MOSH IT

When I'm not busy scouring my soul with a steel-wool pad, I'm usually writing about disposable pop culture.

Everyone's talking about this new "Mosh" video by Eminem. At least three blogs that I am linked to have posted something in reference to the video. I hadn't seen the video until I visited Hip Hop Music.com, but I had heard the song on the local rap radio station as a World Premiere sometime last week.

It's a good song. It's a good video. I guess everyone is amazed that Slim Shady can rhyme about things other than teen pop stars, celebrities he dislikes, and his ex-wife/baby's mama Kim.

But what I want to know is: What about "Lose It"?

That's right, I'm talking about the first single, off of the new album entitled Encore-- and let's thank God that Marshall Mathers III finally broke from that getting-to-be-annoying pattern of titling his albums in some way after himself or one of his wacky personas.

Everyone hated the single, because it's "dumb", "lame" or worse-- "wack". And so did I, upon first listen. But as time has gone by, and after having seen the video for that song as well as for "Mosh", I gotta say-- the "Lose It" single is better.

First off, let me get the obvious points out of the way: Yes, "Lose It" is a retread of every lead-off single Eminem has put out since "My Name Is...", including "Without Me", "Ain't Nuthin' But Music", and "The Real Slim Shady". I'm fine with that... and apparently, so is Eminem, who has gone on record in interviews noticing that strange phenomenon where the song that annoys him the most on the new album is always the song that the record label wants to put out as the single... and it always winds up being a million-plus seller.

This is nothing new. Anyone in a moderately successful band will tell you that the A & R people always have the worst tastes in music, and yet they also seem to know which songs will have the broadest appeal. In short, Murphy's Musical Law states that the stupidest song by any given perfomer is also their catchiest, which is great for marketing but terrible for art.

However, the success of inane singles like "Lose It" enables a capable artist like Eminem to create some truly outstanding material for the rest of the album, such as "Stan" off of The Marshall Mathers LP, or "Cleaning Out My Closet" on The Eminem Show. A song like "Mosh" is a much better rap song, and is more listenable than most of his lead-off singles, and even has some of the urgency that made "Lose Yourself" from the 8 Mile soundtrack such a crossover hit.

But "Lose It" is a funny motherfucking song.

In case y'all didn't get the joke, it's a parody of dance songs. The beat is tripped-out enough to rap over but silly enough to be tongue-in-cheek. The hook is fucking hysterical-- that line about "come on boy, shake that ass/ooops, I mean girl/girl girl girl..." is too funny for words.

If Weird Al Yankovic put this track out, it would be considered the best work he's done in years... and, perhaps, the only work he's done in years.

Eminem has done stylistic parodies before: On the Slim Shady LP, he opened one track with the words "This is my dance song", as an up-tempo beat skedaddled underneath his voice. Then, his first line was "My favorite color's red/like the bloodshed/from Kurt Cobain's head/when he shot himself dead..."

Yeah, some dance song.

On Marshall Mathers, he started a track with a similar invocation ("This is my love ballad") before launching into an ode to doing drugs. By playing with the notion of what a love ballad should be, Eminem used humor to drive his pro-narcotic point home in a way that wouldn't send the likes of Jerry Falwell into too much of a tizzy.

Ironically, it was the gay community that found the least amount of humor in Eminem's rhymes, and rightfully so: When he raps about gays, he can be downright vicious. His humorless side-- the side that gets exploited to full effect on "Mosh", by the way --tends to detract from the fact that, when he chooses to be, Eminem can be hilarious.

He even noted it in one song off of 8 Mile, where he spat one of the all-time best hip-hop quotable paragraphs:

There’s a certain mystique, when I speak
That you notice that’s sorta unique, cause you know its me
My poetries deep and I’m stillmatic, the way I flow to this beat
You can’t sit still, its like trying to smoke crack and go to sleep
I’m strapped, just know in any minute I could snap
I’m the equivalent of what would happen if Bush rapped
I bully these rappers so bad, lyrically
It aint even funny, I aint even hungry, it aint even money
You can’t pay me enough, for you to play me, its cock-a-many
You just aint zanney enough, to rock with shady
My noodle is cock-a-doodle, my clock’s coo-coo
I got screws loose, yeah the whole kitten kaboodle
I’m just brutal, its no rumor, I’m numero uno
Assume it, there’s no humor in it...


There's two main voices that Eminem raps with: His hardcore rapping voice, and his Slim Shady I-Just-Don't-Give-A-Fuck voice. When he's going off like in the lyrics above, or when he's dissing on Bush (like he did on The Eminem Show's "Square Dance", a track far superior to "Mosh" in many ways) or when he's beefing with Ja Rule via countless underground bootleg and mixtape recordings, Eminem is The Best Rapper Alive... and he's also insanely repetitive. And, like he said, "there's no humor in it"-- or, if there is, it's very sporadic.

I prefer his Slim Shady persona: He lets it loose in the singles, or with D-12 (remember that song "My Band", a song that can make "Lose It" seem like a subtle masterpiece?) or when he's trying to go to the craziest extreme to make a point. That's why I like that line about being the equivalent of Bush rapping-- talk about braggadoccio! You can't get any more hardcore than a line like that, which is NOT meant to be an endorsement of Bush in any way. If anything, it's a bigger indictment of just how corrupt Bush is than any of the lines in "Mosh".

Plus, when Eminem tries to be the hardcore rapper, he overdoes it a bit. This is probably due to being a white rapper who never got any respect until Dr. Dre signed him and made a ridiculous amount of money. I noted earlier that his homophobia is easier to take when he's doing the Slim Shady schtick. One great example of Eminem's anti-gay remarks getting too serious is "Marshall Mathers" off of the album of the same name. The way he utters the word "faggot" is too chilling and ugly to be laughed at; Eminem is seething on that track, taking pothshots at his enemies without the clever wink that the Slim Shady persona affords him. I mean, the hook of that song is "I'm just Marshall Mathers/I'm just a regular guy/I don't care what you think about me"-- he is speaking as his true self, and even if it is compelling, it's not always entertaining.

But, when he's rapping lines like "I'm sicker than Boy George/picturing Michael Jackson in little boy's drawers/shopping in toy stores," like he did on The Madd Rapper's LP a few years back... well, that's fucking funny as all fuck, as well as linguistically genius. And it makes his point in a clever manner, albeit a totally depraved-yet-clever manner.

Speaking of Michael Jackson, the King of Pop has publicly stated that he is pissed off at Eminem for the lyrics and video to "Lose It". Meanwhile, I doubt George W. Bush will EVER hear "Mosh" and make a comment, nor will he ever see the video. Of course, it's more important that Eminem's fan base hears "Mosh" and is influenced by their idol to go vote in less than a week, but how many of Eminem's current fans are even of voting age?

That's okay, though-- those same fans who have to wait until next election to vote can go to a house party in the meantime, and dance their ass off to a song like "Lose It", which doesn't take itself too seriously and will probably send the rest of the album to Number One in its first week.