Before this review, a message from me, the DiZ:
I'm back! Damn, I need to stop taking these long ass breaks in between posts. It'll kill what's left of my traffic! I'm working on another review right now too for Raekwon's latest effort, so stayed tuned for that, and my Shadow of the Colossus mega review will be up in due time. I'm out! BLEE!


I'll admit that I wasn't a fan of Kid Cudi until I saw him in concert, and I wasn't really a true fan until long after he made us wait forty minutes for his ass to come out. His performance was good, very good, but oddly enough Kanye West's special appearance is what sent us all over the edge. In any case, Kid Cudi is part of this new wave of hip hop artists, part of the lyrical renaissance taking place with such rappers as Blu, B.o.B., Mickey Factz, Wale, Asher Roth, Cory Gunz and Charles Hamilton (most of the XXL Freshman Class of 2009). He's also part of this new wave that's doing more and more singing along with rapping, a crazy combination I can't blame Kanye for despite wanting to. Go figure.

Kid Cudi is arguably the best to do this in the game right now. He doesn't try to sound like Luther Vandross when he sings and his eternal stoner persona makes for some interesting lyricism for the most part. Man on the Moon: The End of Day is an eclectic mix of his galactic high rapping and marijuana laced singing, often all at once. I dare say that this is one of the most eclectic albums in the world of hip hop since Outkast dropped an LP.

Okay... that's a bit much. You can see that I'm putting a lot on Kid Cudi's shoulders because I can see that he's truly a different artist in hip hop as opposed to half the niggas walking around now. He's not afraid to rap/sing about some crazy out-of-this-world shit and he doesn't shy away from the over-the-top misogynistic tracks that happen to plague the airwaves (at least his are fun to listen to no matter how sexist they make Common sound (yeah, I said it!)). With all that said, let's get into Kid Cudi's major label debut.

This is a true concept album: the LP is divided into five acts, each one having a little excerpt from the narrator, Common. I know I said he sounded sexist earlier but don't worry: he still does. He drops some Def Jam level poetry at the ends of select tracks as intros or outros to the acts. But he never steals Cudi's shine, only makes it better. In fact, right from the get go, with In My Dreams, you get a clue of why Cudi is THE neo-psychedelia rapper, rap/singing about his dreams and life. As a matter of fact, the better way to review this LP is to do it by acts. Let's try that, shall we?

Act 1: The End of the Day

Cudi uses this for his three track intro with Lonnie Lynn Jr's poetry following the first track. We go into Cudi's stoner lyricism and his unique brand of rapping. He combines the elements of singing with his rapping, so much where he appears to be talking more so than rapping, making his style pretty conversational at times. Imagine going to sleep; that's what these tracks feel like in a sense. No sense getting into the tracks, but they almost highlight the fact that Cudi is drifting into his dream land... or nightmare hell...

Act 2: Rise of the Night Terrors

Solo Dolo is a haunting way to start this act. It's perfect: slow and creepy, setting a stage for what seems like a true invasion of the dreamland this nigga is obviously inhabiting and smoking in. Heart of a Lion follows it, and it's almost like a declaration, an escape if you will. This act is something like an escape, trying to get free from the night terrors. Of the acts this is probably my favorite, because it fits the description of the title so well.

Act 3: Taking a Trip (How high is this guy...?)

Day n Nite and Sky Might Fall are fan favorites and some of the tracks that made us love (tolerate for me) Cudi because of their "trip like" quality. You know what I mean? It's kind of like these tracks ARE him walking down the corridors of his mind.

Act 4: Stuck

My least favorite act, but ironically enough it contains some of my favorite tracks. I suppose that's part of the point. Cudi changes up styles a little bit here, especially with his hit single Make Her Say, the nastiest track on the LP (remember I said Common was sexist up here? Here you go) is also the most out of place. It's not stoner rap, just braggadocios sex rap. Granted, it's a great track, but it's out of place, unless "Stuck" was meant to represent that.

Act 5: A New Beginning

Welcome to the end of the album, that's what I think Cudi was trying to tell me with the last two tracks. It was a fun ride and it came to a satisfying end. Cudi was flying away, going higher and higher until he was truly up up and away.

This is a sloppy review because its IMPOSSIBLE to properly review this album with words. You can use a number but a number alone doesn't mean shit. Kid Cudi has crafted THE stoner album of the year, maybe even next year, but that doesn't mean that it's perfect, not by a long shot. Kanye West's production (two tracks: Sky Might Fall and Make Her Say) is welcome but a little strangely placed, despite how well it fits into the grand scheme of things. Also, I'm not really feeling his definition of "rap". I'm not referring to his genre or anything, that's on point, but his half rapping/half singing style is a little lazy at times. Sometimes its straight singing, and while I can't knock the man for singing I can knock it for singing as much as he did.

The other problem comes with the territory of a concept album: if you slip up even once on a concept album there's a chance everything can just be confusing in the future, and Cudi doesn't slip up so much as just fall a little short at times, making the story a little confusing. Common narrates but since he's only around four or five times (excluding his guest verse) sometimes the story can get a little "pushed back" or irrelevant.

Another criticism is Cudi's biggest mistake and showing off all the good tracks already. The fan favorites and "accidental" singles are easily the best tracks on the album, overshadowing at least half of the effort with relative ease. Make Her Say, a true hit, is quite possibly the best track on the album and it overshadows most of it by not even keeping a similar sound to the rest of the album.

That leads to the final bad talk: Make Her Say. It's a great track, but it's just completely out of place on the album. It doesn't share the same feel as the rest of it, and while it's a welcome addition it's also a consistency substraction. Concept albums, like I said, thrive on an album long consistency that Make Her Say interrupted.

So what do I have to say about this album? Shit, I already done said it! What do I give this album on a scale of one to five? A four. That's difficult for me too because I wanted to give this album a higher score, but some minor oversight from previous circumstance keeps it from achieving the greatness I wanted it to have. Man on the Moon: The End of Day is a very impressive debut from a very impressive weed junkie. I'm hoping that his next LP is just as good, no, even better than this one. Kid Cudi, good work.

DiZ Score: 4 out of 5