Kid Cudi – “Man On The Moon: The End Of The Day” Review
Are there such things as hip-hop-stoner-hippies? Because this album is just for them. With that said, Kid Cudi’s debut album is all about being very deep, out there, spacey, and hypnotic. For the most part, it seems to work. However, like most music deeming to be spacey and hypnotic, much of it just doesn’t make sense.
Kid Cudi is an artist that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Kanye West. He was initially a film school drop-out that moved to Brooklyn to pursue music, where he made a mixtape which caught the attention of Mr. West himself. Kanye then brought him in to sing guest vocals on “Welcome To Heartbreak” as well as helping him write lyrics and melodies for the songs “Heartless” and “Paranoid”, all of which appeared on West’s album 808′s and Heartbreaks. Though I was personally a big fan of the 808′s album, while listening to this new Cudi album, it’s obvious where the influence came from. Also, even with Kanye’s album being very experimental and a great effort, Man On The Moon seems to be what Kanye should have done and what he actually meant to do. Meaning, this is very similar to 808′s, yet fortunately lacking a vocoder.
Musically, this album is absolutely amazing. It nearly perfectly symbolizes the new direction hip-hop seems to be taking with all the dance influence. However, lyrically, I feel this album tries a bit too hard. More times than not, when Kid tries to say something deep and powerful, it comes off as…stupid. There are two perfect examples of this, one of them being the intro track titled “In My Dreams,” and the other being in the song “Enter Galactic.” When the intro track starts, the music brings you back to the first time you saw 2001: A Space Odyssey, but when the lyrics come in, it seems very half-assed. It sounds like he smoked far too much pot and freelanced over the string section, saying to himself “yo this is gonna really make people think.” It’s not making me think, it’s making me skip to the next track.
The next example would be “Enter Galactic.” During the bridge/breakdown of the song, he beings a poetic, spoken-word-esque type of rant. This is where he says the words, “If you can’t do what you imagine, then what is imagination to you?” I’ll be honest. At first, I thought that was pretty cool. That is…until I went back and listened to it again. Though it sounds cool, it doesn’t fucking mean anything. It’s a dead sentence bound to blow the minds of people who’s minds are already depleted by pot and LSD. When I hear lyrics like this, it just bothers me. I’ve honestly had conversations with legitimately psychologically-damaged homeless people who have come up with phrases that make more sense than that.
And I also need to comment on the role that Common plays on this album. He has these moments at the beginning or end of certain songs where he seems to be telling a story. You would initially think that whatever story he is telling about the “main character” would be something that relates to the lyrics or the overall theme of the album, but it doesn’t. It tries to tell the story about the upcoming of Kid Cudi, as he refers to him as “the man on the moon,” but it continues throughout the album as if to set up a backstory to certain tracks. This seems to be an added-on attempt to be more poetic, but comes off very fumbled.
But don’t get me wrong, I actually highly enjoy this album. Tracks like “Soundtrack To My Life” and “Simple As” are fantastic tracks, not to mention the amazing singles “Day ‘n’ Nite” and ” Make Her Say.” ”Simple As” is a highlight simply because it starts off making you believe the song is in a 3/4 time signature, until the main beat drops in at 4/4 while still holding the 3/4 pattern behind it. This has never been done in hip-hop before (as far as I know). This album is begging to be heard, and it deserves every listener. I think its experimental and will certainly lead to a new sub-genre of hip-hop that needs to be discovered. Though this album will be regarded as one of the top front-runners of that genre, I don’t feel this album is nearly close to a perfected version of it. I do think, however, that because of this album, better things are on the way. Though there is much to complain about on my part, I’m giving this album a 4 out of 5. ****
I truly love Kanye. He’s a great performer and ofcouse really gorgeous. Power is his best song in my opinion.
Regards,
Jenny
unwanted facial hair