Recovery is an iffy album with a great hit single and an iffy single and a lot of self satisfied dross. When he gets mad, when he Slim Shady’s himself, he rails at the usual suspects, and when he gets serious, when he Eminem’s himself, he is the worst of rappers: a serious fucking rapper.
Relapse is ten times better. At least Relapse is fun.
But Recovery is a masterpiece compared to (debatably) Jay-Z’s worst album to date, The Blueprint 3. “On To The Next One” is pretty good and and and… everything else sucks with “Forever Young” fighting with “DOA” and (the winner is) “Empire State Of Mind” as worst Jay-Z song ever.
Jay-Z was a hit, Eminem is a smash. I am really not sure why either hit so hard. I guess “Empire” saved Jigga from the egotistical mess BP3 and “Love The Way You Lie”
huge follow up did the same for Eminem though I really don’t get why folks are not picking and choosing. These albums are made to be purchased track by track, “Off That” is something you just don’t need to ever hear.
And a quick spin through Relapse finds “Crack A Bottle”, “3am” “We Made You”: nasty little mini epics of the first order. Now take a look at Recovery: “Talkin’ To Myself”, “Going Through Changes” (is that a joke, I mean really he can’t be serious). “Space Bound” is shockingly awful.
It will be interesting to see if Jigga can up his game (live? he reached his peak years ago at the Fade To Black MSG retirement gig). Eminem sucks live -will he suck still? Will he make us suffer through Mathers after Mathers?
Let’s remember what we’re dealing with here. Eminem won’t let his employees look him in the face, Jigga lives in a straosphere we can’t even imagine. I couldn’t care less, except they can’t come up with the goods any more. And neither of these two albums come close.