Eminem Blames Drugs for Relapse Missteps

2009’s Relapse was another multi-platinum success for Eminem, but in retrospect the Detroit lyricist sees the album as an uneven project hampered by his drug addiction.

Eminem, who has enjoyed higher commercial numbers and critical praise with this year’s Recovery, revealed that his increased dependency on sleeping pills and other codeine-based products began to seriously affect his work during the Encore and Relapse sessions.

“There’s reflection of the drugs in the music. I can listen to songs now and hear how high I was,” Eminem told the NY Post. “I can also hear the songs where I wasn’t high at all. But as the pills progressed and progressed, right around the Encore album, I think the drug use was obvious. They stifled me — they stopped my brain off. I don’t know if I was frying brain cells or what, but I couldn’t think. The drugs also made me lazy.”

On Relapse, Eminem believes the works lacks a “personal honesty” due to the abundance of over the top characters, voice accents, and the serial killer motif. Instead of opening up to fans about his struggles with addiction and the loss of his close friend Proof, Eminem used the Relapse personas to shield himself.

“I wasn’t disappointed when I put it out. When I felt that was later, when I was reassessing my work — trying to figure out why my songs didn’t sound like they used to sound,” he disclosed. “The further I got away from Relapse, I was able to hear the problems with all the accents I was using to slip in and out of characters, and how the serial killing didn’t work. The joke was over — I ran it into the ground.”

Eminem stops short of labeling Relapse a bad album. On its own merits, he views it as a solid work. But compared to Recovery, he sees a vastly inferior product.

“It was good because it was a necessary step for me to take or I wouldn’t have been able to make [Recovery], so I am grateful in that sense,” Eminem reflected. “Hey, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Relapse was a terrible album. I just think the new material is so much better.”

Eminem is currently touring the United States with Jay-Z, playing two nights this past Monday and Tuesday at Yankees Stadium.

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Accents aside, I think Relapse and Recovery are on the same level but for different reasons. The latter has way sharper lyrical standout moments like “Seduction, “No Love,” and “Cold Wind Blows,” but some of Recovery’s production and choruses were too commercially slick for my taste (“You’re Never Over”). I enjoyed Relapse’s grittier, more ominous atmosphere.

But the fans have clearly made their preference known. Recovery is still #3 on Billboard’s Top 200 and is pushing over 2.5 million copies sold. On the other hand, Relapse topped out around 2 million. Whether that’s good or bad depends on your own preference.

So what say you? Did you want more “3 AM” type Eminem tracks, or more collaborations like “Love the Way You Lie?”