Relapse

Hot take but this is better than SSLP and TES.

I’m a big fan of the production on this album, it’s easily the best Em album for production. Beyond that, I honestly think other than MMLP it’s his best in terms of pure rapping between his flows, lyricism and more chilled cadence. It’s also more consistent than any one of his other albums, not having a real low point.

Why the 85 then? I sound a lot more positive than an 85 right. Here are my issues. The subject matter on the album generally don’t allow him the lyrical highs he reaches on SSLP, MMLP, TES and MMLP2’s best tracks despite his general aptitude for lyricism here shining on each track. He also doesn’t have the same catchiness he’s so known for, which can be attributed to a number of things. He only has two tracks with features this time, and his hooks and choruses are far weaker than they were on SSLP so he can’t really afford that. He also does the whole accent thing, which I don’t even hate that much but objectively it did more harm than good for him. Even things I like, like him picking up some abstract rap aspects in his flows and returning to the horror themes he mostly dropped on TES generally seem like they’d be no go for popularity in his case.

I feel like this was a great return to form following the shitstain that was Encore, but if I had to really pinpoint a single issue it’s that he changed too much at once even if I personally like it. To get on the most experimental beats of his career, get weirder with his rapping between odd flows and accents, and suddenly re-enter horrorcore’s forefront after ditching it for seven years, it makes sense it’s not his most popular project, and I think the inferior popular reception to his previous four albums, both between their top tracks and in whole, may have been another reason Recovery was so god damn sterilized other than the obvious.

I wish he’d allowed this to further influence his sound because in a world where Eminem made 3 more albums with beats like this I’d be so much more of a glazer.