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music review // KID CUDI — 'MAN ON THE MOON: THE END OF DAY' KJHK's weekly guide to sonic consumption. (UNIVERSAL MOTOWN)
No doubt one of the most anticipated hip-hop albums of the year, Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon: The End of Day lives up to the hype. After releasing a mixtape and catching the ear of Kanye West, Cudi made a quick jump to stardom, announced a faux-retirement and meanwhile constructed one of the most inventive hip-hop albums of the past couple years.
It's a rare thing to hear an artist with such a distinct style on his debut. Cudi is classified as a rapper but he does more singing than anything else here and even his raps are delivered melodically most of the time.
Subject-wise, Cudi reaches deeper than most rappers are willing to. He talks about losing his father on "Soundtrack 2 My Life," which features one of the best opening lines I've heard in a while: "I've got 99 problems, and they all bitches."
Relentless night terrors, loneliness, love and the pursuit of happiness are other subjects Cudi delves into with genuine feeling.
The album's production fits well with these deep, often dark themes.
The Ratatat-produced tracks especially shine and MGMT also pops up on "The Pursuit of
Happiness," one of the album's highlights.
The album is presented as a film with different acts and cheesy narration from rapper Common.
If all of this sounds kind of crazy, it is. Cudi is an artist with huge musical ambitions who sets out to accomplish with one record what other artists spend many doing. It's not flawless, but with its combination of interesting subject matter, catchy hooks and unique production it's not one to miss.
// DANNY J. SPENCE
KJHK ROTATION DJ
music review // ISLANDS -'VAPOURS' (ANTI-) KJHK's weekly guide to sonic consumption.
A blend of dance tunes and pleasant synthesized rock makes up Islands' new album, Vapours.
With a pretty exciting lineup of instruments including the omnichord, mellotron and electric sitar, how can you go wrong? There's a full set of keyboards and a drum machine, but they didn't leave out the traditional rock guitars, bass and acoustic drums.
Vapours is really a healthy blend of cheerful electro-pop-rock with a warm summer feeling to it. To me the highlight of the album is the second track — "No You Don't." It's a great, positive dance song and I admit I'm biased towards uncommon instruments, but those light omnichord chords and that electric sito towards the end are just so frickin' cool.
As a whole, the album is great. It keeps up momentum until the end and I'd really recommend any of the tracks on the album.
kjhk charts // WEEK OF OCT. 5 The 15 most played albums on KJHK's new music rotation shows as of Oct. 5.
1 YO LA TENGO Popular Songs (Matador)
2 RAINBOW ARABIA Kabukimono
(Manual Vinyl)
3 BROTHER ALI Us (Rhymesayers)
4 WHY? Eskimo Snow (Anticon)
5 ELECTRIC TICKLE MACHINE Blew It Again
(self-released)
6 ROYAL BANGS Let It Beep (Audio Eagle)
7 FRESH AND ONLYS Grey-Eyed Girls
(Woodsist)
8 WAX TAILOR In the Mood for Life (Le Plan)
9 SONDRE LERCHE Heartbeat Radio
(Rounder)
10 BLITZEN TRAPPER Black River Killer (EP) (Sub Pop)
11 TAKEN BY TREES East of Eden (Rough Trade)
12 FORT KNOX FIVE Radio Free DC Remixes
(Fort Knox)
13 BLK JKS After Robots (Secretly Canadian)
14 WILD BEASTS Two Dancers (Domino)
15 FOOL'S GOLD Fool's Gold (lamsound)
17 10
08
09
14.99