Kid Cudi
"Man on the Moon: The End of Day"
Released: Sept. 15, 2009
Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap
Official Site, MySpace, Wikipedia

Kid Cudi's freshman attempt not only excels, it redefines the genre of hip-hop and is a fantastic start to what should become a monster career.

WHEN I FIRST heard Cleveland's own Kid Cudi (pronounced "Cuddy," not "Coody"), I thought he was just another pop rapper who would use techno beats to get fans a la Pittsburgh's Wiz Khalifa and Miami's Pitbull.

But after a few of my friends told me about how good Cudi's debut album was, I had to take a listen. After listening to "Man on the Moon: The End of Day" more than 10 times, I am absolutely in love with it.

Kid Cudi takes the archetypal minimalist hip-hop that Kanye West attempted to create in "808s & Heartbreak" and molds it into a masterpiece of a concept album.

With spacey vocals and ominous synthesizers throughout, Cudi's debut album evokes feelings of a modern-day Pink Floyd, able to take listeners on a journey through sound and time. Very futuristic and very cool.

The album is organized as a conceptual trip with Kid Cudi — a.k.a. Scotty, the Man on The Moon — who tells us of his loneliness, successes and failures, and yes, getting high.

While the album is loosely connected by this idea, it is solidified by the narrator of our story, rapper Common, who gives us context in between the five acts of the album:

I. The End of Day
II. Rise of the Night Terrors
III. Taking A Trip
IV. Stuck
V. A New Beginning

The story is so far out and retro that it's hard not to listen to the album in its entirety once you start.

Able to cross over perfectly between hip-hop and indie rock, just like fellow Midwest rapper Lupe Fiasco, Cudi has just as many rappers appearing on this album as rockers, an eclectic mix that includes Chicago's Common, Kanye West, New York's electro pop group Ratatat, and a Uni favorite, MGMT.

Lyrically, Kid Cudi is what most would label emo, but in a totally different way.

Breaking down the tendency for a rapper to just talk about his cars, money, and women, Cudi talks about how the death of his father when he was 8 changed his life ("Soundtrack 2 My Life"), how he has used drugs to cope with his experiences ("Hyyerr"), and how everything will be OK in the end (the ultra-happy anthem "Pursuit of Happiness").

I would not be surprised one bit if in the near future we see a visual extravaganza added to this album just like Pink Floyd's touring light shows did justice to "The Wall"; this album is too trippy not to have it.

In fact, in a recent interview Cudi acknowledged the revolutionary English rock band as one of his main influences and said he tries not to define his music as one genre but a combination of several.

This album deserves your attention, and you have to be open to hear things you have never heard before. As Cudi himself says: "It's a lot of dope sounding s**t man, and I just hope people have an open mind because this is some next-level stuff."

"Man on The Moon: The End of Day" TRACK LIST

Listen to Kid Cudi's debut album via these embeds from grooveshark.com: