While we are preparing our exclusive review of Eminem’s new album “Music To Be Murdered By”, we offer you to read an excerpt from Telegraph’s publication, where the author admires the new creation of the hip-hop king, calling it the greatest album of the 20th century.
Rating – 5/5
What is more impressive is that he makes every word count. He declares “I’m unfadable / You wanna battle, I’m available, I’m blowin’ up like an inflatable / I’m undebatable, I’m unavoidable, I’m unevadable.” I am not sure the latter is actually a word but you know exactly what he means: every rapper who wants to lay claim to the hip hop crown is going to have to get past Eminem first. The grandstanding champion has pugnaciously inserted himself into the new decade by dropping an unannounced double album as punchy, melodramatic and brilliant as anything he has ever done.
The lugubrious tones of Alfred Hitchcock provide spoken interludes and thematic context, sampled from a 1958 orchestral compilation from which Eminem has also borrowed the title, Music to Be Murdered By. Homicide is a repeated subject (as it has been throughout Eminem’s career), although the angle shifts from lurid first person fictional narratives of violence to jokey threats and musical metaphors, with Eminem rapping about poisonous pens and threatening to “murder this beat” on closing track I Will.
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Nevertheless, within hours of the album’s release, Eminem was mired in controversy over a reference to the 2017 Manchester Arena suicide bombing. …. Yet, for better or worse, it wouldn’t be much of an Eminem album if he wasn’t upsetting someone.
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When every line and idea is so ridiculously out of proportion to the subject matter, the impact can be akin to a brain-numbing assault of verbal blows. But it only works because Eminem is a bold and brilliant wordsmith, piling up internal rhymes and employing a vast vocabulary. His impressive command of metre and scansion creates a sense of unstoppable impetus. On top of which his delivery is always pitch-perfect, shifting rhythm and emphasis with the instincts of a natural thespian. I don’t think there is anyone else in rap with his range of skills.
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It remains hard to unequivocally champion Eminem when so many elements of his art are deeply, provocatively and intentionally offensive. There is plenty here for any reasonable person might object to, including blasts of horrible sexism, sneering misogyny and just general nastiness.
…. Eminem’s 11th album offers over an hour of the world’s greatest rapper blasting away on all cylinders. It is the first great album of 2020, so lethally brilliant it should be a crime.
– Telegraph
