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If you want to know further why this album is a classic you'll have to check it out yourself, but know for a fact it's well worth your fifteen dollars.
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Cudi turns out to be that rarest of rap phenomena: a hyped upstart who really does represent a promising new phase in the genre's evolution.
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This first official release is a soul searcher and may require more patience than your everyday debut. Still, the chilly, complicated Man on the Moon perfects the futuristic bleak-beat hip-hop Kanye purposed a year earlier, and rewards the listener with every tripped-out return.
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It’s spacey, adventurous, and ridiculously intriguing if only because it’s so different.
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The rapper's delivery is confident in a poetic and artful way, channeled through a theatrical set of songs.
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MojoWhat's so impressive about Man on the Moon, however, is that it's a complete vision, designed to be listened to as a whole. [Dec 2009, p. 92]
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Q MagazineA refreshing listen. [Dec 2009, p.120]
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Despite the fat here, that thick layer of open, intense self-loathing is a clever way of unifying Man On The Moon as pure mood piece, a stream-of-consciousness pop voyage that’s more Phil Collins than rap.
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Kid Cudi’s take on hip-hop hedonism has as its purpose the escape from one’s own fears and neuroses. He escapes the creatures that haunt him at night by turning himself into a larger-than-life entity: the man on the stage, the man on the moon.
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From its bombastic title to Common's annoying narration, Man on the Moon vies for both a bigger pop platform and indie credibility.
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The music is engrossing and Cudi's angst genuine, but his raps get pedestrian.
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Cudi deserves credit for such an audacious high-concept debut. It falls a bit flat, but at least it falls forward.
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There's a good, possibly even a great, album in here somewhere, but Kid Cudi doesn't get very close to finding it.
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Cudi too often assumes some sort of higher ground even though his self-pity is flaunted no differently than any other tacky rapper accessory.
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Man on the Moon, the debut album from this rapper-singer from Cleveland, is a colossal, and mystifying, missed opportunity, misguided if it is in fact guided at all.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 422 out of 454
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Mixed: 11 out of 454
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Negative: 21 out of 454
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Apr 28, 2013
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Jan 9, 2018An absolute classic. One of hip-hop's most important and pioneering albums of the modern era. Man on the Moon deserves all the praise in the world.
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Feb 12, 2012