Revival

Eminem - Revival
Critic Score
Based on 25 reviews
2017 Ratings: #930 / 940
User Score
2017 Rank: #940
Liked by 36 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

80
The Telegraph
He may be a deeply flawed and reprehensible character but, when it comes to pure unadulterated rap skills, Eminem is still the boss.
80
The Independent
Where most wallow in wearyingly cliched boasts of luxury and power, Eminem remains wracked by doubts – about his status, his behaviour, his relationships, his emotions, his mental health. It’s this constant self-laceration that accounts for the manic mood-swings of his albums, the sudden shifts between fury, tragedy and comedy, and which enables him to navigate those changes so nimbly.
80
XXL

While Revival isn’t the defibrillator that Eminem needed to revive his dominance, the album has enough highlights to maintain decent replay value and enough lyrical miracles to keep mindful rap from totally flat lining. His pen game hasn't lost even half of a step, and he still possesses the neurotic edge that's always made him such a driving force in hip-hop.

70
Drowned in Sound

This is an album that could certainly have done with some editing – it feels about four or five tracks too long at a total of 19. But it's one whose high points do more than justify their existence.

70
Northern Transmissions
While a marvel at its best and occasionally brilliant in its more average songs, there’s a lot of weight on this album that just can’t be carried. If this truly is Eminem’s final outing, maybe something briefer would’ve been better.
70
Rolling Stone

When Revival's confessionals work, it's proof that, when the real Marshal Mathers stands up, he can still pull us into his evocative dramas.

68
Paste

In some ways, Revival almost feels like Recovery 2.0. While not focused entirely on sobriety, Revival is equally emotional and reflective, with touches of darkness stemming from Em’s continued feelings of guilt and self-recrimination.

64
HipHopDX
Sometimes even architects don’t always have the blueprint for going forward, which makes Revival, Eminem’s ninth crack at snatching a Best Rap Album Grammy an admirable feat — even if it doesn’t whiff the top half of his storied discography.
60
Exclaim!

Now that it's here ... we can say that the real Slim Shady does show up and prove himself on a handful of Revival's songs, but many of the more 'noteworthy' moments are buried under a mountain of contradictions and cringe-worthy attempts at shock value.

60
NME
Overall ... the tellingly titled ‘Revival’ is the most vital record Em has put out since 2004’s ‘The Eminem Show’.
60
AllMusic

Listening to Eminem challenge himself on a sheer technical level -- and the absence of any major guest rappers suggests he thinks he's in a class of his own -- can still be a wonder but the overall effect of Revival can be a bit grim, and that can't be chalked up to the dark currents sweeping through America in 2017.

50
Slant Magazine
He's not quite on autopilot throughout, but he does sound distracted.
50
Gigwise
Its ambition is too rooted in proven practices, its eye too firmly set on the sales spreadsheet. With the unit-shifting guest names come mainstream R&B, boyband and EDM textures, the sound of Eminem conceding the rap foreground to the new generation and instead chasing the (dwindling) money.
50
Pitchfork

Revival is ultimately plagued by the same pitfalls as Infinite, which found him shadowboxing against ghosts, unable to land any punches. This time he’s competing with a version of himself that no longer exists. And though it’s easy to empathize with his creeping self-doubt, it’s tougher to swallow in the context of an album that ultimately proves that those doubts are correct.

40
Q Magazine
Eminem has never sounded more like a man out of time.
40
Spectrum Culture
Only Eminem would open an album with a feature from Beyoncé (who breathes life into the tired Skylar Grey-penned hook on lead single “Walk on Water”) and waste it by spending the entire track lamenting his place in the modern hip hop pantheon.
40
The Observer

Perhaps the biggest problem with Revival – as with many latterday Eminem records – is the struggle of an intelligent fortysomething artist to evolve while somehow remaining true to the demands of his sniggery core audience of alienated males, one he knows he shares with Trump. Listening to Eminem trying to square this circle, it’s just one face palm after another.

33
A.V. Club

Revival isn’t even interesting enough to warrant all of the critical beatdowns it’s taken in its short time in the world. Instead, it’s boring and predictable, which are greater threats to the Eminem legacy than anything else.

30
Crack Magazine
Presented with a new generation of SoundCloud sensations accused, and in some cases even convicted, of the sort of misogynistic behaviour glorified on his early full-lengths, Mathers squanders a prime opportunity to atone or at least to mature. It was perhaps foolish to expect otherwise, to expect rap’s most entitled brat to shed his lucrative problem child persona for any reason.
20
Sputnikmusic
There’s nothing redeemable, worthy, or valuable about an Eminem album in 2017. Besides failing to maintain any technical proficiency at rapping whatsoever, a minor respite to prior efforts, he has embraced a parade of no-name, no-value, unimportant producers and features, who otherwise sink him and emphasise his own bad instincts.
15
The 405

His good intentions just make how genuinely excruciating this record is all the more sad. Slim Shady may have spent the last decade and change putting out bad records, but Revival stands as the first truly terrible entry into his already sagging discography.

8
Consequence of Sound

Revival is the most pleasureless record he’s ever made, so stymied by his worst tendencies that like many other inept apologies from 2017 it only points out how much further he has to go rather than how far he’s come.

MySoftBulletin
0

does eminem not listen to music? he seems to have forgotten what a song is supposed to sound like

TheRealEminem
100

What are you talking about this album is awesome

lemuriams
25

ENIMEN FEATURING ED SHEERAN

10

castle is sisyphus, pushing the rest of this album up the hill. 1 hour and 17 minutes of this is better spent clipping your eyebrows off with the sword of a 1000 year old mongol warrior

upsidedwnwolf06
23

Marshall’s flow sucks on every track.
Marshall is drowned out in every track.
ALL of Marshall’s deliveries are hella annoying on every track.
^These are severe understatements.^

Sheeran was a godsend.
Not something I get to say often.

You could do something with some of the ideas which are presented on this album but that doesn't save the songs from being an absolute errand to listen to.

L

TheZetaCoreYT
24

If Arose didn't exist this would be much, much lower. His face is how I feel about the album.

Average Score: 26/100
Overall Score: 24/100

Favorites: River, Arose
Least Favorites: many but specifically Bad Husband and Heat

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Track List

1Walk On Water
5:03
feat. Beyoncé
57
2Believe
5:15
32
3Chloraseptic
5:01
feat. PHresher
26
4Untouchable
6:10
21
5River
3:41
36
6Remind Me (Intro)
0:26
18
7Remind Me
3:45
15
8Revival (Interlude)
0:51
33
9Like Home
4:05
26
10Bad Husband
4:47
22
11Tragic Endings
4:12
27
12Framed
4:13
48
13Nowhere Fast
4:24
feat. Kehlani
27
14Heat
4:10
12
15Offended
5:20
35
16Need Me
4:25
feat. P!nk
23
17In Your Head
3:02
34
18Castle
4:14
72
19Arose
4:34
65
Total Length: 1 hour, 17 minutes
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Added on: October 28, 2017