[5] Like his previous album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, it is executive produced by Dr. Dre and Rick Rubin, and features many pop artists, such as Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, X Ambassadors, Skylar Grey, Kehlani, and Pink, along with fellow American rapper Phresher.

A year later, he performed a viral freestyle at the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards, criticizing then-president Donald Trump.

Reception to Revival was generally negative, with critics panning its lack of cohesion, overuse of rock-influenced production, the heavy presence of pop guest artists, and mixing.

[9] A fake tracklist also was leaked at the same time, with Adele, Chance the Rapper, Kid Cudi, Vince Staples, The Weeknd and Mástein Bennett as featured artists.

[10] Rumors were sparked again in February and March 2017, when Eminem announced he was headlining three shows in Reading, Glasgow and Leeds.

[13] On October 10, 2017, Eminem performed a freestyle titled "The Storm" at the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards, criticizing President Donald Trump.

Suspicion was aroused when fans noticed that the 'E' in "Revival" was reversed, similar to Eminem's previous logos.

[19] When the phone number for "Revival" is called, it plays the background music of Dr. Dre's "I Need a Doctor", which Eminem features on.

The lead single, "Walk on Water", was first performed by Eminem at the 2017 MTV Europe Music Awards on November 12, 2017, with co-producer and writer Skylar Grey on vocals.

On November 28, 2017, the release date of the album was announced to be December 15 via both Dr. Dre's and Eminem's social media accounts, while also revealing the fake drug campaign of the record.

[27] On November 8, 2017, Eminem tweeted a picture of a doctor's prescription note with the words "Walk on Water" and "Take as needed" written on it.

[29] On November 9, Paul Rosenberg shared a video on Instagram linking the drug "Revival" with "Walk on Water" and confirming the song, which was subsequently released the next day.

Commercially, it has reached number one in the United Kingdom, Norway, and Sweden as well as the top 10 in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, and Switzerland, and the top 20 in Belgium and the United States.

[41][b] Such criticisms are contrasted by lyrics such as those on "Like Home" celebrating the sanctity of U.S. civil liberties and calling for a "brand new America" without Trump.

[43] On "Untouchable", Eminem addresses racism in America, including police brutality, blaming it on Republicans and criticizing the philosophy of 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps', retorting, "where the fuck are the boots?

"[44] "Nowhere Fast" deals with gun violence in the U.S., with an extended version naming the National Rifle Association of America as being largely responsible.

The first of these, sampling The Cranberries' "Zombie", expresses regret regarding some of his early lyrics related to his Slim Shady persona.

"[57] In a positive review, Andy Gill of The Independent complimented the album's lyrical themes: "But ultimately, it's all about Eminem himself, and nowhere more dynamically than in the berserk self-assessment "Offended", where he asserts, amongst other things, that if the time he spent writing were taken into account, he'd be a minimum-wage slave – a faintly ludicrous claim, but immediately backed up by a bravura extended burst of rapid-rap babble that both explains and exemplifies his skills, and leaves one wondering not just how long it took to write, but how on earth he manages to pronounce such a polysyllabic torrent so perfectly.

"[58] Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph stated that Revival "represents Eminem on top form, which is to say unstoppable, unbeatable yet often indefensible.

Trent Clark from HipHopDX said that "Eminem's dedication to wrecking mics like Robert Mueller can never be questioned but the production choices still remain an enigma.

When he doesn't bathe in lamely visible rock samples like Joan Jett and the Blackhearts' "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" or The Cranberries' "Zombie" (on "Remind Me" or "In Your Head" respectively), he's mostly square pegging his intensified lyrics on mechanical slabs of assembly line pop hybrids."

He singled out "Framed" and "Castle" as highlights:it's largely the retreads of past glory where he hits his stride the hardest.

On the hypnotically-produced "Framed," Marshall dons the hockey mask for old times sake and pulls up off homicidal fantasies that for better or worse, feature the album's most in-pocket rhyme moment.

And when he plunges into his drug-altered psyche to speak on his greatest love — his daughter Haile Jade — the ever-reliable DJ Khalil steps up to the plate on "Castle" with a darkened soundbed of macabre guitars and deathly drum marches that feature the album's most vintage Eminem moment.

Conceptually and lyrically, the closing pair find Eminem in excellent form, and longtime fans will no doubt cite these two as album highlights.

[76] This led BuzzFeed to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the Secret Service to find out if the claim was true.

In October 2019, the agency revealed to BuzzFeed that, in response to an email from a TMZ employee pressing the agency to investigate Eminem for his "threatening lyrics" about Donald and Ivanka Trump, they had conducted a background check and arranged an interview, in which the interviewers read the verse out loud to Eminem—and he rapped along.