Eminem surprise-drops the pro-gun control, Alfred Hitchcock-homaging rap album of our dreams
Aux Features Music
For the second time in the span of a handful of years, Eminem has surprised the musical world by abruptly dropping an album onto his legion of fans, pretty much in the middle of the night. But whereas 2018's Kamikaze included—amid a fresh stew of warmed-over beefs—the Detroit rapper’s homage to that beloved monster of stage and screen, Venom, tonight’s release goes a little more old-school with its totally inexplicable horror-adjacent homage. That’s right, kiddos: Eminem’s back, and he’s way into Alfred Hitchcock now!
And specifically into Hitchcock’s album of “mood music in a jugular vein,” Music To Be Murdered By—which is also the name of Mr. Mathers’ new album, as it happens to have turned out. (And lest you think the reference to a 1958 LP of horror-themed instrumentals was a coincidence, the album art for the new release recreates the cover of Hitchcock’s work, and several of the interlude tracks directly sample Alfred’s spoken word pieces from the set.) It’s all pretty weird, even if the horrors that Eminem is focused on this time around are a lot more visceral than the ones Hitchcock used to truck in: Lyrics in at least one of the songs reference the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017, and the accompanying video for the new track “Darkness” includes audio footage from, and a somewhat graphic recreation of, the Las Vegas shootings from that same year.
Shockingly, the intent doesn’t seem to be (solely) to shock, as Eminem ends the song—which also conflates prep for one of his concerts with shooter Stephen Paddock’s preparations to kill 58 people on October 1, 2017—with a solemn call for gun reform, and a link to organizations attempting to ban assault weapons in America. It’s a big, strange, extremely sincere political swing from the rapper, especially when considered in the light of a song that also contains a riff on Scope mouthwash and a sniper’s scope. Which, one might argue, possibly pushes the bounds of good taste, no matter how well-meant the intent, how solemn the ending, or how soothing the musical references to Simon and Garfunkel are.
In any case: Music To Be Murdered By is out now, and also includes features from Ed Sheeran, Anderson .Paak, and the late Juice WRLD.
37 Comments
What a world to live in where Eminem is an advocate for gun control. (I am as well, and I’ve been a fan of his for years … but I didn’t see this coming. Great song too.)
Idk, he has leaned a little left for a long time, even while saying shitty things that sound like standard white guy from a flyover state.
Gun control is one of the pet causes of rich people with armed guards who live in secure neighborhoods, so this isn’t surprising.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s always seemed pretty liberal. “Mosh” was a very explicit anti-Bush protest song/video.
He’s always been liberal and somewhat political. There’s three sides to every Eminem album: the Shady side, the Eminem side, and the real Marshall Mathers side. If you only look at the surface, you might just see the jokes or the anger/violence, but underneath it all he’s a great guy communicating some very good and important messages. Many people just… never look deep enough to find them.
Valuable post
“Which, one might argue, possibly pushes the bounds of good taste, no matter how well-meant the intent, how solemn the ending, or how soothing the musical references to Simon and Garfunkel are.”It does push the bounds of, as it was put, ‘good taste.’ It is something that is meant to shock, provoke anger, dreg up emotions. Unlike virtually everything Eminem has done however – this song is NOT about him, and that’s why even though it is ugly and harsh – it’s ripping the wound of something that didn’t heal properly.
Maybe his best album since Eminem Show. Incredibly powerful lyrics in Darkness, and the video brought tears to my eyes. Glad to see him using his voice positively.
This wigger fell off. Just go away, Brainwashed Marshall.
Crazy good
Holy shit this album was brutal. And it’s nothing that Em did, he just shined the light on it. Powerful
He looks like Tom Green on the cover art, and it’s weirding me out.
Anyway, I’m always up for a new Em album, but I’ve gotta say… I hope it’s some next level shit, because I’m finding myself getting less and less enthused each time. Not even because of all the swings and misses, but because all the technical proficiency and wordplay in the world can’t make up for the fact that the man’s nearly 50 and still using the same “Are you so, so offended?” tactics he’s been on since he was a kid while being deeply offended himself when each new release isn’t hailed as a masterpiece. (Edit: OH MY GOD, one minute in and he’s doing it AGAIN.) A lot of it I can look past, it’s just that my goodwill for Em is running dangerously low. Even Kamikaze left me sort of cold, and that was supposed to be him trying his hardest.
I’m getting an “Eminem as played by Shia LaBoeuf” vibe from that photo, and the “Darkness” video just reinforces that.
Good call! I will say, the album’s impressed me so far. It still has a lot of the elements that I don’t like, but on first listen, it’s a damn sight better than I was expecting.
Your bum is on my lips. Your bum is on my lips. .
I thought he looked liked Dave Grohl with short hair, myself.Hey, God, you might want to fix your production line! We’re getting too many repeats!
It is hilarious how much old man Eminem looks like the “Mariah Carey in Eminem drag” version of him from her “Obsessed” music video. Truly a classic diss track.
It’s “hilarious” that he looks not even the tiniest bit like Mariah Carey trying to look like him?
Yeah, no. That Ninja Robot is blind as fuck.
That’s some herb ass take. Looks nothing like him.
More hilarious – Mariah is two years older than “old man Eminem”
I mean, not really.
Yah Yah is straight fire
This song is actually … pretty darn good? I think so
Yeah but Buck 65 used Hitch’s intro on his awesome track “Square 3” back in 2002!
The whole Square album is amazing
Love Square so much. Buck in his day was on another level.
I remember Rich when he was DJ Critical at CKDU. Met him a couple of times before my overnight show. He already had that “local celebrity” stink on him. Talented guy though.
Rich dude with armed security doesn’t want normal people to able to defend themselves. News at 11.
As an aside, who was the target audience for that Alfred Hitchcock record? Was it just a conversation piece that you left on the record stand during cocktail hour? Or maybe all those traumatized veterans enjoyed hanging around the turntable listening to incidental thriller music and thinking, “There’s still one with my name on it…”
There was a pretty big trend for what I guess you’d call mood music in the 50’s and 60’s. Highly stylized instrumental music of various sorts, this is the same period that gave us Exotica. Within that was a big thing for novelty horror records with SPOOOOOOOKY music of various kinds, often from celebrities of various sorts. And sort of spoken word albums set to music that were a bit like audio books. So the Hitchcock record basically fits into all that.
Vincent Price did a lot of that sort of thing as well.
That’s true, and I admit I had the same response to Ritual of the Savage when I listened to it – “people just… listened to this?” I know it’s not all that surprising. But compared to pop music released after, say, 1964, heavily stylized instrumental music with spoken word interludes sounds like such a niche item.
Motherf— Em, you gotta stop dropping surprise albums! How am I supposed to get hyped for something I don’t know is coming?! >:|Anyway, I loved Kamikaze, and it sounds from the description like this album will contain the usual go-hard flow, technical wordplay wizardry, and veiled profundity that Em has always demonstrated. (Well, maybe not so much on Revival, but I give him tons of credit for trying something softer that *he* wanted to do despite the risk.) When I get home from work, I’m checking this out for sure.
Go away, Eminem.
Track after track of brilliance. Nothing else is even in the same time zone as this.
New Eminem album…Oh!… featuring Ed Sheeran.Oh…