For 25 years now Slim Shady has been trying to offend us, and Eminem‘s loudest alter ego has kept partying like it’s 1999 even while his audience waited for the man Marshall Mathers to grow up. The title of Em’s new album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), offered hope that he might finally bury Slim Shady and move on.
That’s not quite what happens — though Eminem half-heartedly tries — and along the way Death of Slim Shady turns into a boring slog of weak puns, dated references, and desperate attempts to get ‘canceled’ by somebody, anybody, please.
Here are seven observations on Eminem’s The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).
01. Chicken Coup
The concept of The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) is told in a series of sketches in which Eminem plays two characters, Marshall Mathers and Slim Shady, both unlikable to varying degrees. Early on, Slim kidnaps Marshall, and over the first two-thirds of the album, this Shady character tries to stir up the same old controversies that Eminem has been baiting since his debut, with plenty of crude jokes about women, the disabled, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Throughout, Eminem keeps up a meta commentary on how Slim’s controversies made Marshall rich. “I gave you everything,” he has Slim Shady say on “All You Got (skit).” And “Guilty Conscience 2” dramatizes a battle between the two, ending with Mathers shooting Shady point blank — the Coup de Grâce of the title.
But by this time, the character of Slim Shady has already dominated the album. He’s trying to have his cake and eat it, too; to kill off his worst character only after Slim Shady could make him a profit. It might work, too, but it’s artistic cowardice.