Tons Of Shit

Eminem album. It is the reverse of Relapse, but in comparison it is better. Basically, I don't care about lyrics in rap. When they're on point (which is quite easy to do, it's like "nice beat = 'weed, club, ladies, whatever'" and "hard beat = 'struggle, manly tough guy shit, cars, guns, drugs, action movie shit') everything is all cool, basic entertainment. But, really, I'm not listening... I'm listening to cadence, delivery, and the fucking beat. Really loud. I mean rap has been going on for 30 years, there's nothing you can say in a rap song that hasn't been said. There's nothing you can say in ANY kind of song that hasn't been said. Lyrics are the least important thing... if you cared that much about prose you'd read a book instead of listening to a record, right? But, interestingly enough, on Relapse, Em was entering territory that actually had really never been hit on with lyrics... crazy, looney tunes tongue twisters revolving around long prescription pill names. It was weird and cool. The whole album wasn't that over and over, but he was doing that on several songs and it was like "wow, what a weird and inventive way to deal with rehabilitation. Wild rhymes based on complicated pill names." I loved it. But the beats were fairly weak, even by his standards. And he's NEVER had good beats. He's only ever had 'okay' beats. And since I mostly listen to rap for the beats, I hardly ever throw on an Em album after I've initially absorbed it.

Cut to Recovery. THE BEATS FUCKING RULE. BOI-1DA, DJ KHALIL, AND JUST BLAZE. EM GOT SOME DECENT BEATS. It's not Thank Me Later, but it's a fuckin start. Some of these beats just rule. Others are whack, but let's overlook that. At least 5 of these beats fucking rule. I like that there's an Eminem album finally that doesn't entirely hinge on his rhymes, again, considering the fact that lyrics don't mean a whole lot to me in music. Not to say the vocals don't matter... I would say in rap the vocals are the most important instrument, but it's the delivery... the vocal acrobatics. And the beat banging or not is pretty make or brake.

BTW DOWNLOAD THE FUCKING DRAKE ALBUM. It's perfect. The production, the weird song structures, and how he will randomly switch from rapping to singing at any given moment (not on a chorus/verse basis, just... randomly...) But, finally, the Drake album is out of the CD player, and something else is in... and it was Eminem that did it.

And the other thing I am freaking out about is that Nick Stoller, writer of the immensely funny Get Him To The Greek, wrote the upcoming Muppets movie? FUCKING AWESOME.

With a lot of cool shit going on, I don't really want to touch on Lil Boosie, but I will. He is one of my favorite rappers, and now he is allegedly facing the death penalty for paying a hitman $30,000 to kill somebody. It's at Tupac moment. I'm mad at him, I can't believe he would do that. I have to think he would not do that if he hadn't been threatened, or maybe even attacked or robbed, but this guy Nussie, but even then... it's monsterous. It is a Tupac moment. For the most part I feel like society created a monster that it couldn't save or redeem, and there is no upside to that. And we're left with terrible, pained, and haunting recordings to mull over. Resonant reflections of the darkest impoverished experiences of modern, violent America. Is there any way we can save this place and save ourselves? I still believe demonizing societies criminals is the path that leads us to these moments, not the one that will save us from them.