Everyone
was extremely hyped for Eminem’s new album, the Marshall Mathers LP 2.
Personally, I was excited for this album, and ready to review the album in a
full detail. Today, however, I’m just going to review a few songs. The specific
songs I want to focus on are “Stronger Than I was,” “Legacy,” “Love Game,” “Headlights,”
and “Brainless.” In each paragraph, I will give good and bad aspects of the
songs, and an overall view if I liked it or not. I tried to review songs that
fit somewhat together; “Stronger Than I Was,” and “Headlights” are both sad
songs, while “Legacy” is somewhat inspiring and motivational. “Love Game” is
just a…well, hard to describe song. Anyways, let’s get started!
“Stronger
Than I Was” is a song that is supposed to be written from Eminem’s ex-wife’s(Kim)
perspective. The song, much different than the other songs on the album, is a
song where Eminem sings roughly 90% of the song. The lyrics to the song, as
expected, are catchy and well-thought out. But, unfortunately, Eminem is not
the best singer, so this song sounds strange. After a few listens, the song
does grow on you, but Eminem’s voice is much better suited for rapping. If you
are sad, the breaking up and relationship troubled, this song is somewhat your
type. If you can deal with some odd
sounding singing, you can deal with it. Towards the end, however, Eminem’s
rapping section is really impressing. The rap at the end is the best part of
the song, and I look forward to the song just for the rap part, besides that, I
give the track a B-.
“Headlights”
is a song that no one expected out of the hip-hop icon. In other albums,
especially his first two, Eminem shows hatred to his mother. But, in this song,
Eminem states how he forgives her. He mentions how that, since he has gotten
older, he has been able to see how his mother is and that he wishes they had a
closer relationship now. Lines like “because to this day, we remain this
estranged and I hate it though, cause you ain’t even get to witness your
grandbabies’ growth” and other lines saying how he wished his mother and him
had a full relationship. As for the chorus, Eminem recruited the lead singer of
Fun. The chorus is mediocre; the real part of this song are the heartfelt
verses that Eminem lays about his mother. Overall, I love this track and would
give it a solid A.
“Legacy”
is one of my favorite songs from this album. This song is so deep, but in ways,
the song is inspiring. The opening lines are to each verse being the same,
saying “I used to be the type of kid that would always think the sky is fallin,”
and each verse continues off of this scheme. Eminem does have a legacy, and he
is well aware. But, as most Eminem songs, I feel that a couple of the lines are
weird, or unimportant. Besides the one reference to Italian sausage, I don’t dislike this
track at all. The chorus is maybe the best, if not one of the top three, on the
album, and the vocals were distributed by Polina. This track gets a solid A as well.
“Love
Game” is the most uniquely sounding song on the album. The song has a lot of
features, and tons of vocal effects. Also, this song features the phenomenon
Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick has a rising name in hip-hop and he claims Eminem to
be one of his idols. This song is very unique; Eminem’s flow is often strange
compared to songs of the past. A lot of this song is clever; the puns and
references have been given a lot of thought. But, Kendrick delivers a flow and
verse just as good as Eminem’s. The chorus is extremely catchy. I like this
song mostly, and it gets stuck in my head often. I would give this song a solid
B+.
Overall,
the album receives a solid B. I am a huge Eminem fan, but this album definitely
had its weird parts, or songs that aren’t expected of the legend. But, I do
like the direction Eminem’s career is heading, and I cannot wait to see his
future projects and review them. His deep tracks are amazing, and I suppose he
has mainly grown up in the whole rapping women while on drugs scheme.
