This probably isn’t the best week for a Kanye West protege to drop his debut full-length album, but don’t feel too badly for Kid Cudi — with a couple of hit singles (the ubiquitous “Day ‘N’ Nite” and brilliantly crude “Make Her Say”) and one of the most heavily buzzed-about releases of the fourth quarter, he didn’t need to worry about any controversies dogging his label chief. In order to turn Man on the Moon: The End of Day into a platinum seller, all he had to do was turn in a halfway decent record.

Which is exactly what he’s done.

Cudi’s downcast confessional bent has prompted some to peg his music as “emo rap,” which isn’t far from the mark, I guess — although you won’t hear any Chris Carrabba-style screaming in Man on the Moon. Instead, you’ll get a whole lot of analog (or at least analog-sounding) synths and primitive drum programs, along with lyrics about loneliness and frustration. It’s basically a slightly more sonically expansive cousin to West’s 808s and Heartbreak, only Cudi doesn’t have to rely on Auto-Tune shenanigans to get his point across. On the other hand, given how often he uses monotonous melodies, and double-tracks his vocals on top of them, you may actually pine for a little Auto-Tune, which is Man’s biggest problem — it takes some really nifty, attentive production and wastes it on songs that, by and large, didn’t deserve the effort. (more…)