Face It, Eminem Is About the Bottom Line

Yes, Eminem should perform at the Grammys (“Will the Real Slim Shady Show Up at Grammys?” by Geoff Boucher, Jan. 23). His presentation should include every pungent, carefully chosen word his works employ, served up without censorship or editing. Then when he’s done, executives from his record label and the top U.S. CD retailers should stand and take a bow, acknowledging their pride in his work and the profits it has brought them.

In this way, this year’s Grammys might be a little bit about honesty.

Robert Hilburn’s “analysis” of Eminem’s Grammy nominations (“A Milestone for Eminem--and Recording Academy,” Jan. 4) might have made this simple suggestion. Instead, Hilburn’s piece was careful and managed to fill three-quarters of a page, but it was meaningless. It did, however, illustrate the dilemma for anyone wrestling with criticism of present-day pop music products--products being what pop songs are.

Too much of current pop feels manufactured for the sole purpose of succeeding as consumer goods, due to the fact that most of it is, in fact, manufactured by producers who then construct “artists” to front it. And this is the stuff that currently makes up the lion’s share of record sales. So what’s a critic to do, condemn everything?

Whether things were ever that different might make an interesting panel discussion, but my point here would be that Eminem doesn’t say those things he says in his products because he has any particular thoughts or feelings about those subjects one way or another. He says them because people older than he who are in the “record industry,” people who at one time had a conscience, know it will bilk money from teenagers. His hit CD could just as easily be titled “Attention Kmart Chumps” as to be called “The Marshall Mathers LP.”

I honestly don’t believe we should bother invoking questions of free speech or censorship in a free society in regard to Eminem’s product. It is in the tradition and nature of American pop culture that these things happen. And there’s no place to go down that road, even though talk shows will happily make the drive as a way to pretend they are “addressing the issue.”

What should be addressed is the situation of those who know a scam when they see one remaining silent or even endorsing the “grift.” Pop music writers are allowed endless column inches to scorch manufactured pop music commodities such as ‘N Sync or Britney Spears. Yet those same voices fall silent or, like Hilburn, waffle to the point of meaninglessness in regard to Eminem’s obviously calculated and successful efforts to manipulate young consumers. Manipulate them, and now the Grammy Awards.

The secondary headline on Hilburn’s Jan. 4 piece referred to Eminem’s four Grammy nominations as a “victory for the awards process.” I believe Hilburn means: from the standpoint that the nominations didn’t go to Johnny Mathis. But once you’re past the longtime lameness and impotence of the Grammys, where is the victory?

Does anybody really believe that these nominations would have been made had Eminem’s “Mathers” product not sold as many “units” as it did? And how do we all feel about the appropriation of rap music by white artists? Is the current consensus that it should be prominently and richly rewarded?

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Hilburn endorses Eminem’s product, then just about breaks his arm reaching for a rationalization that makes it all right. He says the album “is a striking glimpse of the dark, troubling influences and attitudes that young people wrestle with these days in forming their values.” In the same way, I guess, that publications from the Ku Klux Klan would be a striking glimpse of the troubling influences that middle-aged, unemployed alcoholics wrestle with in forming their values. Oh, if only Hilburn would struggle a bit more with his values.

In the same paragraph, Hilburn goes on to say that the album “stresses the consequences of violent or self-destructive actions.” One consequence being that if you reference violence and self-destruction, you literally become rich and famous. And people who know better will help you.

Alas, Eminem’s garbage bazooka is aimed at gays and women. For some reason, there is always the fog of an “issue” when those groups are involved instead of the clarity we seem to have when the subject matter is race or anti-Semitism. If Eminem actually had all the macho bravado he provides to the car speakers of teenage males, he might have recorded a song that contained “references” (Hilburn’s word) to African Americans or Jews or record execs of both races. Would that have been a victory for the Grammy Awards “process,” Mr. Hilburn?

Eminem will, to some extent, be contained. He won’t do much racial commentary, because his highly creative output requires that he continue ripping off other cultures. And record companies concerned about pop songs that describe the murder of women might simply advance more women to key positions and let them decide. That’s a win-win situation for all sides.

Pop music writers, and the Grammys, should continue to acknowledge the major events in the world they cover. But when those events are ugly, empty, commercial enterprises that reinforce a kind of stupidity that holds our country back, could all you smart writers please not endorse them?