Eminem has had some truly great albums. From The Marshall Mathers LP to the Slim Shady EP, the Detroit native has made musical magic. However, some of his more recent projects have not hit the mark, and since the early 2010s, many of his albums have had a bad reception.
When Em first broke into the mainstream in 1999, his singles struck a chord with the culture. Within a year, he was performing at the MTV Music Awards. With the backing of Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, he had production at the highest level for much of the 2000s.
Akin to 50 Cent, Eminem had the luxury of Dr Dre crafting his projects to perfection during the early stages of his career. However, Eminem decided to collaborate with other beatmakers when his mentor began producing for a fresh-faced Kendrick Lamar.
Furthermore, as he matured, Eminem dialled down his outrageous Slim Shady alter-ego and took his lyrics in a more solemn and profound direction. Still, this creative decision didn’t immediately receive positive feedback. In fact, many didn’t like the brown-haired, simpler version of Em and felt he had lost his energy.
Over the years, the negative perception of Em simply compounded, with more and more people disliking his projects each year. From Relapse to Recovery, much of the music the Detroit native released in the 2010s had a commercial and inauthentic feel, and in 2017, even when Dr. Dre returned to executively produce Em’s ninth album, Revival, it was met with negative reviews.
Revival featured Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, and Kehlani. Still, it also featured some stranger appearances from musicians like P!nk and X Ambassadors. It was an extremely lengthy body of work and included 19 tracks. However, Eminem still believes people don’t understand what he was trying to achieve with Revival.
During an interview with Billboard magazine in 2018, Eminem spoke about the backlash Revival received, stating, “I think there’s things to be taken away from this album and the reaction to it. Were there too many songs? Were there too many features? There were certain songs like ‘Tragic Endings’ and ‘Need Me’ where I felt like lyrically they would give the listener a second to breathe. I spend a lot of time writing shit that I think nobody ever gets.” He continued, “When the Revival tracklist came down the pipe, it was like overwhelmingly, ‘This shit is going to be trash.’ Nobody really wanted to be wrong about it. I’m not saying everybody, but a lot of people had already formed their opinion.”
Eminem made Revival shortly before he made Kamikaze (one of his most hated projects), and he admitted to Billboard that the two projects go hand-in-hand, unveiling, “I’m good with Revival. Fuck it. Because I couldn’t have made this album [Kamikaze] without it.”
Despite ensuring that he doesn’t care about people’s opinions about his music, over the last decade, Eminem has declined musically in a way many of his peers haven’t. The 2000s saw an astounding run from the Encore creator, but when the hip-hop sound became more commercial in the 2010s, he lost his way a little and despite recording hits such as ‘Love The Way You Lie’, a lot of his fanbase felt abandoned, especially with the Slim Shady alter-ego being so absent.
