But this is also a standard line-of-attack for Eminem haters - taking black music and making it safe and marketable for a white market. Let’s drop back a bit - ‘Eminem compares himself to Elvis’. So then - lazy rhymes, excellent rhythms? More grist to the mills of people who’d really like pop if it wasn’t for all those pesky pop stars getting in the way? Well, not quite. But Eminem’s correct - techno didn’t have what it takes to be the sort of scavenging aggressor genre hip-hop is in America, and this track is proof-by-example. Meanwhile there’s the deliciously rigid robodisco beat - the Kraftwerk influence on hip-hop is terra entirely cognita, but Dre (or Em or whoever turned the knobs) becomes surely the first producer to be influenced by Kylie! Yes, there’s an obvious irony in the song’s best joke – ‘It’s over, nobody listened to techno’ – oh sure except the millions listening to this right now. (Of course, Elvis without the films, an Elvis redeemed for rock, isn’t ELVIS, he’s just another rock star). Eminem compares himself to Elvis, but this is surely the film-star Elvis - knockabout fun with the odd verbal hipsway to remind us who we’re listening to. The c-word is best left to the tabloids and press packs it always sounds mealy-mouthed coming from singers, though after his last album you can’t fault Eminem for truthfulness.īut ‘Without Me’ doesn’t sound controversial - ‘controversy’ for Eminem here works like ‘rock’ does for the Hives or ‘floral’ does on a perfume bottle, a handy label preserving a faint memory of meaning. Granted, he’s not doing himself any favours with this ‘controversy’ nonsense.