Music to Be Murdered By
Music to Be Murdered By is the eleventh studio album by the American rapper Eminem. It was released on January 17, 2020, through Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope Records. Just like his previous studio album, Kamikaze, it is executive produced by Eminem and Dr. Dre and was released with no prior announcement. The album was produced by many producers, with Dr. Dre returning to produce songs for Eminem for the first time since 2017's Revival. Guest appearances include Skylar Grey, Young M.A, Royce da 5'9", White Gold, Ed Sheeran, the late Juice Wrld, Black Thought, Q-Tip, Denaun, Anderson.Paak, Don Toliver, Kxng Crooked, and Joell Ortiz.
The title, cover art, and concept of Music to Be Murdered By are inspired by Alfred Hitchcock and Jeff Alexander's 1958 spoken word album Alfred Hitchcock Presents Music to Be Murdered By. The album was supported by two singles: "Darkness" and "Godzilla"; the latter is used as the official theme song of WWE Raw from January 2026. Alongside the album's surprise release, Eminem also released the music video for "Darkness", which revolves around the 2017 Las Vegas shooting from the point of view of the perpetrator Stephen Paddock alternating with Eminem's own.
Music to Be Murdered By debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 279,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. Subsequently, Eminem became the first artist to have ten consecutive number-one albums in the US and one of six artists to have released at least ten US number-one albums. The album reached number one in 16 countries. The album was met with favorable reviews from music critics; some highlighted its production, while others criticized Eminem's performances.
Recording and production
In 2019, A&R representative Mike "Heron" Herard of Shady Records pursued production contributions for a new album by Eminem. Eventually, a group of producers had been enlisted for the project, including Eminem's longtime creative partners Royce da 5'9" and Dr. Dre, as well as the latter's colleagues – Dawaun Parker, Lawrence Jr., Dem Jointz, Mista Choc, DJ Silk, and Erik Griggs – and young, burgeoning producers – D.A. Doman and Ricky Racks.According to a January 2020 Rolling Stone feature on the album's making, "Lawrence Jr. has been working sporadically with Dr. Dre since the rapper-producer left Death Row Records in the Nineties; starting in the summer, the drummer went into the studio with the rest of Dr. Dre's team to create a suite of tracks that ended up on the back half of Music to Be Murdered By." Lawrence Jr. told the magazine, "Dem Jointz is a producer, Eric Griggs plays keys, bass, and guitar, Dawaun Parker is a keyboard player and producer, myself, I'm a drummer. We know Dre's instincts, and he's the coach, the orchestrator."
Other collaborators for the album included Black Thought, Q-Tip, Juice Wrld, Ed Sheeran, Young M.A, Skylar Grey, Don Toliver, Anderson.Paak, Kxng Crooked and Joell Ortiz. On the track "Godzilla", Eminem recorded a third verse that broke the record for the fastest verse on a charted track, rapping 10.65 syllables per second.
Eminem surpassed his own records held by his featured verse on Nicki Minaj's 2018 song "Majesty", where he rapped 10.3 syllables per second, and his 2013 single "Rap God", where he rapped 9.6 syllables per second.
Title and cover
The album's title and alternative cover art are taken from the 1958 album Alfred Hitchcock Presents Music to Be Murdered By, which interspersed audio of the director Alfred Hitchcock's wry, dark humor into easy listening instrumentals arranged by Jeff Alexander. Eminem tweeted an image of the 1958 album cover featuring Hitchcock holding an axe and a gun to his head and stated that his album's alternative cover was "inspired by the master, Uncle Alfred!" Audio of Hitchcock's voice from the 1958 album is sampled in the interludes "Alfred" and "Alfred " and the beginning of the track "Little Engine". Both the 1958 and 2020 albums end with Hitchcock stating, "If you haven't been murdered, I can only say better luck next time. If you have been, goodnight, wherever you are." Mark Beech of Forbes magazine connected the alternate cover to this album's concept of murder and violence.The album has three covers; the digital cover features Eminem posing with a shovel, wearing a suit and a fedora. The album's alternate cover features Eminem pointing a gun and holding an axe to his head. The physical CD cover features Eminem, hatless, posing with his hands behind his back. In the packaging, Eminem dedicates the album to rapper Juice Wrld, who died from an accidental drug overdose on December 8, 2019, and Eminem's former bodyguard CeeAaqil Allah Barnes who also died. Juice Wrld's feature on "Godzilla" marked his first posthumous release.
Release
The album was released on January 17, 2020, by Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records. It was released as a surprise with no prior announcement, similarly to his previous and tenth studio album Kamikaze. Alongside the album's release, Eminem also released a music video for "Darkness", directed by James Larese. The video, which revolves around the 2017 Las Vegas shooting from the point of view of the perpetrator Stephen Paddock alternating with Eminem's own, garnered appraisal but controversy too. On January 31, 2020, "Godzilla" was released as a single, with a music video directed by Cole Bennett later being released on March 6.Critical reception
Music to Be Murdered By was met with mixed to positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 64, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The aggregator AnyDecentMusic? assessed the critical consensus with an average score of 5.8 out of 10.Reviewing for The Daily Telegraph, Neil McCormick said Music to Be Murdered By "offers over an hour of the world's greatest rapper blasting away on all cylinders", hailing it as "the first great album of 2020, so lethally brilliant it should be a crime". Scott Glaysher of HipHopDX was also positive, and compared the album to Eminem's previous bodies of work, stating in his review that "Music To Be Murdered By is far from the star-studded, commercially sustainable album Recovery was, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. On this album, despite its handful of flaws, Em shows strong signs of adapting to the times through modern musical choices and smarter songwriting." Consequence of Sounds Dan Weiss was generally positive, and, about the album's themes, he said that "If he's figuring out from scratch how to be a compelling artist again, Eminem's improved the caliber of his beats and guests, taking stands against the right day-to-day injustices, toning down the tasteless, and rapping with the manic precision of someone who just snorted a whole sandcastle of cocaine and Vyvanse. If only a single minute of it was as hilarious or bracing as Chris D'Elia's impression of him." Similarly, Fred Thomas of AllMusic opined, "Music to Be Murdered By sees Eminem pulling himself out of Kamikazes wreckage somewhat, though he still falls victim to moments of willful dumbness and a tedious self-obsession that's become par for the course. On the album's best tracks, there are still hints of the fire that made Eminem a rap legend."
Entertainment Weeklys Christopher R. Weingarten was more critical, stating that, "As a whole, Music to Be Murdered By is as hit-and-miss as anything Eminem has released this side of the millennium. But remove the skits, the relationship songs, the family songs, the morose gun control song, and the quirky Ed Sheeran club goof and you still have 36 solid minutes of the daffy, one-of-a-kind rap genius that keeps captivating true-school heads and longtime fans. Or, if you'd like, keep it all and you still have the most solid work he's done in a few years." NMEs Jordan Basset was ambivalent towards the album's lyrical themes and stated, "He splits the difference on Music To Be Murdered By, indulging his immature ego even as he offers salient social criticism and admits his missteps. He's ready to pass on hard-earned wisdom before running his mouth like he hasn't learned his own lessons. And he offers casual fans a hook or two before embarking on another lyrical work-out." Paul A. Thompson of Pitchfork said that the album "is not, strictly speaking, a good record—Eminem hasn't made one of those in a decade—but his latest boasts enough technical command and generates just enough arresting ideas to hold your attention."
Retrospectively, in a 2024 ranking of Eminem's 12 studio albums, Damien Scott of Billboard magazine placed Music to Be Murdered By seventh, noting the broad list of guest rappers and producers while criticizing the length, writing: "The theme only loosely ties the album together, but it doesn't really matter: Em is rapping his ass off all throughout the set, while creating spaces for new rappers to do their thing without it feeling as if they're being subsumed into ShadyLand. And, like the best Em albums, there's a variety of song types to appease all corners of his fanbase."
Controversy
The song "Darkness", about the 2017 Las Vegas shooting and told from the point of view of the shooter Stephen Paddock alternating with Eminem's own, has garnered particular attention and critical acclaim.The lyrics of "Unaccommodating", in which Eminem referenced the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, drew significant criticism, with many critics finding the lyrics objectionable. The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham denounced the song's lyrics, describing them as "unnecessarily hurtful and deeply disrespectful." The lyrics also drew widespread criticism from victims' relatives and others involved in the attack.
Roisin O'Connor of The Independent gave the album a negative review, and criticized the album by saying, "Eminem belittles the trauma of a then 26-year-old Ariana Grande for kicks on 'Unaccommodating' by comparing himself to the Manchester Arena bomber. The sour taste of this track lingers well beyond the album's centrepiece, 'Darkness', which is intended as a searing critique of America's toxic gun culture. Instead, his use of gunfire and explosion samples feels grossly exploitative."