Eminem - Recovery

Eminem
Recovery
Shady/Aftermath

After having three seperate discussions about this record with three different people of the course of this past weekend, I figured that was a sign. On the eve of the release Slim Shady's new album, let's take a look back at what is likely his most misunderstood work.

Everyone has a goal. Everyone has a dream. Imagine if your dream came true. You won state. You're the CEO. You got that movie role. Whatever it is, it came true. Your on top of the world and the road to the bottom of the mountain is littered with the corpses of your competitors that couldn't make the impossible happen; unlike you.

You achieved everything but something is keeping you awake at night. Your baggage from your old life is still with you. Old habits remains. Old thinking remains. Old patterns remain. The pain of the past makes your achievements ring hollow...

Welcome to Marshall Mathers' life in 2010. His best friend gets murdered in Detroit, he can't stop doing drugs, and he released two consecutive bad records. It looks like everything is going to fall apart. He had to hit the pause button on his own life before God hit the eject button.

But it's not just his life; it's all of our lives. Sure, we don't have millions of dollars and no asks us for autographs but it's the same struggle. Recovery is Eminem's most honest work. He had to take a hard look at his life where it currently stood at the time and then he had to reconcile his reality with the mistakes of the past while desperately trying to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. It's not just his story. It's our story and he knows this.

Recovery is a powerful record where Eminem stared into the abyss and found the abyss staring back at him. If you or anyone you know has a substance abuse problem, please get help. Get help and do it today. If you don't know where to start, I recommend that you contact the Recovery Center of Huntsville. They have access to resource across the state and across the country. They can guide you to help in your own community.

Take another look at the cover photo. I appreciate the symbolism of the artwork. Let's all take a bit of inspiration from it. We're all going to make that long, lonely walk down 8 Mile Road but we're going to do it together.






\m/