Eminem: analysis of the most listened to rapper of the decade 2010-2019 on Spotify

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Top artists most listened to on Spotify 2010-2019

And they said that Eminem was dead. Whether through media impact or sheer perception and influence in rap circles, one might be inclined to think that the second decade of Eminem's music career has been a huge boo-boo. Especially if it is compared with the first, characterized by the hegemonic commercial and media roll that was the launch, in the space of five years (1999-2003), of The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP, The Eminem Show and the soundtrack of 8 Miles.

Spotify has come to get us out of our mistake.

In their annual report of most played songs and artists of 2019 (unexpected turn of events with A Palé-Rosalía-trá trá number 1 in Spain), Spotify has added an annex with the winners of the decade 2010-2019. Among the usual suspects (Drake, perennial in his immortal reign, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande…) one name stands out: Eminem is still in the limelight.

At 47 years old and with nine platinum albums to his credit, Eminem is the oldest artist of all the most listened to on Spotify.

Spotify Most Streamed Artist of the Decade

Most Streamed Female Artist of the Decade on Spotify

Most Streamed Male Artist of the Decade on Spotify

Most played songs of the decade on Spotify

And no, Drake is not a rapper. Drake is an artist at times pop, at times RnB who, when it hits him, doesn't even write his songs (according to his own admission). Here we are talking about lyricists. And Eminem can be all white and mainstream that one wants, but Eminem is a lyricist capable of fitting 1.506 words into a six-minute song, Rap god.

But Eminem has been much more than that. And let's hope he is, because he has already announced that he will only withdraw death.

Analysis/review of the 2010s for Eminem

Eminem, Second Period

From Resurrection post barbiturate overdose in 2007, Eminem has marked himself a full-fledged Sabina: it's not the same anymore. More focused on finding the key to the fusion of rap with rock/pop and putting together impossible syllabic dances with double and triple meanings, Eminem has starred in a very uneven decade with embarrassing songs (Believe, taken from what is deferentially his worst work, Recovery) and songs up to the king that Spotify tells us he is.

At 47 years old, Eminem released in 2018 what has been by far the best album of this Eminem Segunda Época: Kamikaze. Terribly fragile to criticism, in his most recent studio work Eminem unleashed a nuclear bomb directed at all of his critics, leaving memorable melodies such as Not Alike, The Ringer or Lucky You. Three examples that, as he himself has recognized, being angry and having an enemy in the target is the main fire that heats the rapper's inspiration.

Eminem: "For 'Kamikaze' to exist, 'Revival' had to exist"

When Eminem doesn't have problems, he creates them himself. the main leitmotiv de Kamikaze it was none other than that of Mr. Marshall Mathers kicking because his previous album had not been liked.

Things as they are: Revival it's bad. Very bad.

A few weeks before the release of RevivalIn December 2017, Interscope launched a newspaper, magazine and online ad campaign for a fictitious drug whose advertising slogans unsubtly paraphrased some of Eminem's most famous anthems. under the motto Seize the moment (taken from the rapper's most clicked song, the one no one hasn't heard, Lose Yourself), the false medicine even had advertising spots and a contact telephone line as a subtle but obvious plea for virality.

Suddenly and without anesthesia, the Eminem fan went from a state of uncertainty (which had lasted four years, since the publication of The Marshall Mathers LP 2) to one waiting, anticipation and nervousness before an early Christmas present that ended up being the worst job of Eminem's entire career. Revival It was the unnecessary shaking of a rapper who at times seemed to be deliberately collapsing his legacy.

The critics were unanimous: Marshall Mathers has grown up, but Eminem still doesn't get it. And let's not even mention Slim Shady, about whom he is still giving explanations. After three video clips in which Em tried to milk some attention through collaborations with unusual artists such as Beyoncé or Ed Sheeran, the promotional tour of Revival he ended up leaving behind a vibe only known long ago from his days as a dishwasher in Detroit: indifference. For this reason, the Spotify report surprises (and in what way).

The explanation is not only in the after (Kamikaze) but in the before: nine discs that, with their highs (The Marshall Mathers LP) and with its lows (Relapse), are full of hymns paid to the click of Spotify and YouTube.

Marshall Mathers: 20 years of dominance in the rap scene

Eminem is the main person responsible for the fact that at the beginning of the millennium rap made the definitive leap to the global phenomenon (not-only-for-blacks) of the masses that it is today.

Eminem based the hit of his first albums on the release of a noisy single with a catchy chorus in which he mocked the American social and cultural scene, and then released two or three superlative quality songs aimed at the hard core of listeners interested in more than just jokes about MTV, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. An example of this is the furious plea for respect for his private life, who was The Way I Am, the anti-George W. Bush statement of Mosh, or the story of a hypothetical fan who takes the rapper's lyrics literally to the point of killing his wife and committing suicide, which was Apartment, winner of a Grammy.

The collaborations of other artists on Eminem's albums, usually few, were by second-rate rappers (good, but not in the Champion's League) like Xzibit, Nate Dogg or Royce Da 59, rarely first swords. Eminem needed no lifeline other than his squeaky, lizard-tongued, cunning-brained voice; as he demonstrated with Renegade, by Jay Z, there were also not too many rappers who were willing to be humiliated on their own album by inviting a pandora's box out of control that more than spit flow what he did was surf the bars with an assault rifle in each hand.

And on top of that, the guy was white.

Rakim, one of the architects of rap back in the seventies, said of Eminem that “he is so bad that, if he were black, he would be the new living Muhammad Ali”; Kanye West has said that no one will ever be as great as Eminem, and he himself Snoop Dogg He has come to recognize that he would not count on Eminem for a collaboration on any of his albums. That's how good it was.

'Relapse' and 'Recovery': when he returned, everything was not the same

After launching The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP, The Eminem Show and the irregular (shooting to very bad) Still, Eminem takes a long break motivated, in part, by the aforementioned health problems. Going back, we are in 2009 and the humorous single formula seems somewhat less effective. Drake new king of urban/black music begins to emerge and Eminem claims his throne with an exotic album full of strange accents and a marked tone soft core bordering on pop.

Among the main detractors of his first post-overdose album are Eminem himself. The main criticism of Relapse it's the variety of accents the rapper uses in each song and how high-pitched his voice has become, making listening to some tedious songs truly testy. Eminem himself (who feared he had forgotten how to rap) has admitted on many songs that Relapse It was nonsense and, according to his latest album, Kamikaze, the worst he has published in his life. And yet, some cuts exceed the approved: the intimate Beautiful or the claim Underground, to give two examples.

will follow a year later Recovery, bill much more resolved and superior in every way to Relapse. It is here that we will find Eminem's perhaps greatest success of this decade: his success with Rihanna, Love the way you lie. The video clip touches a whopping 1.900 million views on YouTube. Also in Recovery find I'm not afraid, which was the first single from the album, with the not inconsiderable sum of 1.300 million reproductions. Recovery It was the first record where Eminem broke with the tradition of putting out a playful first single by goofing around to make it easier for all sorts of fans to get into the album. A tradition that he has never embraced again in the three albums that followed Recovery.

'The Marshall Mathers LP 2'

In the manner of Jay Z with their B'slueprints o Lil Wayne with their Crankcases, Eminem throws nostalgia, grabs his most popular album, and puts a number two in front of it. Except for certain references to Apartment o Criminal, as well as some humorous interludes, this album only resembles The Marshall Mathers LP in the name. It is perhaps the best Eminem album in his second era. And not even for those reasons, does it come close in quality to any of the holy trinity started in 1999.

Rap god, the most remembered anthem of this new Eminem hyper vitaminized lyricist exemplifies like no other song the new role of the rapper from Detroit. All of it is pure extravagance with no incentive for re-listening beyond the hostile check on how fast the man can rhyme. Rap god It is the best example of the aesthetic disaffection and fixation for the skeleton and the ornament that invades Eminem in all his own songs or those of others in which he collaborates. (with momentary parentheses like the one executed in almost all of Kamikaze). He is more focused on making impossible juggling words than on the musicality of his songs. Technically, the new Eminem is as flawless as he is forgettable.

Starting from the basis that it is not Dr. Dre but Rick Rubin (standard bearer of the revivals of groups like Metallica or the Red Hot Chili Peppers), its main producer, in all The Marshall Mathers LP 2 floats a rap rock atmosphere mixed with the new Eminem who survives to this day: a rapper obsessed by metrics, by the triple message, by the structure of rhymes and the repercussion of his lyrics, so focused on the form that he seems to have forgotten the substance; to make his songs enjoyable and relistenable.

And here is the paradox of the matter that concerns us today. That Eminem is the most listened to rapper of the decade on Spotify only shows how much they continue to like his old records. In fact, it is possible to access the list of his 30 most listened to songs on Spotify, where you can see how, indeed, there is no shortage of old songs by Emine (although Recovery turns out to be a very well received album).

Embarrassing 'Revival'

Back in 2017, it is worth emphasizing the idea: Revival it's an embarrassing album. Despite Beyonce, in spite of E: Eminem is on to something else. Aren't these pop collaborations the clearest indication that someone seems in need of YouTube views? Eminem swaps his classic playful first hit single for six minutes of spoken lament ("I can't be the way you guys want me to be anymore, etc, etc) in walk on water.

Beyoncé makes the chorus the only thing. Same thing with the Ed Sheeran cut. And there would be nothing wrong with that if the theme was an introduction to the feast instead of the exponent of what was to come in Revival. The central idea of the album is summed up in the chorus of her second song, Believe: "Do you still believe in me?"

Since it is not possible to put together a 77-minute work with such a premise, the rest of the songs are a parade of rushed phrases and out of rhythm, with crazy rap rock that does not interest neither rock fans nor rap fans, drunkenness of pop choruses that make the songs clones (in the one by Pink, Eminem looks more like a featuring of the singer) and some jokes that can be summed up with the verse “Your booty is heavy duty like diarrhea” (Your ass is a heavy duty like diarrhea).

Castle (or Stan II), a letter addressed to his daughter and in three acts is almost the only thing salvageable:

Concerned about making everyone happy, in Revival Eminem played the mature rapper card but without forgetting, and here is the mistake, of continuing to be a clown. The inconsistency is resounding. On Untouchable, uses the white cop/black citizen dichotomy to denounce (for six tedious minutes of goofy chorus), a message about police abuse that should be considered if you are a little late. After comparing in like home Donald Trump with Hitler, in Heat he confesses that perhaps the only thing he has in common with the president of the United States is his fondness for "grab her by the cunt" (alluding to "grab her by the cunt", uttered by Trump himself in an unauthorized recording).

What now?

“Eminem seems to need to prove to us something that he doesn't need to prove to us and that no one has asked him to prove: that he knows how to rap”, says Mal, collaborator of the number 1 program on hip hop on Spotify and YouTube, The Joe Budden Podcast.

It is clear that Eminem cannot (nor does he want to) be a new 6ix9ine. The main hurdle that Eminem has to face is deciding who he wants to be. Jay Z, for example, he has successfully overcome this trance with his latest album, also from 2017. In 4:44 the one from Brooklyn surprised with his most mature work, one in which the whole is much more than the sum of the parts: with very simple productions, Jay Z has written a love letter to adulthood in which he apologizes to his wife for having been unfaithful to him, acts as a financial adviser (going to say that it is much better to invest money in properties than in striptease bars), and influences the awareness of the American African-American community and its origins.

Kanye west, more focused on the world of fashion, sneakers, celebrities, religion and maybe even politics, He has fully immersed himself in the experimentation of sounds far from rap in The Life of Pablo, Ye or Jesus is King. 50 Cent has left him, hardly anyone remembers Nas, Snoop Dogg continues to exploit the mantra of long live the party of life, etc, etc.

Less than a year after revival, Eminem released another album, this time overnight and without any announcement. As much as Kamikaze (2018) is superior to Revival in every way, the uncertainty and confusion are still there: how is it possible that Eminem took four years to make the worst album of his career and, nine months later, like a pregnancy, give birth to thirteen tracks with those who have managed to emulate some remnants of their former self?

Who is the Eminem that survives and what should we expect for the eleventh album? The crooner who talks off the beats between Pink and Alicia Keys choruses, or the MC who's had just one song (the ringer) to discredit the entire current American trap scene?

Whatever it is, let's hope Eminem makes good on his threat not to retire much. Even if he releases one album per decade. May he never stop.