Eminem - Recovery (Discussion Thread)

[Episcop Cruel Cvrle]

Bumped it a lot today and in the midst of writing my DUBCNN review. What I will say in here is that I feel that, beneath the "I'm back, it's the old me" veneer, Recovery is a really inappropriate title. From a personal standpoint, Em sounds like he's in one of the worst spots of his life. I guess that helps me to understand why "Not Afraid" sounded so forced and oddly insincere, despite its strong(ish) lyrics.

To take a line straight from the draft of my review, it worries me how Eminem's career trajectory so closely mirrors Elvis'. What was once a running joke now looks increasingly like a grave concern.

I love what I've heard and Em is as vivid and involving as ever, but when he's this troubled that's almost to a detriment. You're really left hoping that he can pull himself together and find solace. I realize that to a lot of people who found Relapse underwhelming, Recovery could be taken as a reference to his MC skills. But, again, emotionally Em seems far from recuperated.

Some things u say are solid . Other then that I think LSD is no stranger to you...

Ha! Nah, not at all, man. Just a big-time Em supporter - apologies if I'm being too analytical. To try and explain my points:

The Elvis comparison has obviously been around forever. I just find that now it's taken a negative connotation, considering that Elvis also shared a dependancy to prescription medicine. He also reached a point near the end of his career (and life) where he felt like he still had something to prove. Seems like Em is veering close to that point in his career also.

As for his emotional state, I could point to about half the album in support of what I was saying. "Talkin' To Myself" and "Going Through Changes" seem like good enough starting points though. His talent is still incredible, but Em nonetheless comes across as totally depressed.

 


Both Elvis (then) and Em (now) had to sth to offer at that point of their career if you are looking it from that perspective.( Elvis just died too soon because he didnt want to get embarrassed that fans would know what kind of bowel problems he had,that was the real cause for his death,.)

Absolutely. I still think Em has something to offer and I think that lyrically he is sometimes as sharp as ever on here. It's just a shame that it comes at the expense of such a messed-up background. As clever as a lot of the "joke" punchlines are, a lot of them just seem laboured and halfhearted. I don't feel like he's really into them, but then maybe that's just me.

Of course, Em's never exactly been a "happy go lucky" guy!

Conan The Reviewer after few Recovery spins, ready to put his thoughts on paper....+1. Ive mistaken you for some dude that wants to sound too philosophical on some Jung-Freud type of shit but I was wrong.

[DTG Entertainment]

I love how guys are hating on this album but then praising a 12 year old soundtrack song from a Will Smith movie where the end of the song is Em and Dre trading verses about how to defeat Kevin Kline's character from the film.

Actually, they were dissing Suge Knight in that song.

So Suge Knight ain't got no legs, they cut 'em off at the stomach. He's got mechanical legs, he spins webs?


I did make a mistake though; it was not Kevin Kline's character. It was Kenneth Branagh's.

Did you not notice the Chronic 2 references that Dr. Dre made? Suge tried releasing Chronic 2000 with unreleased Dr. Dre songs on them, but Dre managed to get the album blocked.

[BlueSwan]

After Relapse I made a list of things Eminem should do to make "Relapse 2" even better (I really like Relapse). Let's see how he fared:

1. Drop the accents
Reason: We all hate them. Eminem is seemingly the only one not realising how much they suck.
Result: Yes, indeed. Eminem came to his senses - they're gone.

2. Make shorter songs
Reason: Eminem albums tend to tiring because the songs are too goddamn long. You should leave the listener wanting more, not feeling fed up. Just like that Game 400 bars jam, that noone listened to in full. Some songs are long for a good reason (like "Stan"), but the vast majority of Eminem songs would be better in shorter form. Part of the charm of "Insane" on Relapse is that it is short. Had that gone on for another 2 minutes everyone would have hated it.
Result: Nope. Songs are still way too long. A full five tracks are 5 minutes or more, which is ridiculously long for a hip-hop track unless you have a ton of features, which Eminem doesn't.

3. Get outside production
Reason: We all love Dre's production. Less so with Eminems own production. But everybody needs to grow and challenge themselves. Let's hear Eminem flow on a Just Blaze beat, an Alchemist beat, a Havoc beat, a Khalil beat, a J.R.Rotem beat, a Kanye beat, etc.
Result: Yes, indeed, he followed suit. But you would think that he would have hotter beats given that I'm sure every hip-hop producer in the fuckin' world would kill to get on an Eminem album. Production is surprisingly average on Recovery.

4. Don't sing, ever! Get proper singers to do the singing.
Reason: Eminem is arguably the worst singer in the entire world. Yet he somehow thinks that he can sing. Let me put it this way: if I had to pick between the accent and the singing I would....kill myself.
Result: Eermmm....what the hell is he thinking? Instead of cutting down on singing, there's singing fuckin' EVERYWHERE on Recovery.  This is gonna be the "accent issue" with this album. You have to wonder where Eminem's sense of reality is. First the accents, now the singing. Why is Dr.Dre - the most notorious perfectionist in the game - not telling Eminem that the accents suck and that singing is bad?

5. Keep varying the flow
Reason: One of the impressive things about Relapse is the variety of flows. Had he dropped the accents it would have been near perfect.
Result: Unfortunately Eminem has decided to rap almost exclusively in his "angry" voice. This gets very tiring on a whole album. He needs to switch it up.

[BiggBoogaBiff]

enuff already lol


all y'all are doing is gonna go in circles about the album in hopes of getting to/working to a compromise.  it's not that serious, u either fuck with it or u don't, simple as that.  u don't have 2 write a 10 page essay on ur do's and don't about Eminem and Relapse and Recovery.  we get it already.  


we can all agree that BlueSwan summed up everything about Eminem and EVERYTHING said on this board about Relapse and Recovery and Eminem for that matter.  


1 - y'all r making the album OLD NEWS before it even comes out

2 - it's clear that some of y'all clearly lack self-esteem issues.  u don't have to argue and debate this much, it's pure emo-ism.  fall back from here for a couple weeks, you'll get it lol.

[Shallow]

I love how guys are hating on this album but then praising a 12 year old soundtrack song from a Will Smith movie where the end of the song is Em and Dre trading verses about how to defeat Kevin Kline's character from the film.

Actually, they were dissing Suge Knight in that song.

So Suge Knight ain't got no legs, they cut 'em off at the stomach. He's got mechanical legs, he spins webs?


I did make a mistake though; it was not Kevin Kline's character. It was Kenneth Branagh's.

Did you not notice the Chronic 2 references that Dr. Dre made? Suge tried releasing Chronic 2000 with unreleased Dr. Dre songs on them, but Dre managed to get the album blocked.

I understand the jabs at Suge. But for the most part this song is made for a bad Will Smith movie.

[DTG Entertainment]

I love how guys are hating on this album but then praising a 12 year old soundtrack song from a Will Smith movie where the end of the song is Em and Dre trading verses about how to defeat Kevin Kline's character from the film.

Actually, they were dissing Suge Knight in that song.

So Suge Knight ain't got no legs, they cut 'em off at the stomach. He's got mechanical legs, he spins webs?


I did make a mistake though; it was not Kevin Kline's character. It was Kenneth Branagh's.

Did you not notice the Chronic 2 references that Dr. Dre made? Suge tried releasing Chronic 2000 with unreleased Dr. Dre songs on them, but Dre managed to get the album blocked.

I understand the jabs at Suge. But for the most part this song is made for a bad Will Smith movie.

Yeah, it was made to score for the soundtrack but the song is basically one big jab at Suge Knight. Lol.

[DblPen]

its sad we got only 1 dre beat. I do like So Bad beat

[snopafly]

And Eminem recovery is leaked 2 wekks before realese date, its realy amazing that music Factorys dont have more security so they can stop workers leaking things out to the public.

anyway i know that its sometimes some sort of Business move from the record labels.

Even Eminem cannot be safe.

record sales drop everyday every year every month

[Dogg Ly Dogg]

I need to be focused to listen to that record because I was bored this morning listening to this while driving to work... I skipped all songs after a minute or 2
Only good records to me are Lil Wayne assisted and I guess Dre-produced "So Bad" songs and for the rest it sucks real hard! Music wise the album is trash and too pop for me

[rick1]

Sample on "Going Through Changes" is the from allmighty Black Sabbath´s "Changes", from the album "Vol. 4" (1972).

 

[Episcop Cruel Cvrle]

Sample on "Going Through Changes" is the from allmighty Black Sabbath´s "Changes", from the album "Vol. 4" (1972).

 

Sure is. u cant go wrong with Ozzie on the hook.

[rick1]

Some of you (remember, it´s not hip hop...) should check out Black Sabbath´s earlier albums, with Ozzy on vocals:

Black Sabbath (1969)
Paranoid (1970)
Master Of Reality (1971)
Volume 4 (1972)
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)
Sabotage (1975)

 

... Ice-T also sampled the title track from Sabbath´s self-titled first album for the song "Midnight", on his "Original Gangster" LP (1991). Heard a few more songs that use Black Sabbath samples, but these escape my memory right now...

[dubsmith_nz]

^^^ Word Ozzie sounds dope on that hook!

Listening to this album last night Albums sounded a lot doper 2nd time around, a lot more introspective than I intially thought.

I couldn't help but think how huge this album is gonna be, so many cross over singles on there. If dre wanted/needed promo for Detox he shoulda jumped on that joint with Rihanna, that songs gonna be huge.

That "Almost Famous" gives me a Havoc vibe, anyone know who produced it?

[Triple OG Rapsodie]

You guys really need to go download Bob Dylan's first 5 albums. What's the point of debating music if all you like is the novelty of it. "It's got a good beat I can bump to it". If music doesn't speak to me I don't want to hear it. That being said, nothing on Recovery "speaks" to me. And I don't mean some pseudo serious diatribe about changing the world. Just give me something real, and I'm sorry but Wild Wild West ain't it. If it's not coming from the heart then what is the point. And I don't just mean lyrics.

Kill You isn't from the heart and doesn't speak to anyone. As a matter of fact most of Eminem's music isn't intended to be taken seriously. I don't see how you can feel that way and still be a fan of Eminem considering a lot of his music is made for its shock value.

Music is music because of the way it sounds. Lyrics that "speak to you" won't make a song a good piece of music. You also need it to sound good. While I agree that the best songs can do both, production is always more important when it comes to music. Real lyrics over shitty production doesn't make better music than "fake" lyrics over great production. After all, if it were just about the lyrics we might as well all go and listen to spoken word artists and forget this hip hop nonsense.

You clearly did not understand my point at all. Re-read my post and then play the link I added and then get back to me.

Didn't see your link cause I have flash blocker on. Now that I have, it makes even less sense. You go from talking about Dre and Em rapping about a movie to the theme song from Pulp Fiction?? Where you are going with this?

Where I'm going is that for a song to speak to me or come from the heart it doesn't have to come right out and say a whole lot or in Dick Dale's case say anything at all. It's something real that you feel and just put out. Not something you have to think about first then create based on the pre-conceived idea. That song from Wild West is a shitty attempt at cowboy rap.

Now I'm a big outlaw country, alt country, and old country fan so when I hear that music that Dre and Em rap over it's sounds so cheesy. About as cheesy to me as Cowboy Troy would sound to rap fans. If I want to hear a country song about a bad ass I'll listen to Charlie Daniels. Here's a great Jimmy Dean cover.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/YZ0ItH32O7Y" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/YZ0ItH32O7Y</a>

Bad guys Always Die or Showdown or whatever is novelty. There's no emotion in the music or the rapping, and there isn't supposed to be. Kill You was not one of the tracks I mentioned as a solid stand out, but Kill You is a lot deeper than it lets on. There's a lot of frustration and anger than goes with all the jokes. Both in the rapping and the music. Way better Eminem on the mic and way better Dre behind the boards.


by the way

this is Cowboy Troy if you didn't catch the reference


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/5xto4PzDHLQ" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/5xto4PzDHLQ</a>

So basically you prefer whatever song you "feel" the most. That's true for anyone though. Problem is that everyone has a different interpretation of what they feel. I could hear a song first time and love it. You could hear it on first listen and think its shit. Also there's some songs that I don't feel the first time but then I listen to later and get really into. Like songs with more subtle production where you don't catch everything the first time. I won't lie, first time I heard GZA's Liquid Swords I didn't get it. I thought the production was rather bland. But I came back to it later and liked it a lot more. Today its one of favorite records. That's not based on a preconceived idea, that's me gaining a better understanding of the music.

Kill You actually was one of the songs that you pointed out (unless there's a song called "Hill you" I don't know about). But I don't see how its any better than the rest of  that album. It's Em talking about killing bitches over a poppish beat. I liked it a lot when I was younger because it was hardcore and had a nice beat. Not that I hate it now, but I recognize it for what it is. Go check out the MMLP thread. Those songs that you dislike like Amityville and Remember Me were among people's favorite tracks. Not that I think "Bad Guys Always Die" is better than those songs. I actually think its just an average song. I would probably like it more if the production were different. But saying you "feel" one song more than another isn't very good of an explanation as to why one is better than another. I could say one has better production, or on one he flows better or the rhymes are better or the content is better. That's at least way more arguable than saying one "speaks to me more".

[Episcop Cruel Cvrle]

^^^ Word Ozzie sounds dope on that hook!

Listening to this album last night Albums sounded a lot doper 2nd time around, a lot more introspective than I intially thought.

I couldn't help but think how huge this album is gonna be, so many cross over singles on there. If dre wanted/needed promo for Detox he shoulda jumped on that joint with Rihanna, that songs gonna be huge.

That "Almost Famous" gives me a Havoc vibe, anyone know who produced it?

Very good beat, sounds like Dj Khalil and New Royales to me.