Close The Curtain
Eminem
Curtain Call – The Hits
(Interscope)
It doesn’t take too long to realize some of Eminem’s biggest hits were his worst songs.
You could argue Eminem ran perpendicular to the “TRL” era, his singles mattered less than the pathology he spilled throughout his albums. Now, no one’s insinuating “Lose Yourself” and “Stan” aren’t fine moments, but, taken separately, they don’t tell you anything about him as much as signposts like “My Name Is” and “Without Me.” The trouble is, the latter pair suck.
In a perfect world, “Guilty Conscience” and “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” would be Em’s signature tunes, instead we’re lucky they made this cut. Other selections on Curtain Call only hint at his genius, underlining instead the creative wasteland commercial hip-hop has become. Two of its most opulently handjobbed artists, Kanye West and Eminem, have two glaring weaknesses: one can’t rap, the other puts the absolute worst samples to the test.
Bringing West to court is another matter. But “Mockingbird,” “Like Toy Soldiers,” and “Stan” take looping a JB’s sample to its logical, meaningless extreme by borrowing an entire song and still calling it a “sample.” While “Stan” rocketed Dido to adult contemporary superstardom and temporarily crossed Em over, the others dated him instantly.
Opposed to the interchangeable parts of No Limit, Cash Money, and Murder Inc., Dr. Dre recruited Eminem to Aftermath because he was a unicorn. And Marshall Mathers repaid Dre’s investment by going directly to the boundaries of his personality and luckily arriving the same time as Tom Green, a resurgent WWF, and “Jackass.”
A full, coddled generation of teens raised on ritalin, cable TV, and careerist parents fed on “Just Don’t Give A Fuck,” “Kill You,” and “Kim,” none of which was tame enough in ’99 to be a single. But perhaps most telling of Curtain Call is the practical — given it wasn’t a “hit” — but aggravating omission of “97 Bonnie & Clyde,” probably the lone, absolutely essential Eminem track (and the reason there’s a “Stan”). We’re gonna need a better collection. (For the record, the three new songs on Curtain Call give self-parody a bad name.)
Who knows if anyone’s buying this retirement schtick — The Eminem Show was succeeded by Encore and now Curtain Call — but the truth is Eminem could use a break.
— Steve Forstneger
