Eminem ‘The Death of Slim Shady’ reviews: Critics praise his ‘technical abilities,’ lament his ‘infantile wordplay’

More than four years after his previous album, “Music to Be Murdered By,” Eminem released a follow-up on July 12, 2024. “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)” is his 12th studio album overall, but has the now 51-year-old rapper gotten better with age? A number of critics have weighed in on his latest collection.

The verdict … isn’t great. As of this writing the album has a MetaCritic score of 49 based on 13 reviews counted thus far. Of those, only three are classified as positive. Nine are somewhat mixed. The last is negative. That’s a far cry from the 64 score received by “Music to Be Murdered By,” though that album also had a majority of mixed reviews. Before that, 2018’s “Kamikaze” scored 62. In fact, if his “Death of Slim Shady” score holds where it is, it will represent his lowest on record.

On the positive side, Neil McCormick (Telegraph UK) praises the hip-hop veteran’s “astonishing lyricism.” Simon K. (Sputnik Music) calls it “a great concept album” and “the best record Eminem has done since ‘The Marshall Mathers LP2.'” And Sy Shackleford (Rap Reviews) says, “It’s evident that his pen game remains sharp, but the aforementioned polarization causes Eminem to also remain as an acquired taste even now: You either like him or you don’t.”

Among the more ambivalent reviewers, Alexis Petridis (The Guardian) claims the album “feels so desperate that it ends up committing the cardinal sin of being boring and repetitious,” even though “Eminem’s technical abilities are as striking as ever.” Steven J. Horowitz (Variety) thinks it’s “everything you’d expect from Eminem, ever the provocateur,” but that commitment to shocking the listener “makes the album exactly what it shouldn’t be at this point in such a storied career: predictable.” And Rob Sheffield  (Rolling Stone) argues, “He remembers how great he was at this when he was young, and he hopes to remind you, by repeating old tricks he’s not necessarily so great at in 2024.”

As for the negative review, that’s from Karan Singh (Hip Hop DX), who dismisses the effort as “a disjointed and incoherent clump of non-sequiturs, loosely held together by infantile wordplay, forced goading and desperate attempts at one final hurrah in celebration of a past that seems suspiciously indistinguishable from the present.” So while the reviews run the gamut, the consensus seems to be that Eminem is a gifted artist in need of fresher material. Perhaps doing away with his Slim Shady alter ego is the right move after all.

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