Pitchfork

Or as I like to call it, "Mockingbird II: Mock Harder." There was a time when a world without Eminem felt impossible. He had been hip-hop music's central figure for more than five years, coinciding almost exactly with the genre's rise to supreme cultural signifier. "When I'm Gone" features Marshall Mathers telling his daughter Hallie (there's a new twist) how to live her life after his demise. It's no big deal. Maybe it's the stilted drum programming and muzak violins, or maybe it's the withering tone of his so-faux-it's-f'real grovel/gravel. I can't feel it.

Even before Encore Em sounded like he was moving past the mic. Not much left to say, apparently. He's always been credited with having such a measurable personality, rife with nastiness, full of heart. I call bullshit. Four albums, only two of which are good, one great; out comes the perfunctory hits collection, and now this leftover pap? I mean, shit, M.O.P. are hard at work on their sixth album. Marshall can't have another existential crisis for us?

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