Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 18/10/09
Label: Universal

Scott Mescudi, a 25-year-old from Cleveland, Ohio, arrives with the heavyweight endorsement of Kanye West, and has been hailed in some quarters as pointing a possible way forward for hip hop. It seems churlish to castigate a newcomer for having too much ambition; but Cudi over-reaches on a debut that brings widescreen techniques to bear on the intimate detail of his personal struggles.

Sequenced in five "acts", "Man On The Moon" is intended as a bold artistic statement; a curious framing device, with Common talking over strings like an otherworldy narrator in a Spike Lee movie, adds to the filmic feel, but only deepens the sense of over-indulgence. Yet whatever complexities are playing out in his head, Cudi hasn't yet done enough to convince us that his content is ready for the single-mindedness of his presentation.

Apart from one mixtape, he remains principally known for his one vocal and two writing credits on West's "808s And Heartbreak". That record's appeal relied, largely, on an understanding of how Kanye had arrived at such a peculiar place in his life and his art, on the listener buying in to the whole saga. Yet Cudi takes "808s..."'s icy sheen and hair-shirt emotional evisceration as his starting points, and it makes his album very hard to engage with. Listening to "Man On The Moon" is like striking up a conversation with a stranger at a party who, within five minutes of urgent intensity, is telling you about the way their mother's depression was triggered by their father's death, and you start to wonder how soon you can make your excuses without seeming callous.

It doesn't help that he uses a post-"808s..." sonic approach. Cudi has plenty to say but is yet to develop a presence and personality that makes him a compelling narrator; one bit of half-sung, half-rapped introspection slides into the next, the thin synthesiser washes slip over squelching drums and stereo-pan effects, and the whole fades to a dull sonic grey, lacking definition and individuality. Even when he stumbles upon a potentially great track, such as the timpani bounce "Simple As..." or the Lady GaGa-sampling "Make Her Say", the production and delivery turn it into just another piece of samey sonic mulch.

There's a good, possibly even a great, album in here somewhere, but Kid Cudi doesn't get very close to finding it. If he could focus more on what he has to say rather than finding stylish ways to say it, he may yet make art that lives up to his commendable ambition.

    by Angus Batey