The loose concept behind The Death of Slim Shady, as reinforced through a few skits peppered throughout the tracklist, is that this is the final showdown between Marshall Mathers and Slim Shady. Slim kidnaps Mathers, a nod to his early work, and forces the captive to write the kind of outlandish songs that made him famous. The first half of the album is a dilapidated funhouse, a cheap reconstruction of Slim Shady’s oeuvre. He opens “Trouble” by sneering, “Fuck blind people.” “Brand New Dance,” a leftover from the Encore sessions, is a three-and-half-minute diss track aimed at the late Christopher Reeve, who died in 2004. He mentions Caitlyn Jenner six times before the 30-minute mark. There are confused, angry rants about pronouns and references to South Park. It would all be outlandishly offensive if it weren’t so tired, dated, and developmentally arrested.
The album’s centerpoint, “Guilty Conscience 2,” is the ultimate standoff, the two characters meeting eyes and circling each other with hands hovering over their holsters. Em raps with two voices, one slightly affected with distortion to represent Shady, and one with a drier mix for Marshall. The two characters argue like drunken reality show contestants, scrunching their noses and waving a middle finger. Marshall limply explains that Shady’s cruelty is merely a product of his addiction, immediately decimating his own point by needlessly comparing Slim’s embarrassing antics to David Carradine’s accidental death by autoerotic asphyxiation. Slim’s retorts sound like a “debate me” guy invoking the “it’s only a joke” defense. Finally, after exhausting each other’s arguments, the two voices combine. It’s probably supposed to be a moment of absolution, but reads more like an admission of guilt. “I gave you power to use me as an excuse to be evil/You created me to say everything you didn’t have the balls to say,” they both howl. Then, as the album title promises, Marshall gains the upper hand and shoots Slim Shady dead.
The day before its release, Eminem tweeted that The Death of Slim Shady is a concept album and should, therefore, be listened to in order. It’s a long slog to get to “Guilty Conscience 2,” but there are moments of genuine inspiration along the way. Though he deflates “Fuel” with an overlong, technique-heavy tirade, Em enlists JID, one of his stylistic descendants, for a breathtaking verse. He shies away from the stadium stomp-clap bombast of his late career, selecting beats that run the gamut from goofy clarinet trap to the crisp, slithering boom-bap that marked some of his best early work. He’s still good for a dumb laugh, even if it’s a bit of a walk: “Call this sex ed with a splash of necrophilia/’Cause when I say that I’m really the evilest, I’m fucking deadass” from the otherwise bloodless “Evil.” But the album flounders, unsure of what it’s trying to say. There are five songs after the ostensible climax, none of which seem like a direction where the real, unburdened Eminem might travel.