It's about to get shady around here

You know who's really missing from the 2008 music scene? Eminem. If anybody could come along and start kicking asses and taking names, it would be our man Marshall Mathers. And right on time, he's plotting to get back in the mix and make some noise before the year is out. 

"I'm concentrating on my own stuff right now, just banging out tracks," the blond bomber announced during a recent appearance on his Sirius satellite radio station, Shade 45.

"The more I keep producing, the better it seems I get," he boasted.

And not a moment too soon. For one, Lil' Wayne is a huge Eminem fan, and the idea of those two rap maniacs hooking up and terrorizing the music industry is an awesome collaboration that needs to happen. 

But more than anything, one can only hope Em goes after the new slew of pop stars that have come up in the four years since his last album, Encore. Given the insane amounts of controversy generated around the relatively tame shots he took at Michael Jackson and the trumped-up fiasco around The Source magazine (yawn), the thought of him going after Pete Wentz, Katy Perry and the rest brings joy to my Detroit-born heart.

Those closest to Em like 50 Cent and Detroit rapper Trick Trick have been talking up the new tracks, and rumor has him recording with (please God let it be true) Dr. Dre in a Florida studio. With both artists suffering major personal losses of late (Eminem's best friend and right-hand man Proof was killed in a bar dispute, while Dre's 20-year-old son recently passed away), there is the possibility of the album being a veritable sonic powder-keg.The way Trick Trick told it to the Detroit News was that "Everybody gets it. No one is safe. He is showing no mercy." 

So make it rain, Em. Music needs you now more than ever. It is an election year after all, and there are a couple of Presidential candidates just ripe for the picking...

—Scott T. Sterling