Album Review: Music To Be Murdered By

Copyright: Shady

I’ve got nothing against the real Slim Shady, I’m just not the biggest fan of his shtick. Without hearing any of his other albums, I decided it was time to venture into the world of Eminem to see what I was missing. Music to Be Murdered By, his latest series of tracks, is rather the musical achievement. Nothing short of horrible, Marshall Mathers torments audiences with an hour of torturously horrible content, devoid of any basic level of competence on this heavy, twenty-track record. A monumental success in seeing how low we can truly go when crafting music.   

An opening track that has to defend the seemingly awful, poorly thought-out messages of his previous work, Music to Be Murdered By is both inept and offensive. Eminem targets his critics and those he feels have wronged him, but does so in such a redundant manner. If anything, it opens him up to further criticism, and there’s a lot to criticise on this tone-deaf rubbish. The first minute or so of Darkness has all the makings of a fairly solid song, but it quickly devolves into being the first (and hopefully last) song to be written about the tragic Las Vegas shooting from some years ago. Presumably this is Eminem’s musing on what he thinks of gun crime in America, but it’s the only song on the album with a message that isn’t asinine or self-centred, so that’s something I suppose.  

Although I have nothing against Marshal Mathers’ ability to spit bars, I find more issues and problems with his lyrics than his style. His surprising capability to blitz through lyrics at, as the man himself would say, “supersonic speeds”, is impressive. It’s mainly because the faster he raps the less I can understand. The more I acknowledge his lyrics, the worse the album becomes. Collaborating with an abundant number of artists I’ve never heard of, the inclusion of fellow rappers, and Ed Sheeran, don’t improve the quality of the songs.  

Hedonistic nonsense, but as far as I can tell that’s the norm for Mathers. Three ideas spread across twenty songs; I’d rather be murdered than listen to this absolute nonsense again. There’s a reference to the John Cleese comedy A Fish Called Wanda on one of the final tracks, and that threw me entirely. The only interesting moment to come out of over an hour’s worth of music production is a reference to a classic, Jamie Lee Curtis-led film. Better luck next time, Mathers, as you’re ballsy enough to imply at the end of this album. Luck is all Eminem can rely on at this stage, what brief talent he had seems to have evaporated.