Eminem

[Kush]

Given the idscussion re' Eminem sometime ago on this site....I thought some may be interested in this article appearing in NY times (and some will be aghast).

Eminem becomes the boomers' crooner
November 26 2002
By Maureen Dowd
Comment


A gaggle of my girlfriends are surreptitiously smitten with Eminem. They buy his posters on eBay. They listen to his music at the gym. They sing along lustily to Cleanin' Out My Closet and Lose Yourself in the car. They rhapsodise that his amazing vignettes of dysfunctional families make him the Raymond Carver of hip-hop.

They crowd into movie theatres along with teenage boys and then insist that Eminem's rapping his way out of a Detroit car factory in 8Mile is way hotter than Jennifer Beals' dancing her way out of the Pittsburgh steel mill in Flashdance.

They put off helping their kids with homework so they can watch the rapper's caravan park mother being interviewed on Primetime Live.

"My 11-year-old daughter is repulsed that I like him," a friend says, as her daughter chimes in that mum is "psychotic and weird". Mothers, the little girl explains, are not supposed to like people who talk about "drugs and sex and hard lives". Kids don't want to see their parents hopped up over a 30-year-old hip-hopper.

It doesn't feel quite so rebellious to like "the most evil rapper alive", as Zadie Smith dubbed Eminem in Vibe, if your mother is rapping along when he describes how he'd like to rape and kill his mother.
"I have to listen to his music in the car because my kids don't want to hear him any more," a friend withteenage boys says. "He's attractive and smart and very, very macho. There's no fake posturing in his music. He blasts away."

Frantic to be hip, eager to stay young, we are robbing our children of their toys. Like Mick Jagger, we want to deny the reality of time and be cool unto eternity. Eminem sings only about himself, which makes him a perfect boomers' crooner.

But yo, dawg, our suffocating yuppie love has turned Marshall Mathers into Jerry Mathers. Eminem is now as cuddly as Beaver Cleaver.

Lynne Cheney and Tipper Gore haven't criticised him lately. Instead, his talent has been hailed by the arbiters of real culture.

In a radical chic ode to the rapper in The New York Observer, Paul Slansky, the Los Angeles writer, suggested that middle-aged fans liked to echo Eminem's anger after they drove in the car pool: "So we drop off the kids, roll down the windows and blast Eminem."

In the same paper, Andrew Sarris called the star the new James Dean, and in The Times, Neal Gabler deemed him "the meta-Elvis".

Pat O'Brien chatted with Eminem on Access Hollywood about his "crib" in a Detroit suburb and his Oscar chances. Frank Rich wrote in The New York Times Magazine that the singer's "mayhem is so calculatedly over the top that it seems no more or less offensive than typical multiplex Grand Guignol".

As Don Imus drily observed to Rich last week: If we're talking about Eminem, isn't he over? Can his street cred survive his being on the short-list for Time magazine's Person of the Year, alongside Dick Cheney?

He's charming the people he's supposed to be menacing. What happens when Rebel Without a Cause becomes Rebel With Applause?

Eminem used to become irritated when interviewers and other musicians, like Moby, criticised the misogyny, homophobia and violence in his lyrics. Now he probably misses being able to get a rise out of people.

The biggest fight he has had lately is with a handpuppet, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, whom he and his posse pushed around at the MTV awards. (The dog later sniffed, "My mum was a bitch, too, but I don't go writing songs about it.")

Rock'n'roll and hip-hop used to be about protest; now they're the soundtrack of commodity capitalism, pushing cars, clothes, computers, vodka and running shoes.

It used to take longer for rebellion to go commercial. Deadheads were truckin' for decades before Jerry Garcia began peddling his tie-dyed ties in Christmas catalogues.

Eminem says he will never sell out, and he told Pat O'Brien he can still be raw: "I can't see losing that edge ... especially now being on top. I got new problems." Yet he's flipped the script, rounding his edges for the mainstream. In 8 Mile, he is portrayed as a defender of women and gays. On the cover of his latest CD, The Eminem Show, he has traded his do-rag and baggy Nikes for a black suit.

He'll have to be very smart and very wicked if he doesn't want to hear himself in lifts.

Maureen Dowd is a Pulitzer prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, where this article first appeared.

[Linda]

And this too shall pass

[elazar]

this reminds me of a bus ride i took from manchester to london one late saturday night in '99.there was a group of kids two guys and two girls,maybe 17-18 yrs old,with a little baby.they were listening to a scratchy copy of eminem.they insisted i listen to some of this"brilliant
music".i listen for two minutes of slander,murderous intent,the whole blood and gore bit.i thought in my mind then,that he wouldnt last another year.how very wrong i was!i guess if you can touch someone in a particular way because of your bluntness,this is appealing?or maybe he is like,in the scarface movie where al gets up in the restaurant and starts shouting,why do i have to be your bad guy.but eminem is shouting let me be your voice of all that is bad and grotesque.this can be rather entertaining,or even comical to some,and unfortunately for others maybe something more?im just hypothisizing dont mind me.

[lizzytysh]

I still feel that Eminem's trying to maneuver the best he can to remain in the dollar arena. Marketing at any cost.

[Paula]

I feel that in the fullness of time Eminem will become a prominent poet/writer of his generation if not a poet somethink of that ilk. It would also not surprise me if he became a mouthpiece for the disadvantaged. I also feel he has a lot to give if people just saw past the showmanship. The youth don't believe everything he says why do the older generation. The people amongst us who are disenchanted by Emimen remind me of the generation who believed the Beatles and Elvis were Devil's spawn. You are elevating him to something he isn't. Listen to "Cleaning out my closet" it is a good song and it says what it has to say quite clearly.

[Linda]

According to your description of the condition of the world in another thread Paula, seems like these people could have been right about Elvis and the Beatles. Elvis died from drugs, many singers commit suicide, execution style murders are happening in the music world. Doesn't sound good to me. Although I have to admit I was a crazed teen ager over Elvis, and my parents warned me I would turn out like this!

[vern.silver]

Perhaps us older folk should dig out the Doors. In "The End" Jim Morrison sings about killing his family and raping his mother. And "Riders on the Storm" is also an interesting listen. He of course was another controversial figure in his day. There have been many others. There will be many more.

I personally haven't taken the time to delve into Eminem or his works so I do not have a valid opinion of him yet or his work. I'm considering doing just that.

Hating someone who hates doesn't make us the better person. Dealing with the conditions that create that hatred, and not letting ourselves fall victim to the same kind of vitriol, that to me is what is important. And understanding where that anger comes from.

Vern

[lizzytysh]

Hi Vern,

As I'm sure you know already, but I'll say it regardless, you can locate Eminem's site [including some of his songs lyrics] via the Search engine. Some are left off. I can only speculate as to why, yet it would remain only speculation.

~Lizzytysh

[jurica]

i like avangarde. i like poetry that insults. i like jim morrison...

the only problem with this guy, eminem, is that he has no talent, and further more: he's as ignorant as a ten-year-old.

[Paula]

I take your point Linda but I think the Beatle/Elvis generation of which I am one are not the generation which thinks murder/rape/robbery etc is a pastime/hobby.

Jurica I don't know what you consider talent. I consider Eminem talented. It has to be a personal opinion of what you consider talent. Why do you say he is ignorant. Ignorant of what, he appears to me to using poetry as a form of therapy it just so happens his early life was colourful. Do you consider Salvador Dali as talented or ignorant? People who change the world are often controversal and the world needs them.

[elazar]

i'll venture to put maryln manson on one side of the room and eminem on the other side,and see what happens.manson,who is happily married,admits on talk shows that his whole bit is an act,a well planned hype regime'.slim shady says hes got new problems to find what to rap about.do people remember vanilla ice?and its tragic too,that his mom is sueing him and his wife filed.talented?who knows!successfull?yes!there is a great differance between talent and success.its called hard work,and this one has the energy of many a pink rabbit!if he writes his own lyrics
isnt even wondered.who cares?he delivers like a workhorse!eminem earned his spot in the limelight.hes a powerfull force thats eye-level with you and me.nice!if we can sing along to murder and mayhem ,why cant he give us more material to feed the need?(idont believe that this causes columbines to happen,but im happy that he offers a simple red flag to look for in our homes.just so things dont get out of hand.)whatever may be,theres always freedom of speach etc..so ....blah blah blah etc..etc...

[jurica]

about eminem's ignorance, everything you need to know about my opinon on ignorance in art you can find here: Tradition and the Individual Talent, which is written by my favourite poet and critic.

i must admit i've only heard a song or two by this Eminem, but it was enough to ensure me i didn't miss anything.

i could spend DAYS writting about what makes a poet and what doesn't, but my command of this language (English) is FAR from perfect, and I don't have time to write about things that were already considered by far more learned people than me. so: read the text behind the link, please.

JURICA

[June]

Hello, I'm new to this experience because I have only recently become aware of Leonard and his work.

[Kush]

"This kid Eminem is really interesting. I can relate to the truth, and I can relate to emotion, and I can relate to him in some strange way. ... I was raised in the projects. I was born in Brooklyn. We were poor. I relate to that stuff because that's my roots, my heritage."

- Barbra Streisand

[Linda]

Kush I started reading that thinking it was your opinion Now I am curious though, and probably more interested in your opinion of eminem than Streisands, have you read or hear him yet? What do you think?