Kid Cudi: Man on the Moon

Maybe it's because "Day N Nite" is a pretty rad song or that Kanye West had a hand in its production or that the respectable groups Ratatat and MGMT guest on it or that Kid Cudi is being portrayed as a "sensitive" hip-hop artist by the media. Even after all of that, it was probably the cover art. At any rate, I bought Man on the Moon: The End of the Day, the debut album from Cleveland's Kid Cudi. While it's certainly not game-changing, it does offer some very unique sounds, and many of the tracks sound like denser, spacier verisions of songs on Kanye's 808s and Heartbreak. I would like this album even more if Cudi was a more literate rapper. Allow me to list some choice lyrical samples:
1. From "Soundtrack 2 My Life"-as i grew to be a teen/i disguised myself had the lowest self esteem/especially with the girls/tried every sport just to impress the girls

Is he serious? The world only needs one Rivers Cuomo, and he wore out his welcome like ten years ago.

2. From "Enter Galactic"-i want to kiss you on your space below your navel-ette/the place that you keep neat/so moist like/a towelette

My word that is horrendous.

3. "Make Her Say," which features Common and Kanye, is about a blowjob and samples Lady Gaga's "Poker Face." Poke her face. Get it? Like a blowjob. And is it Kosher to sample a song that's still on the charts? I feel as though current songs shouldn't be sampled.

There's still enough good tracks to make this worth listening to, though. "Cudi Zone" is my favorite because it's about feeling euphoria and has strings. Can't really beat that. "Day N Nite" is obviously pretty good, and the two tracks with Ratatat are good because they have that signature Nintendo-guitar sound that's on all Ratatat songs. I love that sound.

If you like both the poppier side of hip-hop and futurisic beats and don't mind average lyrics, you'll enjoy this album. I'm interested to see what he puts out next, because apparently this is the first in a trilogy or something.