Eminem deserves rest, or at least his listeners do.
The tireless rapper released a batch of 16 new songs without notice on Friday under the slogan Music to Be Murdered By – Side B, a “deluxe” edition of his new studio album that is more than enough to be considered an independent album. launch. This is Eminem’s third consecutive wonderful album after January’s Music to Be Murdered By and 2018’s Kamikaze. Unfortunately, the third time isn’t a charm for the 48-year-old rapper: in terms of quality and publicity performance, Eminem has Despite everything, tickets for his wonderful stunt album sold out on Music to Be Murdered By – Side B.
Eminem’s new effort encompasses all the hallmarks listeners have come to expect from his late-career production: supersonic beats, embarrassing jabs at his critics, groan-provoking punchlines, and political insults that deserve to have been left in the elementary school playground. It only took Eminem more than 40 years to avoid employing homophobic slurs on his albums; maybe avoid using the R-word before you turn 60. )Eminem’s post-hiatus catalog since Relapse in 2009 is the definition of decline. , and Music to Be Murdered By – Side B is no exception. He continues to live off old problems, recruiting pop stars in search of a “Love the Way You Lie” caliber chart and building ever more elaborate rhyme schemes devoid of substance.
Although he was widely criticized by critics, Eminem was not incentivized to replace his approach. His albums continued to sell like hotcakes, and he and his enthusiasts – the original “stans” – created a successful and self-sustaining cycle of releasing the most sensible from the charts. album, receiving tons of negative reviews for said album, and then releasing another one. A most sensible album on the charts in which Eminem unleashed a torrent of complaints against the critics who trashed his last album in the most sensible of the charts. The business strategy has traditionally proved lucrative: Music to Be Murdered By debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making Eminem the only artist in history to release 10 consecutive albums in the most sensible position on the charts.
With Music to Be Murdered By – Side B, it seems that Eminem’s winning streak is, regardless, coming to an end. The collection will debut at No. 3 on Billboard’s Two Hundred Taylor Swift’s Evermore (which will spend a week at the top of the chart) and Paul McCartney’s new McCartney III, according to HITS Daily Double. The album is on track to sell between 70,000 and 80,000 equivalent units, of which 25,000 to 30,000 will come from natural sales.
The good news for Eminem is that, since Music to Be Murdered By – Side B is being touted as a deluxe edition and not a new studio album, it technically wouldn’t possibly ruin his first number one run. Still, it’s a dismal first week compared to Music to Be Murdered By (279,000 units), which in turn represented a very significant drop compared to Kamikaze (434,000 units).
The reasons for Music to Be Murdered By – Side B’s lackluster projected debut are manifold. For starters, the album’s first streaming performances were, frankly, appalling. “Gnat,” the most recent song on Spotify’s global chart on Friday, reached No. 56 with a measly 1. 7 million streams. It rose to No. 32 in the U. S. ratings. It is the only one in the U. S. with only 681,000 views. By comparison, Music to Be Murdered By’s “Godzilla” debuted at No. 2 on Spotify’s U. S. chart. It ranked in the U. S. in January with 2. 573 million streams and number four on the global chart with 5. 773 million streams. The numbers look even worse compared to other chart-topping spots like Swift, whose “Willow” debuted at No. 1 on Spotify’s global chart with 7. 268 million streams and on the U. S. chart with 3. 645 million streams.
Eminem will also be affected by Billboard’s updated concert ticket pricing and merchandise rules, which no longer count albums packaged with concert products or tickets priced on the album or song charts unless they are promoted as a complement to those purchases. In addition, physical albums or singles related to virtual downloads can no longer be reported as virtual sales, and the physical product will need to be shipped before it can be counted on the charts. (To see the effect of the new rules, just take a look at Swift’s Evermore, which just debuted with 329,000 sets versus Folklore’s 846,000. )Eminem, who is a holdover from the CD era and still dominates physical sales, can no longer cash in on the album/merch bundles that boosted sales of his last two albums. Meanwhile, the deluxe red vinyl Music to Be Murdered By – Side B can take up to nine months to ship, according to the rapper’s website, meaning Billboard might not count his sales for a long time.
Of course, it’s natural for a deluxe edition of an album to sell for less than its original version, as is the case with an album released some time after its predecessor (see Swift’s Evermore again). But there’s still a precedent for deluxe edition albums, especially rap albums, that work just as well as their original versions. In March, Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake topped the Billboard 200 chart with 288,000 units; his “deluxe edition”, Lil Uzi Vert vs. the World 2 (which contained 14 new songs), topped the chart the following week with 247,000 units.
The most likely explanation for Music to Be Murdered By – Side B’s underwhelming functionality is that casual listeners simply have no interest or preference for a new Eminem album – and especially not a wonderful album. With Kamikaze – and, to a lesser extent, Music to Be Killed: Eminem used the detail of wonder to dominate the news and social media for 24 to 48 hours before negative reviews surfaced. But after 3 wonderful outings in a row, the subversive strategy has become tired.
Stans will continue to consume Eminem’s new music, but casual listeners will roll their eyes and leave, especially when he confusingly refers to his new songs as a “deluxe edition” of an old album and stuffs them with the same silly punchlines and dated references. (The only thing worse than Eminem making puns about COVID-19 in 2020 will be revisiting those puns in 2022. )With Music to Be Murdered By – Side B, the only victim Eminem can claim is the dead horse he completely defeated. .