Eminem - The Death of Slim Shady (2024)

I assume there has probably already been more than enough said about this album, all of which I've avoided - which has been easy given that I don't even like the internet that much. To get to the point, here's yet another Eminem album, something like his millionth despite having slowed his pace in recent years, at least in terms of how much of his music is out there. You already know what it sounds like because it sounds like an Eminem album, and I'm sure you already know whether or not you really want to hear it.

It does a lot of the same stuff that the previous records did, bending over backwards to offend more or less everyone, and arguably ramping up the aggressive insensitivity to an unprecedented level; which is probably necessary given how easy it is to cause offence now, requiring our guy to go the extra distance. The running joke here is that he's trying to get himself cancelled, but as ever there's a point as serious as a corpse underlying the slapstick. The point is stop behaving like fucking idiots, you fucking idiots, but feel free to roll your eyes from whatever you have apparently mistaken for the moral high ground.

So it's the same Eminem album yet again, but somehow moreso, and the differences soon become obvious. On the surface of it, he's sharpened his own beats to a fine point, and they've honestly never sounded better - meaning I'm probably going to have to go back to previous albums and give those Addams Family rhythms another crack of the whip. He's doing the same thing here, except it's bigger, more filmic, sounding less like something which hadn't yet decided whether or not it was going to work; and lyrically, I don't have the hyperbole for how far ahead of himself he's travelled, with internal rhyme schemes and multiple puns so complex, so rapid fire effortless that it takes a few listens even just to unpick them. It feels like the album he's been trying to make all these years, and there's no longer much point denying that he's genuinely one of the greats.

Pixies - The Night the Zombies Came (2024)

Anyone who has been listening will have noticed a certain mellowing in the last few Pixies albums. It probably shouldn't come as a huge surprise. They're not so young as they were and everyone changes over time and, lest we've forgotten, bands and musical artists have every right to record the music they want to hear and which they enjoy playing. This will perhaps sound like a preamble to a series of excuses, which it isn't. The Night the Zombies Came isn't so startling as, off the top of my head, Doolittle or Trompe le Monde, although it's startling that they've recorded something this good nearly three decades later. While I noticed the conspicuous absence of that scream or the overt use of characteristically upsetting imagery - although it's still there if you listen - I also noticed that I've been playing the thing all week without caring too much about whatever else I might listen to instead. The Pixies still sound big, still combining the mellow twang with pounding drums or a wall of guitar, and the wrench of pathos is as strong as it's ever been; and yet it's almost easy listening with a mood parallel to the more wistful corners of country music, without resembling either. You may recall that Roxy Music mellowed more dramatically over the passage of much less time, and yet still packed a punch, albeit one in a more expensive glove. If The Night the Zombies Came is older, slower, and fatter, it still sparkles and does that which you'd hope it would do, particularly the oddly chilling Johnny Good Man - probably the standout track for me; and - frankly - if you can't appreciate this one, maybe rock music just isn't for you, buttercup. If anyone tells you different, punch them in the face*.

*: This is intended as a humourous remark made for the sake of emphasis and should under no circumstances be acted upon, okay?

M - New York, London, Paris, Munich (1979)

As with many of my generation, I was completely hypnotised by Pop Muzik, albeit not enough as to have me rushing out to buy the album. I made a mental note to do so once I heard Moonlight and Muzak, the follow up single which seemed to suggest the possibility of quality. Finally getting around to ticking that box more than forty years later, I'm surprised to find that the record is weirder than I expected and doesn't exactly contain songs in the traditional sense. More surprising, at least to me, is that on the strength of this, M seemed to foreshadow both Heaven 17 and Yello, sort of. On the one hand we have what is essentially disco draped with the trappings of Motown-inspired hit factories, boogie with a suitcase, casinos and international playboys; and regardless of ostentatiously fancy song structure, Robin Scott vocalises, performs, and narrates rather than sings and is something like the disco equivalent of a hype man, which is where the Dieter Meier comparison comes in.

This adds up to something which combines the influence of pop art with a touch of Bryan Ferry, Bond movies, and Giorgio Moroder, resulting in what are mostly pieces of music with vocals rather than songs; and very expensive sounding pieces of music built with a  perfectionist drive for whatever was deemed state of the art at the time. We're building songs on melodies which border on pub rock but using sequencers and Brigit Novik's surreally flawless vocal harmonies, arriving at something so removed from the organics of its origin that it hints at a sort of Ballardian sterility; or, if you prefer, it's so squeaky clean that it's weird. Because even the occasional synthesiser pulse has been custom fit by the finest tailors, New York, London, Paris, Munich has somehow avoided dating, or at least hasn't dated as the usual retrofuturism. It's a novelty record, and entirely self-aware, which is its strength.