The other allusions made by the cover art are subtler. The tail end of a fighter plane features the letters FU-2 and a covertly spelled SUCKIT on the tail, similar to the original album's backward spelling of EAT ME. Even the album cover delivers a subtle wink by replicating the artwork from the Beastie Boys' classic 1986 debut, License To Ill. well, everybody: the critics that panned his previous album, December's lackluster Revival the Lils of rap who've made his penchant for intricate lyricism increasingly obsolete, if not totally passé the president who continues to be a huge point of contention between Eminem and his Middle America fan base since his appearance on BET last year damning Trump in a freestyle cypher. Why else would he open Kamikaze with a five-and-a-half-minute diatribe pointing fingers at. At least, he desperately wants us to believe he is. The catch is he's conceivably in on the joke. How bad is it? So bad that in a year of laughable hip-hop hysterics, Kamikaze has become the lowest hanging fruit. The blonde-haired jester who once made mockery of acts ranging from Britney Spears to Moby is now a bearded fool yelling for the kids to get off his lawn.Įminem's new album is so bad. The oddest part of Eminem's career arc has been watching him become one of those vapid pop stars he spent his formative years clowning to no end. Somehow, the greats always manage to do both. Perhaps no other genre in contemporary music grants artists enough rope to lasso their dreams or hang themselves. He may be going out with a cliché bang on Kamikaze, but he hasn't sounded more like himself in years. It was his mid-career years of sober reflection, if anything, that threw fans for a loop. Throwing tantrums has always been his M.O. This is the same emcee who climbed the charts by wearing his childhood insecurities on his sleeve. If ever there was a rapper who would fail to grow old gracefully, remaining juvenile and belligerent to the bitter end, we should've known it would be Marshall Mathers. What they're really selling when you get right down to it is high drama.Įminem has always had a flair for the dramatic. (Hell, even the King of Pop moonwalked his biggest hit "Billie Jean" to the top of the charts with an assist from mythical tabloid fodder.) But today, shock and awe has become the go-to marketing plan for artists desperate to compensate for a lack of creativity. Forget the battle rap for a pop phenomenon, winning the war means prioritizing mass consumption over credibility. It's partly why Pusha T's pre-release diss ("Story of Adidon") could be considered a win-win for Drake. Even an artist like Drake, who is practically guaranteed to sit atop the charts for weeks with each new release, gets a boost from curiosity seekers on Spotify who can partake without having to purchase. The list of 2018 offenders (or beneficiaries, depending on your take) range from Kanye West, whose MAGA-hat mania drove Ye to debut atop the Billboard charts despite it earning a critical beatdown to Nicki Minaj, whose tweetstorms in the weeks prior to and following Queen earned more coverage than the actual music, which debuted at No. And Eminem is the latest to benefit in a year defined by hip-hop's mega stars releasing subpar albums while coasting on controversy stoked by erratic rollout strategies and boiled-over beef with perceived competitors. A close cousin to hate clicks – the metric beloved by media outlets that troll readers into submission with contentious clickbait - hate streams are the music world's zero-sum equivalent. Music News Eminem Releases Surprise Album, 'Kamikaze'
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