Eminem Samples Joan Jett, Cranberries on New ‘Revival’ Album
Eminem's ninth studio album, Revival, arrives in stores today (Dec. 15) — complete with an eye-catching array of guest stars and a stack of immediately recognizable samples.
Among the audio cameos observant fans will be able to pick out are a sample from Joan Jett's recording of the classic "I Love Rock and Roll," which pops up in Eminem's "Remind Me." The seventh cut on Revival, this Rick Rubin-produced track follows the same template the two used on Eminem's 2013 release "Berzerk," which is to say it carries strong echoes of Rubin's work with the Beastie Boys, wedding an instantly recognizable riff to a stomping beat as a loose but sturdy framework for the MC. Musically, the two songs are actually fairly similar, although "Berzerk" sampled Billy Squier's "The Stroke" instead.
Later in the album, listeners will hear a blast from the '90s in the form of Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan, whose vocal refrain from the band's hit single "Zombie" can be heard throughout the Revival track "In Your Head." As befitting the sample, this cut finds Eminem in a more reflective mood than the swaggering "Remind Me"; like the album opener, "Walk on Water," the lyrics lay bare the crisis of creative faith that can come from scoring huge hits with your first few albums — and then settling into middle age in a youth-dominated genre.
Weighing in at 19 tracks and nearly 78 minutes, Revival offers an extra helping of new music for fans who've waited four years for a new album from Eminem — and the Jett and Cranberries samples are just a sliver of the outside talent conscripted for the record. For more details, check out Rolling Stone's track-by-track breakdown.