Upon further review... all this controversy about Eminem's Revival backlash prompting him to do Kamikaze...

Revival, as pure rhymes and beats is concerned is fine. The catch is, unlike earlier/past works, it lacks "jams." IMO, every artists albums has Jams, good songs, listenable songs, and skip-able/ trash songs. Jams are like those songs you keep going back to and can never forget. Good songs and listenable songs are those songs you won't skip, won't say aren't good...but they aren't jams--songs on an album that every time your fire it up or in general think about the artists catalog you will go to every time, turn the volume up every time ect... in essence those two categories are varying degrees of quality to your ear. Trash/skip songs are the songs that basically hate/don't like by the artist. The quantity of jams vs. good/listenable is what can differentiate a great from good album. Jams can offset trash songs but if you have nothing but good/listenable songs the album will feel flat. Also, those songs don't offset the trash songs, only a jam can. IMO, this is what Eminem has fell into... new albums lacking enough jams.


FWIW, sort of like LL Cool J and Wu Tang Clan's later works .... beats are ok.... rhymes are ok.... but these later albums lack jams so they feel flat versus earlier works where they had tons of jams.

In the rock world, I kind of liken it to some of my opinions on Metallica, Guns N Roses, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, ect.... Even though, I have found some of my favorite bands from the 80s run into the issue that "the albums" from that time are all I can get into and when they put out future work it was lacking somehow what I liked about their earlier stuff. Like Def Leppard for instance... After Hysteria hit and I liked it a lot.... when the put out Adrenalize ...it just didn't have the thing ... and heck, in getting that box set of their earlier work... I find myself even more into their earlier works I hadn't had familiarity with but the post-Hysteria is a tough listen for me. Granted, if they do that Vol. 2 of recorded work I will get it and reevaluate my thoughts. Bon Jovi, outside of Slippery When Wet and New Jersey is tough for me to get into. Metallica, while not the normal Metallica hater, I get when someone brings up Black Album versus the four prior works however, IMO, the Black Album is what a good producer and engineer can get out of a band with potential... cleaner/better sound, cleaner/better vocals/signing, and just overall sonic improvements. It still had that same bite of the earlier stuff, just cleaned up. Load/Reload era Metallica.... IMO.... wasn't "metal" but were great "rock" records. St. Anger, IMO, is their worse album in their catalog. Death Magnetic and Hardwired are an attempt to in spots a)prove they still got the hard and fast thrash still in them and b) they can make good songs that rock that aren't that "pure" thrash. I think Garage Inc was a good way to look at them....and their ability and influences to play and sing all those different forms or rock music.

But, this is where like a band like AC/DC and say Judas Priest have managed pretty consistent efforts of sound and quality across long catalogs of music. Even later day AC/DC releases might not have "classics" on them, they still have their sound and still rock out.


Gets off soapbox and goes back to listening to music....