Back. Again…
[Video][Website]
[3.47]
Alex Macpherson: Oh, come on. Surely no one was anticipating this being any good whatsoever? It matches my expectations exactly.
[0]
Jonathan Bradley: I would have expected better.
[2]
Alex Wisgard: You’d think Eminem would have found a way to refine and, god forbid, mature his sound in the same way he did in the twelve months between his first two albums. Unfortunately, that seems like a bit much to ask of this track. “We Made You” bounces with typical raunch, but when Em starts to rap over it, it seems like he’s working against the beat rather than with it. Then, after a while, you start to realise that he’s recycled his entire flow from “Without Me”. Still, the song does contain his most infectious (read: least irritating) chorus since “Lose Yourself”, which can only be a good thing.
[6]
Martin Skidmore: I wouldn’t have believed how badly he would lose it – his extraordinary flow seems to have gone, and this all sounds awkward and forced. Dre delivers a ludicrously bouncy backing, which isn’t bad, but that is nowhere near enough to save a pretty dismal single.
[3]
Ian Mathers: He’s been flailing for years now, but in the sub-sub-sub-Weird Al video (no disrespect, Mr. Yankovic) for “We Made You”, Marshall Mathers looks slim, healthy, and weirdly committed to the song. I say ‘weirdly’ because “We Made You” plays as if a focus group was trying to replicate the effortless pop culture zeitgeist baiting of Eminem’s early work, and all they could come up with was a bunch of disconnected verses about celebrities and a chorus that struggles far too hard to try and make the whole thing sharp or relevant. Dr. Dre’s oompah beat isn’t helping matters at all.
[2]
Martin Kavka: Like all Eminem singles, this is quite interesting lyrically. Eminem complains that all the women to whom he’s attracted won’t give him the time of day. But this isn’t because they don’t like him; it’s because they are slaves to their manufacturers — the masses. Still, like almost all Eminem singles, this is quite forgettable musically.
[5]
David Raposa: Note to Rolling Stone: name-checking celebrities and saying you want to screw them or their girlfriends doesn’t really qualify as “skewering” as you define it (boioioing). And even in video format, with the porn stars eating burgers and ex-MadTV guys getting Spocked, it sure as hell isn’t any sort of celeb-culture damnation. The Fauxtown backbeat is pretty great, and the hook is ruthlessly effective, but Marshall making like Perez Hilton’s hetero Twitter ain’t. If this is the new-and-improved (with retsin!) version of “The Real Slim Shady,” I hope to never hear what “Stan 2.0” sounds like. (And in lieu of even more hope, I pray that fellow Jukeboxers avoid the oh-so-tempting AR sandpit.)
[5]
Dave Moore: I’d like to admit, for the record, that I did not spend enough time with “Just Lose It” when I had my first, and somewhat violent, reaction to it. Since then, I’ve grown to quite like it with hindsight. There was nothing at that point to suggest (to me, anyway) that he was intentionally launching a nuke on his career — in fact, he probably could have coasted with Eminem Show-type lower-stakes consistency if he wanted to. But Encore was something different, something twisted and special. What’s most disheartening about this is its resolute un-specialness, the feeling that Asher Roth could have done it…no, that Asher could have PASSED on it. I’m not even sure if there’s any modest joy in wordplay in it: “Can he come back as nasty as he can? / Yes he can can, don’t ask me this again.” I won’t.
[2]
Jordan Sargent: As he desperately tries to recreate “The Real Slim Shady”, there are a few things that Em seems to have forgotten. The first is that “The Real Slim Shady” was a well reasoned argument disguised as a radio-ready pop song, a near ultimate vehicle for sticking it to his literal protestors. The second is that his mocking of Christina and Fred and Carson seemed borne out of true disgust, giving the song its subversive resonance even though it was bound to rule TRL right from the jump. “We Made You”, on the other hand, is truly pointless in the era of “Best Week Ever” and “The Soup” (and post-Tina Fey as Palin), and, more importantly, retains exactly none of Em’s old subversion, so much so that it’s kind of heartbreaking to hear him resort to ragging on (sigh) Kevin Federline.
[3]
Renato Pagnani: At the beginning of “We Made You,” Eminem asks “Can he come back as nasty as he can?” The only thing nasty about this is the fact this 37-year-old is still making fart noises on record. “Damn girl, I’m beginning to sprout an alfalfa” is the type of wordplay that my 15-year-old brother stopped finding funny three years ago. Dr. Dre’s production lurches instead of bounces, with his signifiers (clunky pianos, farty horns) doing nothing but serving as evidence that Dre’s best days just might be behind him; Marshall Mathers’ certainly are.
[2]
Additional Scores
Andrew Brennan: [3]
Hillary Brown: [3]
Briony Edwards: [5]
Joseph McCombs: [4]
Edward Okulicz: [3]
Doug Robertson: [5]
Hazel Robinson : [6]