The one thing Relapse gets extremely right is having a strong concept that flows ridiculously well from each song to the next. Quite the feat., when you consider some of the songs are the most twisted things you will hear from a modern day artist. The album is brutally honest, at the same time it retains Mathers signature dark humor. In the end, all the crazy themes fit together in some fucked up sort of way – and that is how it was intended.
With a theme so strong, one would expect the packaging to be just as stellar – and it is. However, Relapse’s packaging is the classic case of having excellent execution on the outside, but leaving much to be desired on the inside. The album art is brilliantly done, as it shows thousands of pills spilled out to make the face of Eminem. In the left hand corner, they put an RX label that shows the refill date as the albums release date. Little things like this really enhance the overall package/concept and it makes you feel like they really put effort into it. Even on the side of the CD bar, there is a little drug warning. The outside was just done incredibly well (even the back) – and it really will impress fans.
The inside, is a different matter. Right as you open the case, you are greeted by a CD designed to look like a Pill bottle cap – “Push Down & Turn” – and as you push the CD down and pull up, there is a birds eye view of pills in a bottle. While all of this looks great, the problems start to happen when you open the Lyric book. The lyrics are all presented here, but are all pressed on white/grey paper, and there is absolutely no pictures. Some might argue that it’s nice to just have all the lyrics to read, but when that pretty much makes up the entire lyric book, you kind of wish they would have had a photo next to each song. Then again it is a lyrics book, so the gripe might be unfounded – but it would have been nice to get more photos. After getting through all the lyrics, we finally see some great photos towards the back. Spread out across a table is Marshall Mathers medical folder, and one picture shows Eminem chillingly dressed up like the Joker from the Dark Knight (not too far off, seeing as him and Heath had similar drug issues).
Conclusion: Relapse is without a doubt worth purchasing. Like the albums themes, the packaging is done with depth and style. I still wish the lyric book had had more photos; in particular, not a big fan of just having all the lyrics printed on bland paper design. But that is a small gripe. While the vinyl version is not out yet, I might recommend that version over this one, seeing as the album art is so stunning. It’s going to look incredible in the big format (especially the joker pic, as it will prob be in the inside gate folds). Check back in a month, when I review the vinyl edition.
Video:
Packaging Review: Eminem – Relapse [2009] from onethirtybpm on Vimeo.
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