The Marshall Mathers LP 2 Review

Calling it a sequel was a dare and he half wins it. Bad Guy opens with a seven minute answer song to Stan that has no business working and does, and Headlights is the apology to his mother that Cleanin Out My Closet made necessary, sung plainly enough to land. The Rubin production gives him room he had not had in years, big dry drums and rock loops that leave the vocal exposed instead of buried in synth.

Rap God is a stunt and an impressive one, though it is the clearest sign of the habit that eats his later records, speed as a substitute for a reason. Berzerk and So Far are fun and slight. What sinks it back toward the middle is the runtime, an hour and eighteen minutes with at least four songs that exist because the album was going to be long anyway. Trim twenty minutes and this is his best late work by a distance.