RS on Em

RECOVERY REACTION: The initial critical reactions to Eminem’s eagerly anticipatated new album are all over the place. In Rolling Stone, which awards Recovery four stars, Jody Rosen calls it “his most casual-sounding album in years, with odes to a ‘white-trash party’ (‘W.T.P.’) and songs that hearken back to his freewheeling early records—rhymes as goofy and imaginative as they are violent and profane… [T]he production follows the template of every album since Encore (2004), leaning toward dirgelike beats full of minor keys and dashes of post-grunge rock… Em is just a few years shy of 40, and if he's seeming more and more like a grumpy middle-aged man, at least he's owning it—he sounds content to be rap's wittiest head case.” (6/22a)