Eminem (aka Marshall Mathers) is America's teenage id made hysterical from too much junk food, too much TV, too many drugs and too little parental supervision. He is also a record company's dream. A white boy whose dysfunctional biography makes him "real" enough to market to the suburban white kids who are now hip-hop's biggest consumers.
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He is also exceptionally talented. "The Marshall Mathers LP" was pop music as exorcism or psychotherapy. The first big hit off the album, "Slim Shady," had an insinuating hook and clever, ironic rhymes that made it not just a chart hit, but a snapshot of the pleasures of dead-end youth and a pop classic.
And therein lies the problem. Though Eminem is a pop phenomenon, his continued success depends to a large extent on rejecting the vestiges of pop stardom in favor of the street. "Devil's Night," the new album from Eminem and his Detroit posse, D12, seems, if anything, an attempt to strengthen Eminem's brand image.
The title refers to the night before Halloween, traditionally an evening when arsonists set Detroit's many abandoned buildings alight. The weakest parts of the album exploit this sort of dark imagery of guns, whores and urban decay -- rap's most enduring cliches -- in some ill-advised attempt at authenticity. The best tracks recapitulate the formula of "Slim Shady," like "Blow My Buzz," a sarcastic paean to drug use that begins with mom on the couch from too many prescription drugs and ends comparing the recent behavior of Jessie Jackson with the date-rape drug. Cleaned up with some redubs, it will easily slot into Top 40 rotations. It is also, alas, pop music.