem’s comic relief in the middle of the album. Medicine Ball begins Eminem’s “why do you hate me” attitude that he first started in Encore, but Shady shows no remorse for making his listeners uncomfortable. Stay Wide Awake draws the listener deeper into Eminem’s dark world that he creates in Relapse. The lyrics and flow build and build like falling deeper and deeper in a hole. Déjà Vu and Crack a Bottle are the bookends to one of Eminem’s greatest and most powerful tracks, Beautiful.

Beautiful is Eminem’s diamond in the roughest of the rough and pulls the darkness of the album together. Eminem even states that he is depressed and that the lives he is living are becoming too heavy. Heavy is the best way to describe the song. Beautiful is beautiful as Marshall Mathers cries out to his dark world that he might be done, not with his lifestyle, but rap, complacently, and his past. It is his charge to move on. Beautiful should be on everyone’s iPod.

The last song, Underground, is Eminem’s answer to where he has been and why it has been so long since his last album release. What Beautiful does not mend and the darkness it does not cover, Underground forces together. Marshall Mathers makes it personal saying that he has exposed it all, the drugs, addictions, and identity throughout the album. It begins to make more sense. The darkness has not escaped, but is delayed until Relapse 2 debuts later this year.

Relapse is like driving by a car accident and looking and seeing the damage and then you don’t stop looking. Hope can be placed that Relapse 2 will answer our questions of Eminem. Is he quitting? Is he clean?

We can only assume, but Marshall Mathers has put it all on the line. He pulled no punches and wanted to give it all, and he has. If this is too much for you then erase it, but respect it. Eminem pushes the envelope and does it unconventionally and not many fans will like it, but society should appreciate the experience of seeing what a dark world, the real dark world, is like. For that, thank you Eminem for putting Slim aside and showing us your real name, Marshall.

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