This Week On Billboard: Eminem f. Rihanna - Love The Way You Lie

This Week On Billboard is where I unabashedly critique the current no. 1 hit on Billboard.com, the major yardstick for what's "hot" in music today. In order to simplify the review for those who don't want to read the whole article, each song is given a "!" rating, in which the finest grabs five of them. It's been gone for a while, now it's back after a 22-month hiatus.

A review of this week's number one single right after Eminem promises you next time he'll show restraint






Early in the zeroes, Eminem’s star was shining so bright that if he just kept his hot streak going for at least a few more years, they would’ve carved his face on the side of hip-hop’s Mt. Rushmore along with Biggie, Pac, Jay-Z, Nas, and Rakim. Because of his severe fall from grace though, it just seems valid to affix him to that era, forever preserved like something from a time capsule. Coming back now would be the equivalent of Jordan in a Wizards uniform. However, I don’t blame him for attempting a comeback with the single “Love The Way You Lie”, and I even commend him for reaching Billboard’s peaks again due to the fact that he was so commercially and critically popular back then that everything he would release now will always be subverted by nostalgia. I just wished that this post-rehab persona he created for himself had some semblance of personality, wit, or skill.

Let’s start with the much-ballyhooed video, which wasn’t terrible for the sole reason that Megan Fox blazes on it. But should that really be enough? She was hot in Jennifer’s Body too, but she can do soft-core porn on it and that won’t be enough for me to watch that abomination again (Okay, fine, maybe I’ll fast forward to the good parts). To be fair, the video is a very honest portrayal of some relationships I’ve seen, even though Fox and Charlie from Lost overacted their roles like they’re in a Jim Carrey movie from the nineties.

It’s a sad state that the most controversial choice on an Eminem song is the selection of Rihanna to sing hooks on a song about domestic violence. If you’ve been living under a rock the last couple of years, Rihanna publicly dealt with an abusive relationship and her saying “that’s alright because I like the way it hurts” on a track may cause some uneasiness to some people. Choosing her is a very strategic move for Eminem, seeing that she would know a thing or two about rising from the ashes. But there’s something disenchanting about having pop stars of her caliber sing choruses for Eminem today because during his best times, these types of artists would be objects of ridicule in one of his Billboard-charting singles. Nevertheless, Rihanna is malevolently anthemic here, and I wish she could’ve had a verse or a bridge or something given that she’s easily the only positive attribute in this song.

Maybe if Rihanna did get an additional verse, it would mean less time on the track for Slim Shady. Coming from a rapper that usually had impeccable control of his phrasing and had a magnificent understanding of how each syllable should be organized, it hurts to hear him lacking technique, finesse, restraint, and genuine aggression. Listening to him clumsily overcrowd the couplets with internal rhymes to the point where it sounds like a spastic mess, it makes me long for better days when he was sparring back and forth with good conscience Dr. Dre, rapping about Charleston Chews, and responding to a disillusioned fan’s letter. I’ll even take him reenacting the “murder” of his ex-wife over that painful “guess that's why they call it window pane” line.

Having said that, I guess it’s a smart decision to have Eminem abuse you with uninspired rhymes and awkward verses for a few minutes—like aural slaps in the face—and then have Rihanna pacify everything with a sweet chorus, only to have Eminem continue with more graceless rapping. It’s a perfect commentary on the unhealthy cycle that domestic relationships endure. Sadly, I don’t think it was done on purpose.

(t5!) score: !!