In a recent interview on the 3rd Verse podcast, Mr. Porter shared a lot of interesting insights. Two topics in particular caught my attention: Revival and the fact that Em doesn’t want to tour. Eminem’s concerts and Denaun’s revelations about his attitude towards touring deserve a separate reflection. I plan to write about that separately, perhaps for Patreon and YouTube Membership (by the way, if you’d like to support us, please subscribe). But now I’ve remembered the story behind the Revival tracklist.
“The reason that album wasn’t received well was because of the track listing. But those songs weren’t originally there. The one with Kehlani and the one with Alicia Keys, those were added later. The version that we played Jimmy [Iovine] and Rick [Rubin] was a lot shorter” – Mr. Porter
Back in 2017, I was in constant touch with people at Universal Music, from different offices around the world, and would periodically receive press releases, important announcements, promotional materials for releases and all sorts of insider information. Of course, much of it couldn’t be shared (and I never broke that rule), but it allowed us to prepare for releases and write articles, reviews, etc. in advance. All in all, this was a huge help to our team. Sometimes we managed to get some genuinely exceptional exclusives – pictures that had never been published anywhere, photos in the original quality, or information that we were authorised to publish for the first time. It really was great.
One such exclusive was the Revival tracklist. Interestingly, the tracklist and its design weren’t sent to me by our contact at UM, but directly by a Shady Records representative. There was a significant time difference between me and the US, so I only noticed the tracklist a few hours later.
Naturally, I was very surprised and decided to check with UM to see what was going on: “Are you aware of this? Is this part of the promotion?” To which I received the reply: “It’s a very strange situation. Management has told us not to get involved”.
I messaged the Shady Records contact who’d sent me the tracklist and asked what the purpose was: should we publish it? The reply was brief and affirmative. Another thing struck me. It was already quite late in the evening in the US when I replied to Shady Records, yet my message was read almost instantly. In short, it turned out to be part of a promotional campaign.
I posted the tracklist with a video on the channel and on our Instagram, the project’s first account, @eminemjournal. By the way, bloody Instagram later blocked that account for allegedly “impersonating a celebrity”, despite the fact that we had always made it clear that we were an independent project. Em’s official Instagram had even reposted a photo of my merch collection from that account after it won the competition for the label’s 15th anniversary. But that’s beside the point. And that’s when it all started…
The reaction Denaun has now described in his interview came pouring out – a constant stream of negativity and harsh criticism. People claimed that such a pop-oriented tracklist couldn’t be real, that there were no rappers on the album, and that it was packed with pop artists. In short, the fans were furious and didn’t hold back in the comments.
Now that Denaun has revealed how different the final Revival tracklist was from the original version, that old episode looks very different. Add to that the seemingly insignificant but unusual circumstances surrounding the tracklist, and everything starts to fall into place. It now seems possible that the Shady team were worried about the pop-heavy guest line-up and how the album would be received, and wanted to gauge the fans’ reaction.
I’d like to say “don’t shoot the messenger,” but I still feel a bit guilty that this hype machine of negativity got going and that bloggers, Joe Budden, and others joined in with the harsh reaction from some fans. Perhaps, if the reaction hadn’t been so harsh, we’d be listening to the Glass House album right now…