It’s funny to think that “commercial hip-hop” might actually be a style of hip-hop, just like “old school,” “golden era,” “gangsta” or “trap.” If this is the case, it would definitely pertain to the era close to the turn of the century, comprising such walking brand names as Jay-Z, DMX, Outkast, Wyclef Jean, Nelly and of course our favorite silver-tongued Dennis the Menace, Eminem himself.
Unlike, say, Wu-Tang Clan, for one, which has been known to propagate mega-hits that have no choruses (“Triumph”), Eminem seems a pretty staunch devotee to the “pop structure” in music, which would be a systematic succession of verses and choruses, even, for the most part, designating exactly three per song, with very rare exceptions. His first hit, “My Name is,” not only adheres to the tried-and-true three-verse, three-chorus anatomy blueprint, but even makes mention of any number of big-name celebrities like Pamela Lee and The Spice Girls. The whole thing comes off as rap for TV-heads, in other words: a middle American brat immersed in kitsch culture, the least-common-denominator entertainment sectors administered straight from conglomerate sources and readymade for living rooms in isolated, desolate Detroit winters.
Of course, access to pop radio would come standard, theretically, with all this fare, and we notice Eminem use it, strangely, resourceful emcee that he is, to his advantage, on “Drug Ballad.” Now, “Drug Ballad” is a quirky type of track for a lot of reasons: for instance, it’s neither depressing nor brooding, or dramatic, like a “ballad” is supposed to be (at which point the title illustrates itself as being tongue-in-cheek, of course). It’s a light-hearted rant, self-deprecating in the typical, ultimate Eminem persona tradition (think the pairing “I get a clean shave / Bathe / Go to a rave / Die of an overdoes / And dig myself up out of my grave” in “Role Model” from the Slim Shady LP), in which a tragicomic immersion into intoxicated doom marries itself with kitsch, or the mass-produced pop culture of a ridiculously cutesy, catchy and simplistic song. Indeed, the oversimplification fallacy abounds within this song across lines like “Every time I try to tell ’em no / They won’t let me ever let’ em go”, as if to use the age-old catch phrase of “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
More importantly, along the lines of my point, Eminem’s rhythmic scheme in this chorus funnels the entire song through a tinge of “pop” — it’s a measured, exacted scheme repeated verbatim, constituting very much a commercial element of “production,” if you will, rather than, say, earnest, from the hip emceeing about life. In this way, Eminem invents a new element of “production” that doesn’t need any instruments, but does require about a truckload of Bacardi and recreationally ingested pills, for best results.
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