Eminem - The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) Album (Thoughts)

I know, I know, I'm late to the party...
I tried listening to the album right when it dropped, but missed, like, half the bars and the album had JUST dropped, literally under a minute ago, so the lyrics weren't online yet... So I figured I'd wait for a few days, and then those few days turned into weeks and... then I listened through the album and started writing this and then once I got into the lyrics, really focusing on reading those took me another couple of weeks... and here we are.

Before writing this, I've heard most of the songs once (single releases more than once and the last few songs on the album not even once). I haven't watched any reactions or read any interpretations of the songs, but I have seen Knox Hill react to the music videos and these two videos:
- "Eminem Needs To Come Out Of The Closet" | Candace Owens FIRES SHOTS at Eminem.. (youtube.com)
- How Eminem’s New Album Changes Everything… (youtube.com)
I've also seen some video and news article headlines that spoil the album a little bit, but I've done my best to forget those exist.

Now I'm getting fully into it myself and then I'll start watching and reading other people's reactions. I will not include my thoughts on the other people's reactions this time, nor will I do a full lyrical breakdown of any of these songs, that'd take forever.

Before hearing the album the most likely theory of the overarching plot that I could come up with was that Slim Shady comes back from the past, wreaks havoc for a few songs, and then Eminem kills Slim Shady, but survives himself and continues his career as a bit more mature version of himself.
But it could also be i.e. that he cannot survive without Shady and they merge (like they did in one of the music videos) and then continue their career together, then the album would be sort of a return to his roots, but also a self-reflection piece on how much he's changed over the decades.
Or that Shady cannot be killed and he comes back as a zombie-like creature either on this album or on a later album - like, he's undead, but smarter than a zombie, but just as inhumane and heartless. An even shadier Shady.

Musical aspects

I like how it's mixed together, I didn't even notice the song changing from Renaissance to Habits. So many albums these days are just a compilation of individual songs, people don't think about transitions anymore... Glad someone does.

On Renaissance, the drum on the beat was VERY simple, but then there were harmonies behind it that elevated it, and obviously his flows are complex. The beat leaves room for the flows to shine.
On Habits the drums start off being a bit more complex, but then they change later.

Not that I'd still fully understand how any of it works, but these rap technicals are just like... on another level. Very impressive! That fast part in Antichrist is just... what!! How can a human mouth work that fast?? Well, I guess he's an antichrist and not a human, so... That must be it, lmao.

I love the hook on Evil. Very melancholic, that's my shiiiit ❤ Yeah, definitely my favorite song from the album thus far.

I don't like Road Rage as much, I don't like the hook.

Guilty Conscience 2 is freakin art piece! Not just the lyricism (that I'll get into in a bit), but the entire song altogether, it's like a musical piece - like, a theater musical, a play with music, you know. I haven't heard the original one (Guilty Conscience), I assume one exists and I want to hear it at some point...

Temporary is so beautiful <3

Yey, Skylar Grey and Ez Mil! I love their voices!

Overall, my favorite song is Guilty Conscience 2, my second favorite song is Evil, and my least favorite is Road Rage.

Lyrics

My first impression after hearing the album in full, before seeing the lyrics is that
- Shady came back, as we saw in the Houdini music video
- Eminem stopped him and thought he killed him
- He didn't, Shady is still alive, Em just doesn't know it
- We see a more sensitive side of Em, because he thought he got rid of Shady, a side he'd be more or all the time if there was no Shady
- I want to know what happens now! Will he continue the lore on the next album? Does Shady make another comeback, since he didn't actually die?

I went with the lyrics submitted on Genius, without reading the interpretations people put there.

Renaissance.

Learned new words - "shindig" is "a social gathering with dancing" / "a usually large or lavish party";
"hoodlum" is "a usually violent criminal" / "a young person who behaves in a rowdy or intimidating way";
"smart aleck" is "an obnoxiously conceited and self-assertive person with pretensions to smartness or cleverness".

It's, like, praising Shady / boasting. "Who slices competition and just goes about his business", "'Bout to show your ass why I'm still a pain in it", etc.
Also, calling out people who listen to music and hate on it. I don't get it either - sure, I didn't like the hook on one of the songs on this album, but there are people who genuinely just complain about EVERYTHING, no song is ever good enough for them, and I just wonder "then why do you listen to it if it sucks that bad??" I hate people who put down others' art like that. Sure, speak your mind, it's a free country, yada yada yada, but do you have to complain about every single song you don't like?? Just click away, move on and listen to something that's better!

The song title, Renaissance, means rebirth. Slim Shady is born again. He was, and then he wasn't, and now he is again.
In the grand scheme of things, the album as a whole, I think this is when Shady comes back from the 2000s into today's era. He's creeping back in, but not fully here yet - the only shady thing he says is dangling a baby out of a window, the rest of the bars are just regular boasting. With some pretty fancy words, though. He's bragging, but he is entitled to it, he really is as good as he says he is.

Habits.

"Ativan" is a brand name of the drug Lorazepam. It's used to treat anxiety, sleep disorders and seizures.

This is where Slim truly comes back.
He and Eminem have a conversation in the beginning, and sort of throughout the entire thing.

Slim is talking about how he gets pleasure from and is addicted to saying mean things to people and seeing them get upset and triggered over it.
- "This my shit, I'm gonna spit it how I wanna spit it / Whoever gets offended, suck a dick and fuck a critic"
- "You got an addiction, man / I know you can't get rid of me forever / 'Cause you know that I'm prescription, man / Next time, I'll be in your vein (Yeah)" - although, this could also be the haters and the critics having an addiction to Shady? because they listen to all of his new songs to see what kind of outrageous things he said this time, and he gets under their skin (=in their vein)?
- "Venomous, still I poison youth, sentences / I'm pennin' are just to toy with you / Which is a joy to do, Slim is just / A lyricist here to voice his true sentiments"
- "Yeah, I probably annoyed a few feminists / I reminisce on them blowing a fuse over my points of views"
- [Talking about "Bruce" = Caitlyn Jenner] --> "My speech is free as his choice to choose gender is (Man) / This shit is like opioid abuse, isn't it? (Yup)"
- "Crybabies attack Shady, wah / Mad 'cause they can't tame me (Get it) / Here come the censors (Look out), like the Avengers / And they assemble like Prince and then turn / A word like "ginger" into the N-word"
etc

But there's Eminem peering through there as well, with lines like
- "There's times when I lay down to sleep I argue with myself / Am I the only one who thinks this way? Do I need help? / Just a little bit, no, a lot of it, I really, really gotta quit / Something's wrong with me, my God, old habits die hard"
- "Only way for me to explain it is I'm conflicted (What?) / Walkin' on eggshells, like if I take it too far, is this it? (Yeah) / Part of me gets it and wants to say I'm sorry and fix it (I'm so—) / So all my statements are basically contradictive (What?)"
- saying "Bruce" Jenner has the freedom to choose "his" gender - the sentiment is there (Eminem), but he's using her deadname and the wrong pronouns (Shady) -- then again, Idk where Eminem stands on trans rights (I think he had some bars about that later in the album), but I'd think he's fine with FtM & MtF at least, since most people are, especially towards post-op trans people.
- Slim saying women get fake boobs to get attention and then get attention from guys they don't like and "me-too 'em", but Eminem has an adlib where he calls those guys creeps.
- "And if men wanna wear lipstick and women's underwear / Who cares? Their shit is their business"

The two sides are fighting - one wants to say whatever he wants and not care if he offends people, the other one wants to be an adult and only say what he means, and apologize if he offends someone.

I also got thinking about the bit that's (according to Genius) by someone called "Mr. Reality":
"Look at you / What's the matter with you people? / You're sad that people are mean? / Well, I'm sorry, the world isn't one big liberal arts college campus / **** you, you're all pricks"
On a surface level, it's about the consumers who get upset over his lyrics.
But it's right after those bars where Eminem talks about laying in bed and thinking if he's doing the right thing or not (see above), and he has bars in this and the previous song about disliking critics and haters... so maybe he's also sad that people are mean? I was going to comment this later, but: I think Slim doesn't realize how ironic he is as a character. He gets triggered over something he sees, writes about it in a song, which triggers other people (and even if it doesn't, he acts like it did), gets triggered by the (perceived) criticism he gets and then cries about it in another song. He's just as bad as the people who get triggered by him. I think Marshall/Eminem is self-conscious enough to realize this, but Slim isn't. 

I find the South Park lines interesting in the sense that
- yeah, sure, they get away with a lot, but in their defense, their characters are, like, 8-year-olds - they're gonna say dumb shit whether it's real life or a cartoon
- I feel like Eminem gets away with saying shit because "it's Slim Shady" and "he's always been like that" - I haven't seen a single person get upset over his lyrics since the 2000s
- but i.e. when a female rapper writes in similar manner about men as Eminem has written about women, men would rather pretend they don't exist than to listen some effing good music and maybe comment on the bars; and then the same men complain about Eminem or some other male rapper they like being "canceled" for their lyrics, while they cancel female rappers like that... but I digress.

Trouble.

"[Eminem:] What are you trying to do?
[Shady:] Get us canceled."

Shady wants to get canceled, to get under people's skin.
If a world existed where no one was upset over anything Shady said, his existence would be quite redundant, wouldn't it? Sure, through him, Eminem could still say whatever he liked, but if it wasn't a contradictory take on the matter at hand, then what would be the point? Eminem and Shady would be the same person, because none of it would be offensive to anyone. He wouldn't need Shady to express his more controversial takes and people wouldn't need Shady to get that this is perhaps a more contradicting take on the issue at hand.

"When you gonna rеalize that we fuckin' need each othеr?"
But we don't live in the hypothetical world I just created, we live in ours. And in our world, some people do get upset over some things. So, Eminem needs Shady to be able to talk about those things.

I love it when Shady just starts mentioning groups of people and saying "fuck those people". 😂 It all becomes redundant, when he doesn't even have a point, he's just mentioning a bunch of people one "shouldn't make fun of", as a desperate attempt to get canceled. Like, "maybe if I mention all these groups of people I sHoUlDn'T mAke FuN oF, one of these groups will get angry at me and cancel me??" Here are the bars I'm talking about, the ones in italics are Marshall and the ones written without are Shady:
"Fuck blind people (What?), and deaf people suck (Stop, yeah) / So do cripples (No), dumb quadriplegic fucks / With Christopher Reeve's luck (Woah, woah-woah-woah-woah) / Shady, Jesus, what the fuck? / Oh, here comes Marshall to try to clean this up (Shut up)"
Christopher Reeve was an actor who struggled with his health throughout his life and died at 52 years old. RIP. 
Superman curse - Wikipedia

Brand New Dance.

Eminem/Shady invented a new dance. It's called the Christopher Reeves and it lands you in the hospital and in a wheelchair.
"It's a brand-new craze and it's sweepin' the nation / Anything else is a cheap imitation / Just make sure that you videotape it / You can only do it once, but the people go apeshit"

The reason that I think it's sort of both of them talking (although, mostly Shady):
- he says "kids, don't do this at home"
- he also calls Caitlyn Jenner by her real name and pronouns
So, those lines at least are Em, but I think the rest is Shady...

Evil. 

Cerebral = to do with the brain, brain-related - I know what a cerebral cortex is, I should have technically known what 'cerebral' meant, but didn't...
A javelin = A spear
Pewter = tin, or the color of tin

Slim and Eminem are merging more and more. It's mostly Slim, but Em comments on him every once in a while and doesn't fight back or disagree as much as he did at the beginning of the album.
- Also, there's this: "Might end up havin' Slim say some shit you feel fucked up for laughin' at, yeah", so Em is also saying some of these things, it's not just Shady
- And this: "All I need is MD, or weed, or Henny, or Jim Beam, or Rémy, or Seagram's Gin / Just to get underneath your skin, I would like you to meet my twin"
- And also this: "Maybe what I need now more than likely's a psych eval'" - Yeah, he's the most evil one, but he knows he is, he knows he needs to see a professional.

Here are some of the bars I liked the most (unrelated to the overall plot of the album, feel free to skip):
- "Had my share of lows, yeah, now I'm the exact (What?) / Opposite, just like a prostitute when she's gettin' smacked (Now) / Pimp slaps, only way I'm hittin' my bottom, bitch (Yeah, take 'em back)" - He used to be low, but now he's 1) on the top, 'cause he's the best, 2) on drugs, he had bars earlier about doing them. The only way he's hitting his bottom (falling from the top) is by slapping a prostitute (he's the top, she's the bottom when they have sex, and he slaps her). + Bottom girl - Wikipedia
- "Even when stakes are high as the price of an angus, I filet" - Angus filet is a type of stake. The stakes are high = there's a big risk involved, but he fills it, he succeeds.
- "It's kinda like I'm a bookworm (Huh?) / 'Cause I ain't stoppin' 'til everything gets red" xD the context was blood, but like... it's gory. I like it. And I'm a librarian, I want to quote that somewhere...
- "Call this sex ed with a splash of necrophilia (What?) / 'Cause when I say that I'm really the evilest, I'm fuckin' deadass (I'm fuckin' deadass, haha)" - He's fucking deadass, he's fucking serious, when he says he's the evilest. And one of the things the evilest person does is "fucking a dead ass", having sex with a corpse = necrophilia.

All You Got - skit.

Slim thinks Eminem would not have the career he has now if it wasn't for him. That Em owes him.
"You can't outgrow me, you can't outthink me / I'm all you got"
Slim also says "I made you", referring to the fact that he sort of made Em's career, which is a valid argument IMO, but technically speaking, Marshall made both Eminem and Slim. It's up to him if he wants to kill one of his personas. The only one who cannot die without the other ones dying is Marshall. In the literal sense.
Figuratively, though... I don't know how attached Eminem fans are to Slim Shady. Sure, many of them became fans of him when Marshall created Slim, but I feel like even if Slim Shady did die, enough of them would still be Eminem fans and not abandon him for Em to be able to continue his career. So it wouldn't be a career suicide, either, for Marshall to actually kill off Slim. IMO.

Lucifer. 

It's in the same lane as Evil, but this time Em doesn't disagree with Slim pretty much at all. There are two sets of bars I want to talk about further:

- "Now my followers are like a Satanic cult (What?) / Yeah, they listen to me like when Manson spoke (Shh) / They say I don't know struggle no more, that's a joke (Haha) / Bitch, the fuckin' elevator in my mansion's broke (See?) / I have to walk like half a block to get a can of Coke (Damn)"
I just wanted to talk about this because it's fucking hilarious. Some artists do get a cult-like following and there are definitely Em fans out there who are way too obsessed with this one person they admire and it goes SO overboard.
The latter part is probably the most 'first world problem' I've ever heard. Me and my best friend kept a top list of the most 'first world problems' we have accidentally complained about and our best one was when we were watching a horror movie and eating sushi, and wanted to turn off the lights so the movie would be more scary, but at the same time keep them on so we could see our meal. Something about the sushi being way too expensive for our college budgets, but us getting it once a week anyway, and wanting to be more scared (when some people's lives are the stuff of horror movies and they'd do anything to not be scared anymore), and some people having to live in poor conditions, without any electricity at all, made that the worst one we've said. 
Also, dude, just keep a mini fridge in every room. Problem solved. That's how my Sims don't die, I just put toilets, showers and fridges all over the mansion.

- "But, Marshall / You're gettin' more perverse every time you record a verse and / It's like you came from 2000, stepped out a portal, cursin' / Hurlin' horrible slurs towards the world and / Why can't you make fun of people behind their backs like a normal person?"
At first Shady was saying all this shady ass shit, then Eminem joined him (in Evil --> this song), and now Marshall is there as well. Because Shady and Em are not real, all these lyrics are written by Marshall Mathers. So if Shady is evil, if Em is evil, then Marshall is the root of all evil = Lucifer / Antichrist. 
(In the Houdini video we see Shady step through a time portal and come back to our world - he's referencing that here, or rather the other way around.)

Antichrist. 

We continue what was said in the previous song, where Marshall is the bad guy. It slowly blended over the songs Evil, Lucifer and Antichrist from Shady to Eminem to Marshall being the one we're talking about.

I think I need to unpack these lyrics further to truly get what it's about, I can't find a coherent theme off the bat...

- Eminem feels like Gen Z is coming after him when he accidentally uses incorrect pronouns for a person:

Gen Z, here they come now (Now)

'Bout to unload rounds (Brrt)

Pronouns (Shit)

Got me like, "Woah now" (Woah)

Homie, let's slow down (Chill)

No need to get so wound (Man)

Ready to throw down (Yo)

If I mispronounce (Thee, them)

Whoops (Sorry), oh wow

Got heterosexuals crammin' 'em down our throats now (He, she, they, them)

Like I'm gettin' snow-plowed

- But he doesn't care that much about getting them right, he doesn't care for being PC ('politically correct', non-offensive). He wants us to return to 2003 when people said a lot more shit than they do now and it was considered normal, not anti-PC or anti-woke or whatever, those terms didn't even exist back then:

My humor's too low-brow (Yup)

Yeah, so there's no doubt (Nope)

You 'bout to get grossed out (Ugh)

But fuck it though, somebody needs to come and hit the reset button

Back to 2003 'cause how did we get stuck in

This woke BS? I'm tryna make it regress, fuck 'em

And I don't regret nothin' that's 'bout to be said, so fuck it, we can keep headbuttin'

Still a grade-A prick, but the same way (What?)

Cobain put the gauge to his brain, I'm goin' out with a bang, ayy (Yeah)

- He says that other people (Gen Z?) think that Em should chill and take his anger out on something else rather than his lyricism:

Dang, Dre

Look what you made me do, maybe you the one they should blame, they

Say they wish that I wasn't so angry (Yeah)

Don't wanna see me goin' off the deep end like Ye, ayy (No, nah)

Rather see me do like Kim Kardashian, they say (Yeah)

Yeah, and find a way to get rid of all of this rage, ayy (Haha)

- He's boasting, saying his sound is versatile - he can rap like Nas, GZA, Biggie Smalls, RZA, Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj, any of those styles he can pull off. Also, Megan and Nicki hate each other now, they wrote diss tracks off each other about 6 months ago, but Em is saying he's such a good rapper that he'll make these two straight women scissor, with just each other or involving something "hard" he has, you know. ;) With also having the double, that he can mix and match, he can cross the rapping styles of these women in his own music:

But if you wonder, "Why is Marsh considered the harshest spitter?" (Why?)

'Cause I can spit a bar like it's a

Cross between Nas and GZA, Biggie Smalls, and RZA

So hard, Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj'll scissor (Cut it out)

You're still the press's wet dream (Yeah)

- He's got 'the balls' to say what he thinks, he doesn't care what people think of him ("they should arrest me for my [testicles] / the biggest in the South, West, North and catch be"). And then I think that the end is just him trying to get canceled again, just by saying certain words back to back that imply something and then people don't like the implication and he gets off of that (like he said in an earlier song). In this song Shady's implying he's been on Jeffrey Epstein's plane, drugging someone:

Too many head shrinks (Oh)

My head thinks foul, I've said things when jesting

They should arrest me for my testes (Ah)

The biggest in the South, West, East, North and catch be (Ah)

Evidence swept clean

With extreme lengths and steps being took to suppress things (Why?)

Try not to get seen

With Ben Affleck, me, and Seth Green hangin' on to the left wing

Of Jeffrey Epstein's jet screamin', "Hey, don't forget me" (Haha)

Shady as Bill, takin' the pill and putting it in your soft drink (Ah)

Something's off and I don't know what the cause be (Yeah)

But it's obvi', this water I'm in is scalding

Ominous thoughts creep in my head and it's not me

They brainwashed me (Marshall, Marshall)

And that's all she wrote, yeah, that's why they call me

Then there's the chorus, where people condemn Marshall as the worst person ever, the antichrist, just because Shady says shady things. He's called "Shady" for a reason, and they're just words. It's a fictional character doing fictional things, and yet people get all riled up about it and condemn the artist behind the art:

Marshall, he's the Antichrist

He will slice and dice

Men, women, and children (One more time, come on)

His name is Marshall, he's the Antichrist

He will slice and dice

Whores, men, women, and children (Yeah)

- The second verse is about the same thing as the first, just using different words, obvs. Spitting nasty words with nasty rapping skills and then people coming after him for it.

Fuel. 

He won't run out of topics to make fun of or groups of people to diss, he's "got the most content on the continent".

Road Rage. 

About the same stuff as the other songs in general - cancel culture, PC culture, and how he doesn't like that, he says what he has to say, and then gets hate for it.

In this song, I'd say he's more Marshall/Eminem than Shady/Eminem, you know, he's less shady. He's reasoning with us, explaining himself like an adult instead of the borderline nihilistic "fuck all of you" attitude that Shady has. 

The individual points don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but here they are anyway, as I see them:
- if the fat acceptance goes too far, we're just promoting unhealthy lifestyle choices
- Eminem prefers cis women as sexual partners, and some people have a problem with this preference. (Personally, as a trans person, I think seeing someone who's a trans woman as "someone who used to be a man" is a bit old-fashioned. I mean, sure, they were biologically a male once, but if they're post-op, then they're not male anymore. And they were always internally a woman, a trans woman has always been a woman, and you're into women as people, not as bodies, right? That being said, Eminem, just like any other person on this planet, 100% has the right to have preferences and to not sleep with someone, for any reason. Just because I don't get why does it matter if someone has a trans history or not, doesn't change the fact that he has the right to say no. - Also, I'm pansexual, I'm into people of all genders, so that might also explain why I don't get it. - Just like I wouldn't want to sleep with Eminem because he's old enough to be my dad and I'm into people my own age. Feeling this way doesn't make me an ageist, it just means I have preferences over who I'm into.)

Houdini. 

He might go away at times, but he always comes back. No amount of haters are gonna make him quit rapping. = Basically the message behind this song's lyrics.

Breaking News - skit. 

"Now to breaking news, and it turns on this week in music Detroit rapper Eminem, in a stunning move, has released an album in which he is actually trying to cancel himself"

Guilty Conscience 2. 

"You wanna judge people? (Yeah) / Matter of fact, ain't you the same one who hated bullies calling you bad names? (Yep) / Then you turned around and did the exact same (So?) / Just immature and literally, you're still mentally thirteen / And still thirsty for some controversy"

Marshall's being the voice of conscience for Shady, but they're the same person, so he's guilty as well.

Then there's a struggle and Em kills Shady.
But can Shady be killed without Em dying as well, since they're the same person?

Head Honcho. 

Broke the rules I set for myself and read an annotation (from Genius), a translation of Ez Mil's Filipino bars. 

Also, can't believe the people writing there missed this bar: "But America, I could see the fear in your eyes / You saw my terrible side, the blonde hair and blue eyes" being a reference to this: Aryan race - Wikipedia
I got that bar, it being about the Aryan race and also to how Slim Shady looked like in the 2000s, with his bleach blond hair, so I just wanted to check if other people caught it, too. And they did not, at least not these people...
He's indirectly saying he's a Nazi - not literally, but like... 1) he looked like the race Nazies wanted people to be, 2) he's "evil" 3) people see him as "a Nazi", meaning the worst possible person they can think of, they're vilifying him.

The song's about the hardships Eminem and Ez Mil have faced in their early childhood, and how that gives them street cred many younger rappers don't have. Some of them pretend they're more gangsta than they are, and in the hiphop scene, that's a no-go. Sure, coming from a rough upbringing and now being a millionaire, the rags to riches story, is traditionally the coolest backstory a rapper can have, but pretending like you have that backstory when you don't is worse than not having that backstory and being open about it.

Temporary. 

This song's so beautiful. <3 Hailie's Song and Mockingbird are some of my personal favorites by Eminem.

Basically, it's a farewell letter Eminem is leaving behind for Hailie now that he's gone. (He's not actually gone obviously, but in the context of this album, he sort of is - Slim is dead and Em might not be able to live exist without him OR he's convinced the PC police / angry mob is going to kill him, or that he's going to get locked up for life after what Shady said in the previous bars.)

Bad One. 

There's a lot to unpack if we really get into it, but in summary, it's about Eminem being "a bad one". He's boasting and calling himself evil, the same overall message as the rest of this album has had.

Tobey. 

As far as I see it, this song is mostly boasting.

Guess Who's Back - skit. 

One of the most relevant tracks on the album.
Shady's not dead after all - dun dun dun!!

Somebody Save Me. x

A bit of a similar vibe to Temporary, lyrically - apologizing to his relatives for not being there for them.
Having two such similar songs on the same album seems a bit redundant, and the placement of Temporary feels a bit off... Although, in Temporary, there's a sample of what sounds to be a home video, where little Hailie is being a monster and not too long ago before that Eminem rapped about being Evil/Luficer/Antichrist... 

In summary

Shady turning up in the end kind of makes the entire album pointless, but...
Shady coming back is still an interesting concept. A concept worth making a concept album about. Similarly to Shady himself, this album is a product of its time. We get to see how self-conscious Marshall is, and how he really thought this through. He went over things Shady would say about our day and age and things Shady+Eminem hybrid would say, but also made them debate over certain topics, showing how he's grown as a person over the years. How he and his opinions have changed.

I also got to wondering about Temporary more than I did initially... It sort of ties the album together, and brings an end to Slim's presence on the album... I mean, Guilty Conscience 2 is actually where he "dies", but Temporary has Hailie calling herself 'a monster' and Em 'the daddy monster', which is what he had been calling himself / other people were calling him on the songs Evil, Lucifer, Antichrist etc (not "daddy monster", but "monster" in general). Him being the "daddy monster", and then when Slim "dies", the monster "dies", and we're just left with "Daddy", and the last song is about his kids (well, other relatives as well, but... anyway... just a thought process I had). He's no longer the monster he was.

And then the entire album is also sprinkled with songs about him boasting, which could be seen as him being confident in himself through all of this. Before, during and after Slim was back. We have Temporary, which is also a callback to the older songs Eminem has done about Hailie. And then even after those songs and Temporary, he's the "Bad One" who boasts on the song "Tobey" and Slim still comes back. But Slim coming back is not the end of the album, it's not the end of this story. At the end of the "day" - or the album - Marshall is first and foremost a person. A human being, who is aware that he has hurt those he should have been caring about. If Slim Shady is dead, he is what we're left with.