“Don’t call it a comeback/I’ve been here for years.”
The lyric is from LL Cool J’s 1990 hit “Mama Said Knock You Out,” but you could just as easily apply it to Eminem today.
At least the Detroit rapper is hoping so with the massive push he’s putting behind the May 19 release of his first new album in almost five years. The notoriously angry and addled singer, who almost a million Vibe magazine readers voted “Best Rapper Alive” in the fall of 2008, is hoping that "Relapse" will put him back on top.
In a year that has seen the music industry continue its freefall decline, with CD sales down 19 percent in 2008, the promise of digital sales and iTunes yet to fill the void -- and illegal downloading and file sharing a mere click away -- anyone attempting a comeback in 2009 might want to ask themselves if it is worth it now they’ve made their millions?
It is to the man born Marshall Mathers III.
That heavily weighed desire is why you can’t crack a bottle this week, to use the title of the unofficial first single off "Relapse," without getting a swig of the Grammy- and Oscar-winning Eminem.
After five years of canceled tours, failed marriages, death, drug addiction as well as rumors of the reclusive rapper packing on the pounds amidst junk food binges and quitting the biz, the comeback push actually started last October with the release of the warts-and-all memoir "The Way I Am." In select interviews afterwards, almost always on his Shade 45 satellite radio station, Eminem teased fans and the industry that a new album was in the works.
In early 2009, a bootleg of “Crack a Bottle,” featuring Dr. Dre, who produced almost every track on "Relapse," and prodigy 50 Cent, started circulating online. The song was officially released on Feb. 2, breaking iTunes' then weekly download record with sales of 418,000.
Now all of a sudden, the machine kicked into high gear, with Eminem now talking about putting out two new albums this year. That, along with his passionately poetic induction of Run DMC into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame on April 5, fanned the already growing comeback flames. Next, the singer intentionally lit a blaze of old school controversy -- the video for "Relapse’s" second single “We Made You,” which came out on April 7, was pussing with demeaning depictions of Sarah Palin, Brett Michaels, Lindsay Lohan and other celebs.
Predictably, the song garnered headline-making condemnation from the likes of Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, which only helped move the rapper back onto center stage.
Having hit those bases, Eminem then brought back his psychopathic alter ego Slim Shady for the next pill and pillaging single “3AM,” which came out on April 28. Then “Old Time’s Sake,” another single produced by and featuring Dr. Dre, came out digitally on May 5.
If that wasn’t pumping enough fuel into the marketing motor, the rapper released “Beautiful,” a successful fourth "Relapse" single digitally on May 12.
