{"id":803388,"date":"2020-01-23T13:46:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T20:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=942038"},"modified":"2020-01-23T13:46:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T20:46:52","slug":"eminem-defends-music-to-be-murdered-by-in-open-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/eminem-defends-music-to-be-murdered-by-in-open-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"Eminem Defends \u2018Music to Be Murdered By\u2019 in Open Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eminem<\/a>\u2019s latest album, Music to Be Murdered By<\/em>, at times leaned heavily on one of the rapper\u2019s time-honored attributes: a dependence on shock value. In its two most attention-grabbing moments, he raps from the perspective of the Las Vegas gunman who killed 58 people in 2017 (\u201cDarkness\u201d), and throws in an off-hand line making light of the bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, also in 2017 (\u201cUnaccommodating\u201d). As one might expect, some listeners were upset.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Eminem responded to criticism of the record\u2019s subject matter in an open letter posted to his Instagram account. It features a rivulet of blood running down the page, for those looking for additional, if unsubtle, imagery.<\/p>\n

In the letter, Eminem begins to elaborate on the themes behind the album, and stops well short of making an apology. Instead, he writes that Music to Be Murdered By <\/em>is \u201cnot for the squeamish\u201d and is \u201cdesigned to shock the conscience.\u201d He also suggest that many of the critics may be missing his finer points: \u201cPlease listen more closely,\u201d he writes. \u201cGoodnight!\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter came nearly a week after the mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, responded with harsh criticism for the Grande-referencing line. \u201cThis is unnecessarily hurtful and deeply disrespectful to the families and all those affected,\u201d he said, in a statement released to the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDarkness\u201d also raised criticism<\/a> upon its release due to the fact that it recreated the sounds of a mass shooting, and because it potentially humanized the shooter. Eminem\u2019s intent was to psychoanalyze the shooter at the center of the Las Vegas mass shooting; it ultimately comes with a gun control message, but criticism still rolled in.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Eminem, acknowledgements of our shared humanity may occasionally happen in the abstract,\u201d Jon Dolan wrote of the album for <\/a>Rolling Stone. \u201c<\/em>But specific instances in his music are still hard to come by.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eminem\u2019s latest album, Music to Be Murdered By, at times leaned heavily on one of the rapper\u2019s time-honored attributes: a dependence on shock value. In its two most attention-grabbing moments, he raps from the perspective of the Las Vegas gunman who killed 58 people in 2017 (\u201cDarkness\u201d), and throws in an off-hand line making light of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-803388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 21:52:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}