I'm really surprised this only sold 600k in it's first week. I thought for sure if anybody could beat Lil Wayne's 1 million sold, it was Eminem.

I'm loving the album more and more as I listen to it. My Mom is one of the standouts for me so far.

I just listened to the eminem show again. I was completely off that was a solid album probably better than relapse. I just though the chorus on Soldier was kinda gay. "im a soldier" yeah sure you are. I have no use for superman or Hailie's song either. Other than that everything on there is right there with the MMLP.

God, Eminem Show was a sick album....

"Square Dance"
"Soldier"
"Say Goodbye Hollywood"
"Without Me"
"Sing for the Moment"
"Superman"
"Say What You Say"
"'Till I Collapse"
"My Dad's Gone Crazy"

my favorites so far on Relapse:

"Hello"
"Stay Wide Awake"
"Deja Vu"
"Underground"

I believe Relapse 2 will be mostly Dre production again, my understanding is they did three albums worth of material together and whittled it down to 2 albums, and "Beautiful" was the best of the stuff he did before working with Dre. He claims the best stuff is being saved for Relapse 2 but we'll see.

when is Relapse 2 supposed to come out? Oct?

Same Song and Dance really reminds me of something Atmosphere would do, that's not a bad thing. I think he's done a really good job on this album outside of We Made You.

We can hope, thanks for the info.

I bet at the end of the day Eminem sells more. This is the only rap cd I have purchased in years.

Lil' Wayne appeals to the bubble-gum clientele that most radio stations cater to. That's why he sold the 1,000,000+ that he did last June. Eminem has an older fanbase who grew up with him for the most part, since none of these singles are getting radio play and the lyrical content are just way more complex for the bubblegum crowd.

Eminem was cool to like back in 1999 and 2000, but after that the fans that stayed with him shot him to #1 with The Eminem Show and Encore.. and now again with Relapse. He just doesn't appeal to the same type of listener. Twelve-year olds are listening to Weezy, now. I can't see the same ones listening to Shady.

I don't know Encore was not good and it sold over 5 million. How may did the last Wayne CD sell?

Well, we're talking first week sales.

Weezy sold 1,005,545 in his first week for C3. Encore just missed the 1 million mark (in its first 10 days, since it was released 3 days earlier ala The Eminem Show to combat piracy). Encore topped off in 10 days at 978,590.

The Eminem Show was his last 1mill+ debut.

I am enjoying the hell out of this CD. First CD I pick up in months. I play all the songs sequentially and love all of them. I can't understand what he's saying half the time anyway He has a great deal of talent and can't wait until Relapse 2.

Wrong. Encore sold over 700,000 in 3 days alone. Here is the excerpt from wikipedia:

"Encore sold 710,000 copies in its shortened three day opening week and claimed the #1 spot on the Billboard Top 200 chart for that month. The following week, Encore sold an estimated 978,590 copies"

I understand we were talking about my first week but I was talking about total vs total. I think when it is all said in done with Em sells more.

The album has grown on me. When I first got it I felt ripped up but now I like it. Still, it's no Eminem Show or Encore.

You're right that it's no Encore, because that CD was terrible.

It's much better.

= J

No kidding. Encore was not good at all.

There are some great songs on this album. There's a little filler but I really think this album is just a step below The Eminem Show. And it's still growing on me daily.

Still I don't think anything has ever been ruined more than Crack a Bottle by 50 Cent. What a piece of garbage.

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This is a pretty sweet remix of 3am IMO.

Yeah, I really enjoyed 50 Cent's first album but he's been garbage ever since. That verse was partucularly bad.

Dr. Dre speaks on Relapse

Dr. Dre recently spoke to the New York Times concerning the release of Eminem’s and Aftermath’s latest project Relapse. “It’s hardcore, it’s dark comedy.” Dr. Dre said. “I talked to my son about [Eminem's return] and he was like ‘The kids want to him act a fool. We want to hear him be crazy, we want to hear him be Slim Shady an nothing else…’ Once he makes a painting, once he lays a lyric down, it’s impossible to get him to change it. If there’s a couple of lines he says on a record that’s not relevant today, it’s ‘No, that was that painting. That was for that moment.’”


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Eminem justifies Detox delay

Eminem justified the delay on Dr. Dre’s ‘Detox’, and said his studio work with the good doctor forced the project to be pushed back, in a recent interview. He also revealed brief details about the production on the anticipated Dr. Dre album, confirming the existence of the works.

“With Dre, Dre’s got a lot of material for this record, and he’s recorded a lot of material” Eminem said in the interview. “I think that more so than anything, before his album, he basically put aside, he was working on his record for a good time period. I would say a year, a year and some straight he was working on his record and come change straight. He was working on his record and he basically put that on hold once we got on the road with my record, which I’m extremely grateful for, you know.”.

Dr. Dre, Aftermath Entertainment founder and CEO, has yet to announce a releasedate for the long-awaited ‘Detox’ LP.


AFTERMATHMUSIC.com

I'll give him credit for admitting Curtis was a dud. I personally don't like anything he's done since Get Rich or Die Tryin' (which is actually his third album - Power of the Dollar was his first and Guess Who's Back was his second). Massacre was bubblegum crap and Curtis was crap. All of his singles from Before I Self Destruct have been garbage, too.

Come to think of it, I think the last good song he did was Magic Stick.

The Rehabilitation Of Eminem

“Drugs really got a hold of me,” Eminem rapped on his 2000 song “Drug Ballad.” Now, the rapper born Marshall Mathers is a recovering addict. While many of Eminem’s crazy lyrics were hyperbole, the substance abuse references foreshadowed his eventual dependence on sleeping pills, among other things, that caused him to stop touring in ‘05. The subsequent ’06 slaying of his best friend and D12 bandmate, Proof, pushed Mathers into a deeply reclusive, self-loathing state that saw him relapse into drug abuse. During his absence, fans wondered about the future of the once dominant musical force that was Eminem, Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. But after a long hiatus, Mathers returns with his first album in five years, the ironically titled Relapse [followed by a second record, Relapse 2].

In ‘99, Eminem shocked the world as a supremely gifted white rapper with controversial lyrics that attacked everyone from his family to pop stars. After a decade of Saw movies, the Internet, war, economic collapse, George Bush and now Barack Obama in the White House, maybe we’ve become desensitized to Slim Shady. What does a new Eminem album mean in ‘09? After giving Relapse a few spins, taking in Eminem’s carefully crafted, swift and sick rhymes coupled with classic, ambitious Dr. Dre production, Eminem has upped the dosage to maximum strength. Real Detroit spoke with Eminem about the road to his return.

I interviewed Jeff Bass [of Bass Brothers] a while back and he mentioned working with you on new tracks.
Yeah, we recorded a lot. The four years that I was away, I did a lot of recording with Markey and Jeff, but at that time, I was going through a pretty rough period in my life.

Was it good to be around those guys and get back to how you started in the old days, just writing rhymes and being in the studio with them?
Yeah, it definitely helped. In the beginning, when I started recording tracks again for myself with them, I wasn’t writing a lot of shit down. I was kind of freestyling it. For some reason, I’ve always been the type of artist who writes everything down but I guess maybe it was a phase I was going through when I was working with them and trying new things.

And when you began working with Dr. Dre for what would be Relapse, was there a moment when you guys looked at each other and knew that you were on fire?
I had a really bad case of writer’s block for the few years that I was away. There were times where I was literally doubting myself if I’d ever actually be able to write anything good again. I guess a combination of like, you know, the drugs that I was taking and, you know, losing Proof … Everything at that time was just spiraling around me so much that my head was just not clear. I would sit down and try to write and nothing that I wrote was worth recording. There wasn’t really a specific time sitting in the studio with Dre, but a couple of weeks before we took the trip to Orlando, I called him and told him, “I think I’m starting to come out of this writer’s block.” Because within them couple of years, we had gotten together five or six times and left the studio with nothing. If we did have something, it wasn’t up to par with our standards.

Did Dr. Dre have a dry stretch at some point because people keep asking when is Detox coming out?
It’s really hard to say, “Was it Dre? Was it me?” If I had to pick one, I’d say it’s more so me than Dre, because Dre is always great at what he does and he’s constantly cranking out beats. I think that no matter what he would’ve came up with, I was pretty blocked up and there wasn’t anything anybody could do. I had to go through my own personal stepping stones to get back up to where I needed to be.

You’ve been addressing your struggles with Proof’s death and I read a quote where you said you’re much happier now. How did you learn to cope?
Well, I think that a huge part had a lot to do with me getting sober, and also as time went on, I learned to be able to deal with it better in the sense of no matter how much I dwelled on it nothing was gonna bring it back. There were times where I would literally sit and beat myself up over had I been there when the incident took place, had I spoke to him earlier that day — because I didn’t speak to him that day — I wonder if things could’ve been different. But I had to come to the realization that nothing is gonna bring it back.

Are you at peace now?
Yeah, I’m at peace with it. I miss him everyday, especially the last couple of days … I get days where I really miss him. I try not to get depressed about it anymore. I’m just kinda like, “Aww shit, I wish he woulda been there for this.” Getting back out there and starting to perform for MTV and shit the past week, I’m not gonna lie, I miss him. It’s strange doing things without him.

Not having him on the side of you?
Yeah, and always being around to bring me up and cheer me up if the day’s long. Proof was always that guy to make you laugh in the worst of situations. I get days every now and then when it feels a little gloomy without him.

Your struggles with drug addiction and Proof’s passing were in the public eye. Looking back to when you came out with your first two albums, you were dominating MTV with artists like Britney Spears. Were you surprised that your lives would ever parallel at some point, with the struggles she went through and the comeback to music that she made?
Yeah, it kinda surprises me a little bit. I was pissed off when I went to the hospital and she stole my hospital thunder [laughs]. But nah, it’s weird, you know I watched a little bit of what she was doing and obviously I can appreciate somebody who strayed off the right path and gets their life back in order. But as far as like a parallel, I don’t know exactly what Britney’s addiction was or anything like that. For me, the biggest thing was me being able to come to terms with “I’m an addict,” because I never really wanted to admit it before … like it was kinda like when I went to rehab, I was making excuses for it, like, “Maybe I just have a sleeping problem.” At the end of the day, who really wants to admit you’re an addict? But when you do make that realization, your life is a lot easier. If she is an addict, I would’ve appreciated it more if she would’ve came out and said, “I am an addict.” For me, I go to meetings. I have a sponsor. I do all the steps to stay sober.

One of the themes I’m gathering from talking to you seems to be about turning your life around. During the Final Four you did a segment reciting your “Letter to Detroit” and you talked about the city’s resilience in the face of adversity. How do you feel about the troubles we’re having in the state? What do you think we can do to turn Detroit around?
Well, I wish I had a great answer for that. I don’t know. It’s fucked up what’s going on. I get that. But I almost feel like it should be our responsibility to make everybody understand how what’s going on here affects regular people, because I think all the people see right now is the car companies failing, executives who lined their pockets and mismanaged companies and shit like that. But I don’t know if everyone else actually sees that these are real people who live here who are losing their fucking jobs, food is being taken off their tables. These people who have worked at these companies for years building cars with their bare hands, they’re losing their jobs and houses and it’s fucked up.

You said in an interview that T.I. and Lil’ Wayne were two emcees that kept hip-hop progressing forward. How so? Did you hesitate coming back to compete with these younger stars of the genre?
Well, honestly, as far as that last question, I don’t really worry about trying to compete with any other rappers in the game. I kinda compete with myself more so than anybody. I’ll say this about Lil’ Wayne. He just kinda shot out of nowhere and got really good and he started elevating and you watched him care about the craft more and more. T.I. is a fucking great rapper and if you watched him when he first got in the game, you could see the potential and you could see where it was going and then you watched him just elevate it. Also, I like Kanye, too. He was really doing his thing with the beats when he first came out, his first album was good lyrically then all of a sudden, it just shot to great. What I listen for is wordplay, to see who’s actually taking time. When you see something that [makes you say], “Damn, they spent a lot of time on that,” you can appreciate it.

I’ve been listening to the new songs and what struck me about “Crack A Bottle” is that you introduce yourself, Dr. Dre and 50 Cent before each respective verse. I was wondering if you felt that you needed to reintroduce yourself to the world?
I don’t know if I was thinking about it that deep. I think it was more reintroducing myself in that I feel like me again. In case you forgot, this is me.

The production is very cinematic and “3 AM” is the same way — something that could come from a movie. Is that any precursor to Detox and Dre’s new sound?
Yeah, I definitely think you could say that. There was somewhere — it might’ve been Orlando — but it was somewhere we kinda rounded that corner when I came out of the writer’s block, Dre was doing different things. Production-wise, I think this is my best album. The beats are just so far above anything right now.

I’ve noticed with “We Made You” and “3 AM” that your flow is different; it’s more rapid and polished and comes across very well.
Oh, well thank you. I feel like with Dre trying different things with the beats, I’ve been trying different things lyrically. I think that on this record, more so than ever, I’ve been trying to push myself to take each rhyme to the next level. What I mean is like if I start a rhyme, I want to just keep going with whatever words I’m rhyming. I’m challenging myself to see how far I can push that rhyme, see if I can take them all the way to the end of the verse no matter how ridiculous it may seem.

There’s a line on “We Made You” that goes, “Never has there been such finesse and nostalgia.” Is Relapse a nostalgic Eminem album?
I wanted to go back to what made me famous in the first place, The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP. I listened to those records quite a bit while I was away and wondering if I should return to this. I had a conversation with Dre a few months before we went to Orlando and I asked him ’cause, you know, people were saying if Eminem comes back he needs to reinvent himself — so I asked Dre what he thought and he said, “People want to see you wild the fuck out and lose your mind again.” | RDW


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