Eminem Has Finally Exhausted His Surprise Album Gimmick
The tireless rapper dropped a batch of 16 new songs without warning on Friday under the banner of Music to Be Murdered By – Side B, a “deluxe” edition to his latest studio album that’s more than long enough to qualify as a standalone release. It marks Eminem’s third consecutive surprise album after January’s Music to Be Murdered By and 2018’s Kamikaze. Unfortunately, the third time is not the charm for the 48-year-old rapper: In terms of quality and commercial performance, Eminem has finally exhausted his surprise album gimmick on Music to Be Murdered By – Side B.
Eminem’s latest effort contains all the hallmarks that listeners have come to expect from his late-career output: supersonic bars, self-conscious jabs at his critics, groan-inducing punchlines and politically incorrect insults that should have been left on the elementary school playground. (It only took Eminem 40-plus years to stop using homophobic slurs on his albums; perhaps he’ll stop using the R-word by the time he reaches 60.) Eminem’s post-hiatus catalog since 2009’s Relapse has been the definition of diminishing returns, and Music to Be Murdered By – Side B is no exception.
He continues to rehash old beefs, enlist pop star features in pursuit of a “Love the Way You Lie”-caliber chart smash and construct increasingly elaborate rhyme schemes that are devoid of substance.
Despite being largely savaged by critics, Eminem had no incentive to change his approach. His albums continued to sell like hotcakes, and he and his fans—the original “stans”—created a successful, self-perpetuating cycle that consisted of releasing a chart-topping album, receiving tons of negative reviews for said album, then releasing another chart-topping album on which Eminem unleashed a torrent of disses at the critics who trashed his last chart-topping album. It has proven a historically lucrative business strategy: Music to Be Murdered By debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making Eminem the only artist in history to launch 10 consecutive albums atop the chart.
With Music to Be Murdered By – Side B, it looks like Eminem’s winning streak will finally come to an end. The collection is projected to debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 behind Taylor Swift’s Evermore (which will spend a second week atop the chart) and Paul McCartney’s new McCartney III, according to HITS Daily Double. The album is on track to move 70,000-80,000 equivalent units, with 25,000-30,000 coming from pure sales.
The reasons for Music to Be Murdered By – Side B’s lackluster projected debut are manifold. For starters, the album’s early streaming performance has been, frankly, abysmal. “Gnat” was the highest-debuting track on the global Spotify chart on Friday, reaching No. 56 with a meager 1.7 million streams. It climbed to No. 32 on the U.S. chart with just 681,000 streams.
By comparison, Music to Be Murdered By’s “Godzilla” debuted at No. 2 on the U.S. Spotify chart in January with 2.573 million streams and No. 4 on the global chart with 5.773 million streams. The figures look even worse when compared to other chart-toppers likeSwift, whose “Willow” debuted at No. 1 on the global Spotify chart with 7.268 million streams and the U.S. chart with 3.645 million streams.
