EDITORIAL – Just lose the “Mosh” publicity stunt

“Mosh,” Eminem’s newest single from his upcoming CD “Encore” should have been released at the… “Mosh,” Eminem’s newest single from his upcoming CD “Encore” should have been released at the time that “Just Lose It” was. Instead, the single, dubbed Eminem’s anti-Bush anthem, will come out two weeks after the election.

“Just Lose It” was “the lousiest single ever released from his four major albums” according to Boston Globe writer Renee Graham. The Boston Globe staffer went on to criticize Eminem’s “Just Lose It” single by saying, “the song seems to imply that the Detroit rapper has run out of new, interesting ideas.”

With feedback like that, Eminem clearly needs to do something to improve his image and ensure a successful album. It has to be something popular, but still notorious. This just can’t be the average publicity stunt. It has to be something surrounded by hype — so much hype that it won’t even matter how overrated the entire thing is.

Cue the video for “Mosh.” It’s controversial — nothing new from Eminem — but it’s the rapper’s most overtly political track yet. It sounds like something audiences would expect from Rage Against the Machine, not an artist whose recent spoof of Michael Jackson got pulled from the rotation on BET.

In the lyrics, Eminem calls President George W. Bush a “monster” and a “coward.”

The video for “Mosh” is animated, and opens with students in a classroom reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Just as the man in the front of the classroom is revealed — a clue: it’s Eminem — the scene changes and the rapper is taping newspaper stories to the wall. One of the clippings says, “Sick Wounded Troops Held in Squalor.” Another reads, “Bush Knew.” Another scene shows a woman walking in the rain, holding grocery bags and an eviction notice, who gets home to her children who are watching television as breaking news is announced: There is a terror alert.

An article on Salon.com yesterday questioned whether or not MTV will air the video.

Of course it will air. This isn’t like the time MTV banned Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up,” or when groups of Catholics got offended after Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video came out. The “Mosh” video is neither extremely offensive nor violent.

Of all the Eminem shockers, jumping on the Bush-bashing bandwagon doesn’t score very high. Artists can make political points if they want. They can criticize politicians all they want. There is nothing new about that. But Eminem isn’t expressing himself with the “Mosh” video. He’s just trying to sell his CD. Regardless, media sources are hyping up this new video as if it’s the scrambled porn channel that you’re not supposed to get, but can’t help watching anyway.

The video will air, and hopefully by the time it does, there will be a president of the United States. And no one will care what hair-brained scheme Eminem thinks up next. Let’s just watch this one and get it over with.