Eminem’s excruciating new album Revival has earned the worst reviews of his career, which is saying something about an artist whose 2009 album Relapse was so bad he apologized it for the next year with a whole new album. Our own review damningly said that the new record “isn’t even interesting enough to warrant all of the critical beatdowns it’s taken in its short time in the world”—but that did not stop it from receiving many, many such beatdowns, for its puerile humor, insipid wordplay, and mawkish, groan-inducing production.
Also reading those reviews, apparently, was Eminem himself, who has lashed out at the critical establishment in a bad remix of the bad Revival track “Chloraseptic.” It’s currently only available in Australia, but it’s been posted to Reddit, and, critics of the world, Eminem would like for you to suck his dick. That’s a verbatim quote, by the way, as Spin helpfully transcribes:
Not as raw as I was
“Walk On Water” sucked?
Bitch, suck my dick
Y’all saw the tracklist and had a fit
Before you heard it
So you formed your verdict
While you sat with your arms crossed
Did your little reaction videos and talked over songs
Nah dog, y’all saying I lost it
Your fucking marbles are gone.
Perhaps no image better captures Eminem in 2017 than that of him sitting around watching reaction videos to his single, getting furious, and then heading into the booth to let them fucking have it. After a little bit of yelling and a lot of that clipped-cadence, every-word-must-rhyme shit he does these days, Em returns to the album’s critical reception:
“Revival’s wack”
I don’t like the zombie track
And when he’s talking all that garbage … Where’s all the content at?
“What’s with all the conscious rap?
Pink, Beyoncé this, and Kehlani that”
I just add it to the fuel in my rocket pack.
Elsewhere, he makes some timely Jack Kevorkian references and fulfills a destiny long foretold by the prophets by rhyming Macklemore with “smack a whore.” (2 Chainz contributes a decent guest verse, but don’t hold that against him.) We look forward to Eminem’s response to his response to the response to Revival, hopefully taking the form of a concept album called Response featuring nothing but 78 minutes of rhymes for the word “hippopotamus” over wailing arena-rock guitars.