Andrew O’Hagan has an article in The New York Review of Books about Marshall Mathers (aka Eminem). He quotes extensively, unflinchingly from some of his more notorious lyrics, and points out that some people “might even imagine they have no place in The New York Review of Books.” They do, and his comments make an interesting read.
Although O’Hagan writes, “I have no interest in claiming Eminem to be a poet, or a genius, or an ethical leader,” he also claims, “Eminem can make the language dance and he can summon a wealth of true moments,” which sounds like a pretty good definition of poetry to me. Unlike most of Eminem’s moralizing critics, O’Hagan tries hard to pay attention:
you have to listen to how the songs work, how the voicings and play-acting make them more than just appalling. He turns everything he describes into its own absurd little drama, part The Simpsons, part The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, part reality TV, part Nathaniel Hawthorne. Sin is evoked and borne out, but not celebrated, as it seems to be to the Washington wives. The chief victim in this stuff is always the speaker: self-parodied, self-loathing, bent double, shattered.
And O’Hagan has interesting thoughts concerning Eminem’s fans, avoiding the often fatal error of underestimating an audience’s reaction:
It seemed beyond the pale. Yet fans find the song funny, rather in the way young people find professional wrestling funny, as if the brutality was a form of showmanship.
Eminem’s fans enjoy the simple-seeming spectacle of someone manufacturing the common trash and giving the finger to his mother. As for homophobia and misogyny: I think he has fun using the words he uses, and he reflects a world in which people do speak like that. I don’t think music fans listen to records in order to confirm their hatreds, any more than fans of Edgar Allan Poe or Patricia Highsmith read those books to indulge an ambition to murder.
I’m not as confident as O’Hagan that Eminem’s fans don’t look to him in part to confirm and indulge their hatreds. He is right to point to Eminem’s (often sick) humor – “comedy is the key to all this: any true reckoning of Eminem’s forebears would include Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, and Richard Pryor, American comedians who were apt to make people’s stomachs turn while they laughed up a storm.” But I’m not so sure that his fans’ stomachs really are churning. No doubt, they are cultivating a certain kind of irony – as do the people who find professional wrestling funny – but this requires ignoring the brutality for the showmanship. It makes the expressions of homophobia and misogyny normal and ordinary, whether or not they “really mean it.”
In any event, it’s nice to read someone taking such issues seriously and thinking rather than ranting. O’Hagan also deals with the issue of race insightfully – as does Eminem himself:
Eminem is not more extreme than the rap artists from whom he learned his trade—he is merely extremely white. “The problem is I speak to suburban kids,” the singer has said. “They connected with me too because I look like them.”
But O’Hagan falls into the depressing trap of “authenticity” – one of my pet peeves:
The music of dispossession was an invention of black America—jazz, the blues, spirituals, the rudiments of rock- and-roll—and the whole history of popular music is really an account of white boys stealing the noise of blacks and making it commercial. What was Elvis if not a hip-swiveling version of Chuck Berry? And what were the Rolling Stones when they first appeared if not Muddy Waters with bangs and bangles? But Eminem is something else again, not just a kid with the talent to appropriate an African-American style and make it appealing to millions of whites, but someone whose life and material are authentic in themselves, giving the old style new meaning.
I’m not a fan of Eminem. But I am a fan of Elvis and Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones and Muddy Waters. And it is a disgrace to suggest that the art of Elvis or the Rolling Stones is somehow inauthentic because based in what originated largely (not exclusively) as African-American styles. Can O’Hagan seriously believe that these artists failed to give “the old style new meaning”? The problem isn’t simply about race – although I suspect that here O’Hagan is blinded by the issue. The mistake is in asking whether someone’s “life and material are authentic in themselves,” as if these two questions must have the same answer.
{ 34 comments }
david 10.23.03 at 3:30 am
Oh dear, another Eminem is a dangerous genius take. Eminem is a mediocre rapper as far as I hear — but he’s on the road to Madonnadom, a lucrative career producing a series of everexagerated caricatures of cleverness. Absolutely, what you say about authenticity. Authenticity tells us nothing about rap, in the same way it tells us nothing about the Baroque. NWA was as inauthentic as Eminem by many measures (though the Compton line sold many albums) but Straight Outta Compton is a great album. It wasn’t authenticity that did it, it was “You’d rather see/me in the pen, then/ me and Lorenzo/rolling in the Benzo.” That and Ice Cube is hot.
This isn’t a rant, I hope. I just think Eminem is weak. And when you see him reviewed in the New York Review, or Slate, you wonder why De la Soul or Tribe Called Quest didn’t get that review. And you have to figure, it’s because they were black, and authentic or not, they weren’t news.
Randy Paul 10.23.03 at 3:45 am
My Eminem moment was in a bus going from Tetouan, Morocco to Tangier when the unexpurgated version of “The Reeal Slim Shady” (?) was on Moroccan radio (you know the song that mentions Brittney Spears) and I had no doubt that the fact that the song was on Moroccan radio had nothing to do with his “marri[age of] a perfect style to a perverse content, [or] the songs hav[ing] a catchy, celebratory feeling about them, as well as a narrative force that seemed new.”
Matt Weiner 10.23.03 at 5:25 am
The Elvis Presley/Chuck Berry comment is really shockingly uninformed on a factual level, because Elvis’s first recordings were made in 1954 while Berry’s were made in 1955. (Information from allmusic.com.) It’s like, I don’t know, calling the Beasties a white version of De La Soul.
The concept of authenticity in popular music really is quite vexed. It would be nice to be able to talk about the position of Eminem as a white man performing what is, let’s face it, a black style, while avoiding reductionist oversimplifications, but avoiding oversimplifications is hard. I don’t know how to finesse this one.
Arash 10.23.03 at 5:54 am
Well, he sold 20 million total. Add 4 million more from his protoge 50 Cent. Anyone who can sell that much is a genius.
NonPundit 10.23.03 at 7:02 am
Like him or not, he does have a talent that is quite unique in the history of rap. The speed of his delivery, in addition to a somewhat sophisticated dissection of traditional english grammar, offers more to listeners than most rappers. He’s a smart guy, and I think a close analogy would be Mick Jagger singing “Under My Thumb” in his glory days of youth. I get pretty upset at some of his lyrics, but I’ll admit that he has talent.
Case in point… His last Slim Shady song has a lyric about Moby that says “Nobody listens to techno.” Well, I’m a techno dj and this initially pissed me off. It made me think that any young kid who isn’t familiar with techno is now going to hate it because Eminem said so. And then I realized that the basic beat of the song is a 4/4 minimal house/techno loop. At its heart, this techno/house track was played in millions of stereos around the world. I’m still pissed about it, but I hate Moby, too. So I guess it evens out.
Chris 10.23.03 at 7:44 am
Well…
It’s questionable to throw out the “non-exclusive” claim parenthesized towards the African-American musical styles. I mean, it gets the job done, but it’s questionable at best.
As Eminem says:
“I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley / to do black music so selfishly / and used it to get myself wealthy”
Yes. The problem isn’t simply about race, but it’s silly to think that race plays no part.
Elvis’ recording coming out before Chuck Berry’s doesn’t really speak to the crux of the problem.
But in the end, all the people citing De La Soul and what have you, should realize that Eminem will lay more intelligent and eloquent rhymes over them, and more so, that De La Soul and many others are just as much as parasitic on “black music” as they are.
Nababov 10.23.03 at 9:21 am
I never really got into Eminem until I heard him like this:
http://www.waxy.org/archive/2002/07/21/the_emin.shtml
Hugo 10.23.03 at 11:29 am
“The music of dispossession was an invention of black America”
No, it was black America assimilating their musical traditions with those of the West (the Western eight-note scale, for instance). Which is exactly what happened in reverse decades later with Elvis and the Stones et al.
bobbie 10.23.03 at 1:05 pm
personally i absolutely love the way eminem works with words; he’s more cunning than most of his peers, cleverer with his scanning and more elaborate with his vocab. i think the fact he’s white has a lot to do with his commercial success, which in turn means he gets more adulation exponentially. but his ethnicity doesn’t have anything to do with his ability.
i’m able to put aside his more unsavoury attitudes, or take them as part of the whole. if we’re talking about the realm of poetry, few people really suggests that we stop reading TS Eliot because of allusions of anti-semitism. Great work is great work.
i agree with the complaint about authenticity; and in any case, rap may have been an african-american creation, but i’d say in context of someone like eminem it’s more about being the predominant young, urban music form – as was the case with elvis etc.
priviliged suburban girl 10.23.03 at 2:46 pm
“Eminem is a mediocre rapper as far as I hear ”
I would agree. People talk of Eminem’s talent. I think he samples other people’s sound (common enough) but does little to make those rythms his own. He found a tune that works and uses it over and over. His work does contain irony but it is not as sophisticated as some would have us to believe.
Sure if you compare him to the bargain basement type of misogynistic trash that other mainstream rappers put out, he seems brilliant. The truth is that rap is more than what MTV and radios choose to play. It is a genre packed with highly talented musicians and lyricists (poets I would say). It rather shocked me that I actually like a good deal of rap. It’s not the genre, but the mainstream creators that are uninteresting. As usual the fringe is experimenting in ways large media outlets don’t want to invest in since such artists don’t guarantee success.
Big record companies rarely take a chance on someone who has intelligent things to say. Eminem is safe. The public would rather gravitate towards Eminem’s shallow kind social critic. It makes his audience feel smart because they get it but there really isn’t much that much to get.
Eminem can’t compare with Ice-T whose lyrics were contrarvertial but thought-provoking. He brought his life vividly to a mainstream audience (ie me!). Eminem has far less to say and prefers to merely parade his understanding of irony. Rather than being the Oscar Wilde of rap, he’s rap’s answer to The Farrelly Brothers.
But let’s not get caught up in ourselves. Being slightly above failing doesn’t make you worthwhile.
And I’ve enjoyed Eminem’s songs, inspite of myself. But they aren’t what critics claim. He’s simply the first white rapper to take the rap and hiphop sound and make it harmless and popish enough for mainstream white kids, without entirely subtracting the rough element of anger. All other attempts were disneyfied.
I still don’t think priviliged suburban teenagers have anything to be angry about. Pandering to their worst adolecent selves is hardly an achievement.
drapetomaniac 10.23.03 at 4:04 pm
“Eminem can make the language dance and he can summon a wealth of true moments,” which sounds like a pretty good definition of poetry to me.
Really, why? It sounds preposterously and pointlessly vague to me.
I’m not as confident as O’Hagan that Eminem’s fans don’t look to him in part to confirm and indulge their hatreds.
Funny, that’s exactly how I feel about Harold Bloom and Conrad. I really wonder what all these people trembling at the thought of Eminem making misogyny (!) and homophobia ordinary were doing and saying during the ‘canon wars’. Were they trembling at the thought of little children reading Twain?
I thought the ‘unflinchingly’ was pretty hilarious too, as if adult critics were so milk-fed and sheltered that it took some sort of firm courage to quote Eminem.
……..
NWA was as inauthentic as Eminem by many measures.
In what way Eminem mediocre and how were NWA “inauthentic”?
Like him or not, he does have a talent that is quite unique in the history of rap. The speed of his delivery, in addition to a somewhat sophisticated dissection of traditional english grammar, offers more to listeners than most rappers.
How is he unique? Surely you cannot be suggesting that the speed of his delivery makes him unique! I’m not sure what you mean by “dissection of grammar”, do tell.
But in the end, all the people citing De La Soul and what have you, should realize that Eminem will lay more intelligent and eloquent rhymes over them.
How are Eminem’s rhymes “more intelligent” than De La Soul’s and what have you’s?
It rather shocked me that I actually like a good deal of rap.
I truly loved this line and it seemed to me to resonate with the whole thread.
Matt Weiner 10.23.03 at 5:23 pm
Chris,
I think I agree with all your points. When you’re talking about early rockabillies, or white rappers like Eminem, or for that matter early jazz musicians, you shouldn’t leave out race (unless you’re just not interested in the sociology, which is perfectly valid). I was just saying–if O’Hagen is going to make silly claims that Elvis ripped off black musicians, he should find a more plausible model, like Big Boy Crudup, Muddy Waters, or Howlin’ Wolf (who I think was recording at Sun before Elvis). I can’t help but think that a similar howler about classical music wouldn’t have made it past the NYRB’s editors.
Matt Weiner 10.23.03 at 5:26 pm
Eh, I should have said “silly claims that Elvis only ripped off black musicians.” As Jon says, it’s wrong to think that he failed to give an old style new meaning, though I think he probably invented a new style. It would even more ridiculous, though, to claim that Elvis wasn’t deeply influenced by black musicians–I certainly didn’t mean that.
Keith M Ellis 10.23.03 at 5:39 pm
I don’t know what I like, but I know what art is.
privliged suburban girl 10.23.03 at 5:50 pm
PSG – It rather shocked me that I actually like a good deal of rap.
drapetomaniac – I truly loved this line and it seemed to me to resonate with the whole thread.
Thank you. Honesty is important. Average culture critics must understand that they may not be aware of the range of options merely by turning on MTV or BET for that matter.
I was suburban raised. Rap generally didn’t speak to me as it might to others. I accept that.
Eminem is just not as good as critics desperately want him to be.
Sad that his limp irony is what passes for wry social commentary these days. That says more than anything.
KevinNYC 10.23.03 at 6:32 pm
De La Soul? Tribe Called Quest? Gimme a break, those are groups whose best work was in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Gee, I wonder why Slate didn’t review 3 Feet High and Rising. Could it be that that album came out 7 years before slate was founded? De La Soul’s and Tribe Called Quest’s problem is not that they can’t get reviews in NYR or Slate, their problem is hip-hop fans don’t buy their albums. Tribe’s last album was in 1998 or to put it another way Eminem’s entire career has happened since their last album. De La Soul’s last album sold maybe 50,000 copies.
As to Elvis and Chuck Berry, the whole issue is a little more complicated when you realized that Chuck Berry was consciously playing in a white style. “Maybelliene” is what Chuck called a “hillbilly song.” Its first title was called “Ida Red.” Berry’s innovation was using C&W basslines with R&B drums with his unique guitar over them. Chuck Berry had an appreciation for country music that shows up in his lyrics too. Listen to Chuck Berry and Hank Williams or Jimmy Rodgers back to back, you will find an affinity in the lyrics.
Elvis first single was “That’s All Right Mama” with “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” Possible the best single ever released. The first song is a blues cover, the second is a bluegrass cover. Both were done with a rock and roll sound. Elvis is obviously hugely and deeply influenced by black music, but to ignore the C&W influence on rock and roll is missing the point. You could call his influence a rip-off, but that ignores his talent. Presley’s version of “That’s All Right Mama” is much better than Arthur Big Boy Crudup’s version.
KevinNYC 10.23.03 at 6:45 pm
Oddly enough, I am listening the CD that came with this month’s UNCUT magazine and it includes a live version of “Maybellene” by Elvis. Chuck’s version is better.
There is also a nice version of Berry’s “The Promised Land” by Johnnie Allan who I had never heard of before.
KevinNYC 10.23.03 at 6:52 pm
Just went to Allmusic.com. Johnnie Allan turns out to be a Cajun rhythm guitarist. Cool. (What I thought was a harmnoica turns out to be a Cajun accordion on that song) There’s a great picture of him on allmusic.
david 10.23.03 at 6:58 pm
Thanks for filling me in on when those albums were made, Kevin. You’re a pal.
The point, as was obvious, is that Eminem gets press cause he’s a bad white boy. I happen to think his music is way overrated, and I also find the people who don’t think this often tend to say what a bad white boy he is. The Slate reference was to a review of Eminem which said he matters cause he’s real, cause he had a poor broken home childhood. The NYRB comment, obviously. And the fact remains, Low End Theory deserved much more high end white folks press than it got (and it did get some) and the disparity is because the Tribe Called Quest featured African-American artists who didn’t titillate rap-unfriendly white editors who are fascinated by bad white boys.
And please, can everybody stop using sales as a measure of merit? I can’t imagine any of you actually believe that sales are a measure of merit. It’s a pretty tough proposition to hold onto while you maintain any of your own opinions about music.
Keith M Ellis 10.23.03 at 7:11 pm
“Sad that his limp irony is what passes for wry social commentary these days. That says more than anything.”
Eminem is not an intellectual. His irony is the vulgar irony of the times, nothing more and nothing less. Judged on the “wry social commentary” basis, I don’t think he fairs that well. But a lot of great artists don’t. I am _so_ bored with the idea that art is the equivalent of social activism.
Eminem is a real talent simply because he is. He has a distinctive artistic “voice”, he does some things in original and unique ways, and he often does them with a great deal of craft. Not to mention that he seems to do all this effortlessly. _Too_ effortlessly, really, as the things he’s good at come too easily for him.
And he pretty much sucks at all the things he’s _not_ good at, both as an artist and a human being.
I don’t really have a horse in this race. At the age of 39, I long ago stopped caring about pop music as if it were the center of our culture and essential to my identity.
My (in my opinion) amusing inversive quote above expresses my opinion of Eminem: I don’t necessarily like what he does, but I can tell it’s good. Too many people equate their personal preference and enjoyment with artistic quality.
Privliged suburban girl 10.23.03 at 8:13 pm
“Judged on the “wry social commentary†basis, I don’t think he fairs that well. But a lot of great artists don’t. I am so bored with the idea that art is the equivalent of social activism.?”
But that is in the area where Eminem garners the most praise. Remixing and musical style are not his strengths. He’s compitent but not great. He’s a pop musician. Nothing more. Just enough edge to worry parents and titlate his audience without actually saying anything worth listening to. Much like Madonna, his strength is in allowing his own image to play off itself and using his fame as a tool.
Andy Warhol used his fame to create art. Eminem uses it to sell records.
Having something to say doesn’t have to be about social activism. You can speak about how much you love twinkies or your grandmother. Just try to say something that makes others think – about anything.
“Eminem: I don’t necessarily like what he does, but I can tell it’s good. Too many people equate their personal preference and enjoyment with artistic quality.”
Good is such an ordinary standard. My banana bread is good (not great – just good.) I bring it to parties and give it as gifts. I’m not going to win state fair awards or write a cookbook.
I don’t see why anyone should be heeping praise on someone merely for being ‘good’. We should be fostering the talents of those who will become great. We should be listening to (or at least talking about) the T. Monks of rap.
I’m sick of midlevel critics telling me mediocre stuff is genius just because they can’t be bothered to do any research.
I’m sick of being herded like a sheep.
KevinNYC 10.23.03 at 8:15 pm
I used sales not as yardstick for merit, but to show that Eminem is a phenomenon. Editor’s are reacting to that phenomenon. He’s the most significant hip-hop artist of the past five years. It’s also the time when hip-hop is the dominant form or popular music which was not the case with De La Soul or Tribe Called Quest.
High end white press payed much less attention to hip hop then. Hip-hop was a smaller part of the culture then.
Keith M Ellis 10.23.03 at 8:42 pm
“But that is in the area where Eminem garners the most praise. Remixing and musical style are not his strengths.”
No, Eminem, as far as I can tell, is praised as an exceptional wordsmith. Which he is.
Maybe a few critics and others have tried to exagerate his “social commentary” value because that’s the only standard by which they know how to value art. Or at least justify it. But most praise I’ve heard basically takes the form: “Wow. Some of what he does is genius.”
When I say “good”, that’s no small compliment from me since I think most pop art is crap. As a young musician, I only listened to technical ability and craft in music, and evaluated it on that basis. Then I grew out of that phase. Now I listen for what I intuit as authentic, original artistic expression; with style, technique, and craft adding bonus points. I don’t doubt that there’s thirty underplayed or unknown artists out there with as much or greater talent than Eminem…that’s the way of things. The problem with this debate is that the majority of the people involved in it have an emotional stake in either maximizing or minimizing Eminem’s artistic merit. They’re fans, and fans never have a sense of proportion; or they’re anti-fans, who also don’t have a sense of proportion.
msg 10.23.03 at 9:58 pm
Points that will get me nowhere:
Elvis was ‘high yella’ at least visually if not genetically, and some of that was pretty darn redskin-looking.
Muddy and the Wolf were both genetic ‘Native Americans’ to a strong degree.
Chuck Berry’s Blackness was tempered in the fire of his equal-parts ‘Indian’ heritage.
But these distinctions are too outside the pale.
Two of Mr. Berry’s more overtly subtle moves, which lose a lot of their power and depth this far from their contemporary context:
The entire song ‘Brown- *Eyed* Handsome Man’
and the line in ‘Nadine’ where he says:
‘Movin thru the traffic
tryin’ a get ta where she’s at
an I was campaign shoutin’
like a Southern *Diplomat*’
Diplomats don’t run for office.
Southern *Democrats* were notorious for their rhetoric and bombast, and for their political strength in the world of mid-50’s southern America.
See Keith Richards’ beautiful homage to Mr. Berry (Taylor Hackford dir.) for more insight into a complex American genius.
Listen to Howlin’ Wolf sing ‘Natchez Burning’.
And while we’re at it, put on some Hound Dog Taylor, esp. ‘Gimme Back My Wig’.
eminem’s movie ‘8 Mile’ laid it all out, he’s an artist and a good one.
Privliged Suburban Girl 10.23.03 at 10:08 pm
” Eminem, as far as I can tell, is praised as an exceptional wordsmith. Which he is.”
I would disagree. He’s good enough. In my opinion he’s far from exceptional.
Though I have to admit sometimes he does rise to levels that surprise me.
I can’t claim any credibility on the musical side. I’m simply unimpressed.
It’s not fans that annoy me (or even anti fans). It’s a fan’s job to be slavishly devoted and irrational.
What bothers me are fanish reviews by midlevel journalists who shoot their mouths off and can’t be bothered to do any research.
bobbie 10.23.03 at 10:49 pm
to return to the beginning, i don’t really think that many people really deem eminem as particularly “authentic”, at least no more authentic that most kids starting out. and i do think o’hagan’s view of authenticity is blurred and selective.
and to priveleged suburban girl: you’re being herded by midlevel critics? but i thought you had your own mind, your own opinions – just like most people with any sense.
as far as i’m concerned, i’m with keith. in historical terms, eminem’s not likely to be remembered on a par with shakespeare (and is anybody really suggesting that?). he’s not much of a social commentator, he’s not much of a musician, but his ear and his ability to surprise are two of the things that make him one of the best crop of musical wordsmiths of this generation. the fact that he combines whatever skill he has makes him much more important than the continual stream of dire popular music out there (and i would contest that only by promoting those who are good will you discover if they have the potential to become great).
if he’s inferior product, he’s inferior product that captures a certain spirit of the time, which makes him as valuable as many other revered pop acts over the past 50 years.
feel free to be unimpressed, it’s your right, but i’d challenge you to come up with anyone around now who was leagues ahead.
sue 10.24.03 at 2:27 am
How about a slightly different line: Eminem clearly has some skill with placement of words, sounds and rhythms. But he has NOTHING to say And clearly finds it frustrating to have tumultuous, violent emotions and no content through which to express and resolve them.
Can you imagine what someone with ideas but lousy expression could do with Eminem’s talent? Can you imagine what he might have become if someone early on had gotten him excited about some ideas that weren’t shown on MTV? Something like, oh, I dunno, Shakespeare or William S. Burroughs, Wallace Stevens? Someone mentioned Oscar Wilde – what if a thirteen-year-old Marshall had been handed “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”? (or science fiction or adventure stories or museums or craftsmanship…)
His were the first internal rhymes that I could appreciate as legitimate (not inadequate “real” rhymes). And I had some very good English teachers.
But his anguish and alienation are personal, not society-wide, which means that, in a very sad way, racism for him is a metaphor for his troubled (and prolonged) adolescent rages. Whether you call it irony or self-mockery, it’s rage that he plays at turning inward and outward. And yes, the outward version troubles me, even though society doesn’t need his help to be misogynistic and homophobic.
All that talent, skill at managing his image and career, but whenever I think of what he could do, and hasn’t (yet) I feel very sad.
drapetomaniac 10.24.03 at 3:22 am
But he has NOTHING to say.
You have got to be kidding me. Do you actually listen to his music? You can find it uninteresting or objectionable, I suppose, but how can you miss existence of the actual subjects of his songs — not just in obvious songs like “White America” or “Stan” but even in a battle track like “Go to Sleep” has a point to make, rather than just being an excuse for lyrical riffs.
His were the first internal rhymes that I could appreciate as legitimate (not inadequate “real” rhymes).
The mind boggles. It truly astonishes me that someone can complain that Eminem hasn’t the achievements of high art, and then admit to not being able to appreciate internal rhyme until hearing Eminem.
But his anguish and alienation are personal, not society-wide, which means that, in a very sad way, racism for him is a metaphor for his troubled (and prolonged) adolescent rages.
How pray tell do you argue that “If I had” is not a society wide anguish? And why is anguish any less serious if it is personal rather than sociological? Would anyone apply these standards to works of art that were not from marginalized communities? I mean, does anyone complain that Petrarch’s anguish was personal rather than society-wide?
And where is racism a metaphor in Eminem’s work? References?
JoeF 10.24.03 at 4:23 am
A few people have suggested that he’s a mediocre rapper.
It amazes me when people suggest Eminem has no talent. Wether or not you like rap, his ability to cleverly twist the English language and the speed and smoothness of his delivery are both incredibly rare.
His first album was spotty, and lacked the maturity of his second and third albums. Those two, plus the three songs he did for the 8 Mile sound track, rank among the best albums of the last decade, and will still be standing strong twenty years from now.
To suggest he only has one sound, you need to listen to White America, Cleaning out My Closet, and Square Dance, all from The Eminem Show. Those three songs are most certainly not based on the “same sound”.
Privileged suburban girl 10.24.03 at 3:37 pm
“to priveleged suburban girl: you’re being herded by midlevel critics? but i thought you had your own mind, your own opinions – just like most people with any sense”
Sure I do. I just dislike being told that I’m either skittish, deaf or uninformed if I can’t appreciate the (so called) edge that Eminem has.
You know “Stan” was a good song. Just not as good as people say.
He’s pop and he’s even decent (though his views sometimes bother me – but that personal). I even liked a few of his songs but overall I find little to substantiate the overwhelming praise he gets. He’s neither as good a lyricist as people say nor as innovative with sound.
For example “Stan”‘s sound relies heavily on sampled portions. Those were written by someone else. The lyrics are a really good attempt at self expression and social commentary. IMO it is rather shallow attempt, personal insight notwithstanding.
I’m not getting into a who is better war. I’ve heard better hiphop and rap artists. There are better lyricists. I’ve heard better spoken word poets (which is a medium that really blends with rap at certain points).
It is out there. My focus is not fans but critics. I’m rather sad and annoyed that critics aren’t doing their job – and Eminem is not the only example.
This is not one lone critic who simply likes Eminem. This is an example of a cultural trend.
A critic’s job is not to parrot what the corporations tell them. It is to hunt out the best artists and tell us who they are. I don’t have all day to listen to music and all night to go to clubs and listen to DJs and singers. That is what critics are for.
KevinNYC 10.24.03 at 8:04 pm
As to Chuck Berry. Yes, Brown-eyed, Handsome Man is pretty sly.
However, the Southern Diplomat part means exactly what? Berry had a history of pretty playful with language when it fit the rhythm of his lyrics.
In Promised Land he writes
Workin’ on a T-bone steak a la carte
Flying over to the Golden State;
The pilot told me in thirteen minutes
We’d be headin’ in the terminal gate.
He pronounces it a-la-cartie and not a-la-cart. For one, it’s funny. For two it flows much better into the next line. Where the hard sounds of cart would stop the line short.
As to Eminem, I don’t think you can deny his talent. People here are talking about him like he’s MC Serch or Prime Minister Pete Nice. Bah, they get the gasface.
msg 10.24.03 at 8:56 pm
Kevin—
I’ll wager any amount you name Mr. Berry was ‘told’ after the act of creation to alter the word ‘democrat’. That would be the point there,it isn’t wordplay, it’s a fortuitously available substitution. His poetry astonishes for how joined it is, a basic universal vocabulary seamlessly fitted to universal experience. That ‘diplomat’ don’t scan.
To call ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man’ sly is to indict whatever beverage you’re consuming these days.
The Mann Act was used to nail him, he was harrassed from one end of the country to the other the bigger he got, and the context, the reason that’s important, is he was probably the one folk-poet of the mid 20th century with a wide-open line to the heart of the zeitgeist.
It was entirely appropriate of Carl Sagan to send ‘Johnny B. Goode’ out into the Big Unknown, it’s a perfect work, deep and ephemeral, 3-minutes of profoundly accurate human “I Am”.
We know him for what he managed to accomplish under the weight of all that repression, we’ll never know what he might have done without it.
Sue 10.24.03 at 9:51 pm
You have got to be kidding me. Do you actually listen to his music?…
The mind boggles. It truly astonishes me…
Why thank you so much for turning a somewhat interesting discussion into something much less friendly.
“And why is anguish any less serious if it is personal rather than sociological? Would anyone apply these standards to works of art that were not from marginalized communities? I mean, does anyone complain that Petrarch’s anguish was personal rather than society-wide?
“
It isn’t less serious for the person suffering, but it is regularly considered less interesting by other people. Of course, another factor is whether the personal connects with the larger, often religious, historical, culturally-bound, sociological, musings on death or family that touch us all.
This is especially true for works of art outside pop music. For example, Byron’s poetry is a gorgeous language sound game, but since much of it is light and dealing with either sex or frustrated romance, you find it much less popular for serious analysis than, say, Keats or Wordsworth.
Presumably you don’t really think Petrarch was writing about his dating experiences, it was personal, surely, but a personal quest for greater knowledge and a vehicle for musing on the human condition in general, coming to terms with death and nature and his relations to them.
I never meant to imply that Eminem has no talent or wrote only one song, or whatever insult you wrongly attribute to me. His personal expressions are when he puts into words the pain of one or another character that as part of its dramatic construction, is unable to express its own pain. That is tragic, but it’s not exactly new to me – I know young men like this, only in real life they often express their pain when drunk. Other musicians express it for themselves, and other artists. The rather overrated Bret Easton Ellis has such characters, and they too act like your average suburban teenager, with iron ic-reflective capacities. He is overrated though non-marginalized because, as one reviewer wrote, we’ve heard it all before in freshman writing classes throughout the land – better constructed but not new.
Look, the conversation here has turned into a battle for alpha status, as the best critic, or hippest pop-cultural analyst.
All I said was, his form exceeds its content. If Eminem ever feels the urge to expand his horizons, or for that matter, listens to some Gil Scott-Heron, the genre will be better for it. He might even turn into a happier, more stable person as well. These aren’t insults, you know, it’s praise.
Seth Edenbaum 10.26.03 at 6:39 pm
Dr Dre makes the beats and samples for Eminem. Eminem writes the words. 50 Cent is not Eminem’s protégé. They are both protégés if that’s the word of Dre. The homosexual subtext of the Eminem/Dre collaboration, as described in the lyrics, is so thick you could cut it with a razor blade. The word on the street- and this is old- is that they’re lovers. And you know who’s the top in that relationship. Eminem has black street cred and is not only a crossover. It’s at silly to say he’s a copycat as it is to say it about Elvis. Racism helped both without either of them being racist -or lightweights. Eminem gets press, including the NYR and here, because he’s white. And he’s good. But he’s not the be all and end all of Hip Hop or even Gansta Rap. And it’s interesting, but to be expected, that the other references made here are to De La Soul and Tribe called Quest, middle class rappers. And here we go again with the moral condemnation of the angry working class. But this is capitalism,
and rhyme pays.
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