“Music to Be Murdered By” album review

Eminem, also known as “Slim Shady,” released his eleventh studio album on Jan. 17 entitled, “Music to be Murdered By.” This was made and released with no hype, no advertising, and no date. The album is named after a soundtrack presented by Alfred Hitchock, and features audio clips of the late director himself talking about the devilish situations in which the soundtrack should be listened to. In Eminem’s song “Those Kinda Nights”, the intro opens with Hitchcock saying “How do you do ladies and gentlemen, my name is Alfred Hitchcock, and this is ‘Music to be Murdered By.’ It is mood music in a jugular vein, so why don’t you lean back and enjoy yourself until the coroner comes.” These types of audio quotes are riddled throughout the album in songs like “Godzilla” (feat. Juice WRLD), and their own devoted tracks, such as “Premonition (Intro),” “Alfred (interlude),” and “Alfred (outro).”
“Music to be Murdered By” is the type of album that avid Eminem fans have been waiting for. One that has hard beats, light happy raps, and fast bars spit at velocities like “Rap God” from the Mathers lp 2, released in 2013. In this album, Eminem set a world record for the fastest verse, with lines hitting 6.14 words per second (97 words in fifteen seconds!), but in the third track in Em’s new album “Godzilla” hits 7.46 words per second, surpassing his previous fastest. This verse in “Godzilla” shows Eminem rapping 224 words in 30 seconds. A new top speed for Eminem, and showing his loyal fans that he hasn’t lost any of his flow to age, but he is still spitting fast as ever.
Another topic discussed in Eminem’s new album is gun violence in America. This topic is discussed in the lyrics and music video of the album’s eighth track, “Darkness.” This track is among my favorites from this album, it features a piano sample of Simon and Garfunkel’s, “Sound of Silence,” repeated through the entire song as part of the beat. The beat is a slow two time felt rhythm, perfect for the content and lyrics presented. This song is sung in the perspective of someone worrying, seemingly drunk. The start of the song starts to talk about how he is stuck in a pit of depression, and no one is able to help him. After about thirty seconds it’s starting to become obvious that he is playing a character. The character he is playing is in a hotel, and he talks about how the show isn’t too filled, and he starts to get anxious and scared. Just as this is said, he notes that people start to rush to the entrance of a show below his hotel after the opening act is done. This is followed by him falling on the floor of his hotel room thinking about his current material situation and if he will have enough for the entire show. “I’m armed to the teeth, ‘nother Valium fall off the bed, Hit the ground and crawl to the dresser, Alcohol on my breath as I reach for the Scope.” The metaphors he is using comparing his rapping to guns and murder is starting to be pieced together when sounds of a smashing window is played behind the verse. Then the piano music in the background switches to a forte and becomes stronger and stronger as audio of gunshots plays in the background. The verse finishes and the chorus plays one more time. The pieces to the puzzle came together for me just then, this is about the Las Vegas shooting, and he is rapping in the perspective of the shooter’s conscious. After the rapping finishes, audio of two overlapping newscasters plays talking about recent shootings happening all over the country. At the end of the music video, the text reads, “When will this end? When enough people care. Register to vote at Vote.gov. Make your voice heard and help change gun laws in America.” Eminem’s views are very liberal, but his views were only voiced after the election of President Trump.
This album is fantastic, as someone who doesn’t really like rap, this is impressive. I felt myself bobbing my head to the beat and tapping my feet to music that got stuck in my head with ease. The music flows smoothly, and his lyrics are so creative and savage that I couldn’t help but feel bad for the subject of his raps. I give the album a four out of five spartan heads. I love the music, and the lyrics are creative but many people don’t like Eminem’s vulgar vocabulary, and just don’t like rap. The musicality of the album is very impressive though. I highly recommend you give the music a listen if you listen to rap or want to listen to something a little more edgy.