Riffiter on The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de grâce)

Twenty tracks and 69 minutes is a lot of room for a funeral. Eminem frames The Death of Slim Shady as the end of his loudest character, and the best stretches do sound like a man enjoying the demolition: the jokes land fast and the rhyme schemes still crowd every bar. The trouble is the length. The same tricks come back on song after song, and the shock lines lose their charge before the record is half over. Cut it to twelve and the score goes up. As it stands it is a sharp album buried under its own running time. Verdict: 3 stars. Keep the first third.