Eminem Revival - Vinyl

"Am I lucky to be around this long?" Eminem wonders this on "Walk on Water," the first track on his 2017 album, Revival, which arrives when the 20th anniversary of his 1999 debut, The Slim Shady LP, is just 14 months away. Aging is never easy for a star but it may be harder for Marshall Mathers, since his earliest records were equal parts rage and pranks -- emotions that tend to mellow as the years stack up. Underneath all that attention-grabbing bluster lay Eminem's boundless technical proficiency, which was the real reason he scored a monumental breakthrough in 1999 and sustained a career. Put it simply, he didn't sound like anybody else when he started, and now that he's conceivably halfway through his journey he doesn't sound like anybody else either, a quality that can make Revival compelling, albeit only intermittently. Provocative and muddled, Revival percolates with ambition but doesn't lack in laziness either: not only can Eminem not resist recycling the templates for "Stan" a