Eminem - Relapse: Refill (2009)
A little bonus EP to help satisfy Eminem fans who were waiting for the new album, and that's chill. This EP is legendary for one reason: It has "Forever (feat. Drake, Kanye West & Lil Wayne)" on it, and do you know how fucking cool it is to get some great rappers and Drake on a song together?! It's legendary for that and how fuckin' disappointing it is for everyone involved. Drake's verse is too meme-y, Kanye's verse is too halfassed and depressing, Lil Wayne's verse is okay but it doesn't sound like a beat he'd normally go over, and of course Eminem goes last, with the fastest, most technical and jaw-dropping verse, but it's obvious that the song is built around waiting for Eminem's verse and the rest of the song is kinda doodoo! It sounds like it'd be on the soundtrack to some shitty NBA Xbox 360 game your roommate had. The beat generally is kinda shitty and just.. Ugh. I don't know, man. It's really cool on paper, but then you hear it enough times and you just say "Ah, it's -that- song", skip ahead to Eminem's verse and then turn it off, but fuck it, dawg. It's whatever.
"Hell Breaks Loose (feat. Dr. Dre)" is a catchy tune but definitely not what you'd typically expect of a collaboration between the two, and is kinda easily thrown away, which I really shouldn't be able to say about a collaboration between the two (yes, I know about "I Need a Doctor", don't remind me) but fuckin' hell, man. "Buffalo Bill" is a good'n and has one of Eminem's most annoying vocal inflections (and this is coming from a dude who fucking loved "Relapse") that makes me wonder how I ever wrote a fucking AWFUL verse to this flow back in 2012. I mean, it was BAD but whatever, you should've heard some of the verses I recorded back in 2010/2011 when I was a huge Odd Future fan, those were fucking horrible. "Elevator" has got a catchy and dare I say it, fuckin' HAPPY hook to it with a catchy saxophone and piano beat behind the entire song, despite the song actually being lyrically pretty angry, but still, definitely one of his best self-delivered hooks since 2009, which is great because he's had some fucking garbage ones, trust me.
All of the tracks are generally good, but they're not great by any means, aside from the beat to "Drop the Bomb on 'Em", so there's never really a moment of "DAMN, HOW COULD HE HAVE LEFT THIS OFF OF THE ALBUM?!" and they lack any sense of cohesiveness, but that's to be expected since it's essentially a compilation EP of throwaway tracks that weren't good enough to be on the actual album. I mean, seriously, anyone who tries to tell you that "Taking My Ball" should've been on the album is on more drugs than Eminem ever fucking was. This EP is not likely to become one of your favorites, but at the same time, you can't really go wrong with it. Besides, isn't it great to have as much material pre-"Recovery" as possible?! Haha, oh God, this isn't gonna be good..
7/10
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