I think he suffers from the same thing Nas, Canibus and them cats all go through
where they are picking weird shyt because they are good at rapping... doing benjamin franklin type experiments over beats ... almost like an obsession to ride whatever. Not in a terrible way but you can tell they arent chasing a formal sound sometimes ... its weird. You're right though, its like when he produces for himself he doesnt want to come super wack... or with Bass Brothers he rides the pocket, especially for that era. With Dre he doesnt want to let him down completely. He probably throws songs like Insane out because Dre laughs so he tries to shock him with that shyt, he rarely misses with the producers you listed. I couldnt fukk with Recovery much either, it was too high energy with little substance. Some of the songs werent hitting like that one Pink laced him with... she killed the hook and he rode the beat great but then stopped saying anything meaningful, to me at least. You can tell which songs he takes his time with and which ones he didnt. He's back on par now though
I don't think Nas fits into that category; just my opinion.
Now, Canibus, I agree with.
But Eminem rhymes over some of the most bland, basic, and boring beats.
Recovery sounded so much like a Pop radio album. It just sounded like him trying to make the best tailor made album for Pop radio.
I remember when I first heard Recovery, I was like "what the fukk is this?!"
It's like he tries so hard with the super lyrical shyt that he forgets to construct an actual good or decent song.
And then his metaphors and punchlines are so damn wack, lol
On Revival, he was trying to do so much, he was trying to please lyricists (even though he was spitting some weak rhymes), he was trying to construct songs for the Pop music fans and then he was trying to rhyme like a lot popular rappers with a few trendy flows.