Eminem 2013 Album & Songs: Manager Paul Rosenberg Reveals Exclusive Details About The Marshall Mathers LP 2
Eminem's eighth studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, was released Nov. 5 but is already making its mark on the charts. Recently, Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg talked about the steps that resulted in this success, including announcing the album via a Beats commercial during the MTV VMAs and teaming up with Call of Duty: Ghosts.
The world learned about MMLP2 during a Beats by Dre commercial that aired during the MTV VMAs in August. Eminem could not be there because he was at the Reading and Leeds festival in the U.K., but his presence was certainly felt as the commercial was one of the most talked about events from the award show.
"I really liked what [Beats] did with the Robin Thicke spot where the commercial for the [Beats] Pill ... since the timing worked out so well, we said, 'Let's also do a teaser and announce this partnership and the album at the same time,'" Rosenberg told Billboard. "People didn't know the name of the album. They didn't know who the executive producers were. They didn't know when it was dropping.They hadn't heard the music, and they didn't know about the Beats partnership, and we gave them all of that in 15 seconds. To me, that was this awesome, exciting thing we did."
MMLP2 has sold an estimated 750,000 copies in its first week, which projects it as the second-largest album debut of 2013.
One of the album's tracks, "Survival" is used in Activision's new video game Call of Duty: Ghosts. A partnership with Activision is nothing new for Eminem, but this time the union was deeper.
"... there was a bigger opportunity because we were coming at it really early," Rosenberg said. "It was like, 'We've got a piece of music. Let's integrate it into the game. Don't just make it a part of the spots, which it's going to be, but let's figure out a way to get out ahead of it and make it into the game itself.'"
MMLP2 was named after 2000's The Marshall Mathers LP. The album, which is one of Eminem's most popular, is a tough act to follow
"What [Eminem] ultimately said was 'Look, people can say whatever they want to, but this is the project that I want to make. This is a revisitation. There's some themes and topics that I don't feel like I've finished talking about yet that I want to go back and readdress. If people are going to hold it up to the other one and make those comparisons, then so be it,'" Rosenberg said.