The Roots rose to prominence in the late ’90s by offering an organic alternative to the sample-heavy Puff Daddy hits of the time, but on their ninth studio album, How I Got Over, out today, they’re the ones doing the lazy sampling, reconstituting songs from Monsters of Folk and Joanna Newsom. The source material may be more esoteric than the pop hits Diddy mined, but the results are no less hammy. Oddly, the group even samples friend John Legend, distilling his “Again” into a choppy, crappy loop when they could have just as easily brought him into the studio (they’re recording his next album with him). There may be a great album to be made by pairing The Roots with collaborators from the indie-rock worlda tantalizingly brief, primarily a cappella opener recorded with the sirens from the Dirty Projectors hints at the possibilitiesbut this plodding, corner-cutting record isn’t it.
Also out this week is Recovery, a second comeback effort from Eminem following last year’s desperate Relapse, an album he now denounces. “Hit my bottom so hard I bounced twice,” he raps. “The last two albums didn’t count/ Encore I was on drugs/ Relapse I was flushing ’em out … I got something to prove to fans ’cause I feel like I let ’em down/ so please accept my apology.” He echoes the same sentiment more succinctly several songs later: “Fuck my last CD, that shit’s in the trash.”
All that might read like empty posturing from a man who’s already squandered his second chance, but Eminem sweats blood to redeem himself here, spitting some of his most rhythmically dazzling verses, often in double (and sometimes triple) time. Gone, mostly, are the scatological humor and cartoonish excesses of his past records. Eminem is still profane and volatile, but he’s rarely seemed this candid and sympathetic. In the album’s most poignant moments, he details his wasted years as a drugged recluse, sleeping on his bathroom floor, avoiding his daughter and his own reflection (“yeah, I look fat.”) Recovery is another affirmation of one of rap’s most proven general rules: Rappers are at their best when they have something to prove.
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Some other records hitting the shelves this week include:
* Ozzy Osbourne’s Scream, which disguises the aging hard-rock singers withered voice with every digital manipulation trick imaginable
* Can’t Be Tamed, the new "techno" album from Miley Cyrus, with a cover notable for its creepy, Photoshopped treatment of the singer's abdomen
* Chemical Brothers’ well-reviewed new disc, Further
* Uffie’s delayed and not-so well reviewed Sex Dreams & Denim Jeans
* A comeback record from Macy Gray, The Sellout
* The Five Ghosts, the latest from trenchant indie-rockers Stars
* And Southern Gothic, the debut album from one of Radio Milwaukee 88.9’s favorite bands, The Constellations
