Eminem - When I'm Gone (2005)
** (of four)
I was a Rolling Stone subscriber for seven years - read the shit cover to cover every time it appeared in my mailbox. Then I returned the little subscription postcard after checking the "Bill Me Later" box, they sent me a bill, I set it aside and forgot about it, and four months later I noticed my RS magazines stopped coming. This all went down about a year ago, and if my subcription had continued unabated, I would have known Eminem checked himself into rehab for a sleeping pill addiction.
Instead, Eminem himself has provided me with this tidbit of celebrity gossip, via his new video "When I'm Gone." This is the token single from his Curtain Call greatest hits album, which excludes "Just Don't Give a Fuck" and "Role Model" and thereby cannot be endorsed by yours truly. The thirtysomething, out-of-rehab Eminem is distancing himself from the fantasy violence of his Slim Shady alter-ego, focusing instead on his guilt about being a bad father. Which, as any record company demographic study can tell you, is an awesome way to make sure your rap album sales go way the fuck down.
The "When I'm Gone" video begins in a twelve-step group therapy session led by Rob Lowe or a Lowe doppelganger. After one grizzled addict finishes speaking, Marshall takes the podium to rap out the song's uber-sensitive lyrics, and you wonder why none of these recovering junkies are heckling him with cries of, "Come on! Do 'Guilty Conscience'!" or "Where's the fucking mushroom song?!"
None of that - instead we see plenty of shots of Eminem wandering his vast mansion and telling his daughter Hailie that he has to leave. She doesn't want him to go, of course. Even stacks up several dozen cardboard boxes to block the door, which elicits a quizzical, guilt-ridden look from the white rapper.
This part of the video actually grabbed me, as did the dream sequence in the third verse that had Hailie tracking down a suit-wearing Eminem at a concert in Sweden and giving him a heart-wrenching "Number One Dad" locket. And causing him to put a gun to the head of his Shady persona while, the next morning, the plane he was supposed to be on crashes into the ocean.
Most of the "When I'm Gone" video is filler, though, and the beat, delivery and lyrics of the song seem too familiar and warmed-over. Okay, Marshall, we get it - you love your daughter. That's terrific. You don't get along with Hailie's mother. That's too bad. Your references to killing Hailie's mother are only anger-venting machinations of the Shady character. That's completely obvious. And you're jumping on the "I'm retiring, I swear to God" bandwagon too. That's nothing anyone's going to swallow.
The chorus of the song could be interpreted three ways, too - either it's "Don't mourn me when I'm dead, everyone," "Don't miss me too much when I'm on tour, Hailie," or, "Fans and radio programmers, thanks for the memories, but I'm hanging it up."
If it seems like I'm being flip here, it's because no serious Eminem song has done much for me since the days of "Rock Bottom" and "The Way I Am." Everything since - "Mockingbird," "Like Toy Soldiers," even "Cleaning Out My Closet" - has seemed way too self-indulgent, one-sided and whiny to me. Especially for an artist who has built his following so solidly around being shocking for shocking's shake and going off on all the other sellouts around. But he's really quite sensitive. Of course.
I'm normally a huge sucker for emotional, bare-honesty songs from otherwise hard-assed rappers. But these continued retreads from Marshall Mathers make me wonder if he's going to permanently trade in the comic fantasy-gore niche he dominated for nonstop G-rated emotional confessions and twelve-step jargon. If so, it's only a matter of time before some new rapper steps in and lampoons Eminem the way Em used to rip Christina Aguilera, Fred Durst and *N Sync for their transparent image whoredom. That could be entertaining.
I was a Rolling Stone subscriber for seven years - read the shit cover to cover every time it appeared in my mailbox. Then I returned the little subscription postcard after checking the "Bill Me Later" box, they sent me a bill, I set it aside and forgot about it, and four months later I noticed my RS magazines stopped coming. This all went down about a year ago, and if my subcription had continued unabated, I would have known Eminem checked himself into rehab for a sleeping pill addiction.
Instead, Eminem himself has provided me with this tidbit of celebrity gossip, via his new video "When I'm Gone." This is the token single from his Curtain Call greatest hits album, which excludes "Just Don't Give a Fuck" and "Role Model" and thereby cannot be endorsed by yours truly. The thirtysomething, out-of-rehab Eminem is distancing himself from the fantasy violence of his Slim Shady alter-ego, focusing instead on his guilt about being a bad father. Which, as any record company demographic study can tell you, is an awesome way to make sure your rap album sales go way the fuck down.
The "When I'm Gone" video begins in a twelve-step group therapy session led by Rob Lowe or a Lowe doppelganger. After one grizzled addict finishes speaking, Marshall takes the podium to rap out the song's uber-sensitive lyrics, and you wonder why none of these recovering junkies are heckling him with cries of, "Come on! Do 'Guilty Conscience'!" or "Where's the fucking mushroom song?!"
None of that - instead we see plenty of shots of Eminem wandering his vast mansion and telling his daughter Hailie that he has to leave. She doesn't want him to go, of course. Even stacks up several dozen cardboard boxes to block the door, which elicits a quizzical, guilt-ridden look from the white rapper.
This part of the video actually grabbed me, as did the dream sequence in the third verse that had Hailie tracking down a suit-wearing Eminem at a concert in Sweden and giving him a heart-wrenching "Number One Dad" locket. And causing him to put a gun to the head of his Shady persona while, the next morning, the plane he was supposed to be on crashes into the ocean.
Most of the "When I'm Gone" video is filler, though, and the beat, delivery and lyrics of the song seem too familiar and warmed-over. Okay, Marshall, we get it - you love your daughter. That's terrific. You don't get along with Hailie's mother. That's too bad. Your references to killing Hailie's mother are only anger-venting machinations of the Shady character. That's completely obvious. And you're jumping on the "I'm retiring, I swear to God" bandwagon too. That's nothing anyone's going to swallow.
The chorus of the song could be interpreted three ways, too - either it's "Don't mourn me when I'm dead, everyone," "Don't miss me too much when I'm on tour, Hailie," or, "Fans and radio programmers, thanks for the memories, but I'm hanging it up."
If it seems like I'm being flip here, it's because no serious Eminem song has done much for me since the days of "Rock Bottom" and "The Way I Am." Everything since - "Mockingbird," "Like Toy Soldiers," even "Cleaning Out My Closet" - has seemed way too self-indulgent, one-sided and whiny to me. Especially for an artist who has built his following so solidly around being shocking for shocking's shake and going off on all the other sellouts around. But he's really quite sensitive. Of course.
I'm normally a huge sucker for emotional, bare-honesty songs from otherwise hard-assed rappers. But these continued retreads from Marshall Mathers make me wonder if he's going to permanently trade in the comic fantasy-gore niche he dominated for nonstop G-rated emotional confessions and twelve-step jargon. If so, it's only a matter of time before some new rapper steps in and lampoons Eminem the way Em used to rip Christina Aguilera, Fred Durst and *N Sync for their transparent image whoredom. That could be entertaining.
posted by daytime at 4:58 AM
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