{"id":73402,"date":"2013-12-01T11:54:10","date_gmt":"2013-12-01T16:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=73402"},"modified":"2013-12-01T13:43:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-01T18:43:00","slug":"ive-never-been-an-attention-seeker-and-that-seems-like-probably-a-hell-of-a-career-choice-eminem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=73402","title":{"rendered":"“I’ve never been an attention-seeker, and that seems like probably a hell of a career choice \u2026 ” – Eminem"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nFinally spent some time with his latest, titled The Marshall Mathers LP2<\/i> (no pressure there, huh\u2026). <\/p>\n

It’s full, rich, fast as hell, adventurous, quite sad at times, hysterical at others, and also filled with perspective of the road he has traveled. He goes back, he re-visits (the title of the album announces its intentions), but he is too innovative and too courageous to just present us with a re-tread. Lots of surprises here. An honest-to-god love song, Marshall? What’s happened? A mea culpa to his mother (the flip side of “Cleaning Out My Closet”). And then lots of songs about strength and survival and coming through the chaos, which he has. There’s still anger. But something else is coming through: the positive energy of survival, and triumph. <\/p>\n

Some of his themes are repetitive, but that’s the case with most great artists. Vincent Van Gogh didn’t have 5,000,000 diverse themes. He worked on a couple of personal things with the devotion of a fanatic. James Joyce had one topic, let’s be honest. And he worked <\/em>that shit. Woody Allen (happy birthday) doesn’t flow far from the concerns that interested him at the get-go. People who demand diversity from artists don’t understand art. Sorry. Those who bemoan that Wes Anderson has a “style” don’t understand style. What, they want him to do an action film that looks nothing like his style just to “prove” he has range? I don’t listen to people who talk like that. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Maybe they don’t like Wes Anderson’s style, which is (of course) valid. You don’t have to like it. But to demand that Wes Anderson pretend he’s another filmmaker with another style just to prove to you that \u2026 what … he has it in him to not be himself? \u2026 Well, you certainly won’t mind if I don’t listen to a damn word you say about art, right? Most great artists are very very gifted one-trick ponies. Look at how the great artists plumb the depths of their one pet theme, the one thing they can’t let go of, the one thought they can’t shake. George Eliot worked out the same shit in book after book. So did Dostoevsky. So did Fitzgerald. Mary Gaitskill has enough of a style that you could pick a sentence of hers out of a lineup, and she also has a recognizable stamp in her interests and her take on things. Annie Proulx. Jane Austen. A.S. Byatt. Dickens. Mark Twain. I don’t know, pick your poison. As awesome as all of these people are, a very good thinker could boil each one down into a sentence. “This person was interested, most of all, in this.” <\/p>\n

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\nEminem has the same concerns he has always had, although seasoned by time and distance. Things change. Attitudes change. Things look different. But anyone who follows him will know all about him and what he cares about\/worries about\/obsesses over\/fumes over. Eminem fans all know his characters. There’s his mother. There’s his absent father. There’s his brother Nate. There’s his ex-wife (two times over). There are his daughters. There are his rivalries in rap, and his continued sense of both rage and triumphalism over how far he has risen, and how much he showed the assholes who said he would never amount to much (in life, or in rap). I mean, that’s about it. Within the lyrics themselves, he travels as far as one man can travel, with a dizzying vocabulary and a broad spectrum of references that makes you want to lie down and cry, “Uncle!” He reads the dictionary for fun, he is competitive with himself, he has a great respect for all kinds of music (the stuff he samples shows that), and he is also filled with self-loathing, fear, rage, and a sense that he is worthless. All of this shows up in almost every song. It is the Eminem Stamp. He isn’t suddenly rapping about political issues (although I think he is very political, especially in terms of class), or social change or Big Topics (although The Eminem Show<\/i> is a great post 9\/11 album – it came out the year after – with a couple of searing lyrics that address that event in a way nobody else was even approaching at the time). But being political is not Eminem’s thing. We know his things. He’s been rapping about the same shit from the get-go. <\/p>\n

He is 5 years sober now. He did an entire album about his recovery process (with a chilling skit starting the whole thing off presenting Eminem meeting with his doctor in rehab, who then turns Demonic and starts dissing the 12 steps and dissing Eminem’s prospects. Eminem shows his intuitive brilliance as an actor, which I’ve written about before, in these made-up situations he creates for himself as cathartic expressions of what he most fears). <\/p>\n

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