KiD CuDi - Man On The Moon (Review)

Wednesday, 16 September 2009 22:07 acllaim

15 Tracks with appearances from Kanye, Common, and other dudes I don’t know. I’m not going to talk about the aesthetics outside of the music tracks themselves; the album cover, the back, the “From the guys that brought you 8o8’s and Heartbreak” on the intro on the back, the separation of the album into acts, etc. All of that doesn’t matter. All of that serves no real purpose. What I’m going to talk about is the album itself; the 15 tracks Cudi has waited for years to put out. Hell, I’m juse going to go track by track. In My Dreams is an interesting opener that while “different” compared to mainstream hip hop, it sets the mood for Cudi’s new brand of indie-rap. Soundtrack 2 My Life is an incredible track. Cudi goes deep in his past and delivers great rhythmic verses. In Simple As… Cudi tried to hard to give us the “Simple” in the track to the point that the lyrics end up being a complicated mess that’s not comfortable to follow. Solo Dolo isn’t a better follow-up. It’s literally just a mess of shit with a xylophone on the melody. It’s one of those “ why the fuck is this on here?” tracks. Heart of a Lion jumps into the triumph that Cudi feels in himself (hence the track being the Kid Cudi Theme), though the track itself feels a little too much cudi-singing and not enough cudi-singrapping. Definitely not a track I’d like to listen to again. My World follows, and it stinks of the same thing Heart of a Lion isn’t good for. Cudi has respectable lyrical ability, and combines that with a rhythmic flow that’s refreshing in this era of Hip Hop. When he decides to fuck it and just sing badly, it just falls through. Day N Night, of course, is a perfect example of why Kid Cudi is badass. Ironically though, it doesn’t fit in at all with the rest of the album’s general “Man on The Moon” techno-rythym-rap feel. Sky Might Fall is yet another great track, and a great follow-up to Day N Night. Enter Galactic one of the true techno-rap fusions on the album that comes out great. The production on the track is so great it literally makes Cudi’s flow on the track irrelevant. Alive has a catchy tune that’s hypnotic. EVERY TIME just keeps repeating in your head even though you know he only said it once and went on with the song. Cudi Zone falls in the “personal” list of songs, and like Soundtrack 2 My Life, it comes out great. One of the higher points of the album. Make Her Say, the second single of the album, is a great track. Something else that’s weird about the track is that, much like Day N Night, it’s nothing like the rest of the tracks in the album. Pursuit of Happiness gives us the “feel good” track that tends to be on every album, and is one of the good ones. Hyyherr is incredible, and it introduces Chip, one of Ohio’s finest rappers (I would know. I lived in Idaho for many years). Up Up And away concludes the album, and leaves it at a high point.

In all, I must say the album was decent, not great, but decent. The tracks that were good were PHENOMENAL, but the tracks that weren’t seriously sucked. If you’re a Cudi fan, I recommend you go out and buy the album. It’s definitely worth the money. If you’re a general rap fan, I’d give it a listen first.

You can preview the whole album here: