In 2004, Detroit rap group D12 released their second studio album. Most of the production is credited to Eminem, here joined by Luis Resto, Hi-Tek, Mr. Porter, Witt & Pep, Red Spyda, Kanye West, Trackboyz, Night & Day, Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo. Guests include Obie Trice, Young Zee, B-Real and Bugz, the D12 member who was killed in 1999 to whom the boys dedicated their first CD and who they include on the new album with a brief contribution from one of his recordings from 1997.
It's still horrorcore lyrically, although the music is even closer to mainstream pop than it was three years earlier. A few beats sound good. "My Band", produced by Eminem, becomes a super hit and launches the album and the other single "How Come" also gets a good following from the public. But I just don't like the musical set chosen by the boys here. Even Kanye West offers one of his clearest discards in the title track where a potentially good beat is ruined by an absurd Southern hi-hat. Towards the end the guests arrive, but they add little or nothing to the product. There's something incomplete in the production of Dre & Elizondo in "American Psycho II", where B-Real shares the mic with Shady and D12. Mr. Porter offers one of the rare right productions with "Good Die Young", where the boys (all except Mathers) deliver a verse in a song dedicated to Bugz, moments after "Bugz '97".
Released by Shady and Interscope, with Universal distribution, the second LP of D12 is more successful than the first, selling over half a million copies in the first week, debuting first on the Billboard 200 and on the charts of Canada, UK, Scotland, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Within a few months it's certified double platinum. Greeted lukewarmly by critics, it's an album that doesn't sound good at all, long, exhausting, never necessary. A couple of tracks are worth saving, but 78 minutes of this stuff is too much. 3/10.
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