Must… resist…. obvious joke…
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[3.12]
Thomas Inskeep: Slim Shady’s bid to re-write “Gonna Fly Now”-cum-“Lose Yourself” can’t make it out of the ring.
[2]
Micha Cavaseno: You know, it’s funny. A lot of Eminem’s listeners (and maybe some of my fellow reviewers) are going to talk about Eminem’s dependency on technique, in positive or negative lights. But what’s crazy is that he is not ever in the pocket or on the beat at all. This is Common-level bad, your high-school science project you “rapped”-level bad, your baby cousin subjecting the family reunion to a song they wrote on their ukelele that isn’t a song so much as stream-of-consciousness singing and thrashing atonally-level bad (although the cousin isn’t making bank off of that, so god bless ’em). He’s doing a lot of tongue twisters and rapping fast, but he’s not flowing at all, so what the fuck is the point here? Also, this man is out here imagining people still call each other “sissy” when they fight. This is like the time he showed some rap writer his wall to wall collection of porn DVDs only to learn the rest of humanity now uses the Internet. In other words, he can’t even be a fucking obnoxious asshole right anymore. The shit’s just sad, really.
[0]
Scott Mildenhall: Calm down Marshall! A mulchy drag of a track like this is nothing to get het up over. Once upon a time he did this well, but a career partly spent trying doggedly to redefine “overwrought” has reached a point where he’s just scribbling on the dictionary. Pages and pages of it, scrawled on manically in the name of empowerment, while everyone outside continues to listen to “Lose Yourself”.
[4]
Alfred Soto: Yeah, he’s throwing anything against the wall, and by recreating the torrent of vitriolic self-help crap that sounded novel in 2002 he’s hoping it’ll stick. He’s lost much of his instinct for stressing the unexpected syllable, though, so a torrent is what he creates. And, really, Em — Martha Stewart? Why not Paula Deen jokes while you’re at it?
[4]
David Sheffieck: I like the avant move of recording the track from two rooms away, but I’m not sure I quite understand the meaning in having the verses laid down after Eminem ran up a flight of stairs. “The only thing I’m capable of is amazing” just doesn’t work when your delivery has all the precision of buckshot.
[2]
Will Adams: Each successive “I AM PHENOMENAOOWWW” (and the ridiculous delays on it) makes me snicker even more. Like always, Eminem aims for “Lose Yourself”-esque determination and lands on “twelve-year-old pissed off that his older brother called shotgun.” And seriously, no one’s told him to stop singing yet?
[3]
Brad Shoup: Drawing out those hollow vowels, Liz Rodrigues sounds positively Scandinavian. Marshall’s vowels are pretty much his only focus nowadays. You can practically hear him discarding punchlines and left-field imagery in favor of Martha Stewart at a grill. His hooks were always pretty shaky, and this one in particular smacks of afterthought. (No way would he fuck up his enunciation on his beloved bars — I swear the chorus says something’s going to make him “a monster dong”.) Half-speed 96 kbps cymbal and piano fragments fill out yet another sludgy, gothic track of the kind that’ll probably knock an Eminem career survey into the right range for the wrong reason.
[5]
Ramzi Awn: When “Phenomenal” hits its stride, it sounds like it could have been a track off The Slim Shady. The discordant backup vocals and “One Night in Bangkok” synth stabs bring to mind the one and only “My Fault” — the best outcome Eminem could ask for in 2015.
[5]