Before I start talking about WZRD, I’d like to talk about Kid Cudi for a moment. When he first stepped onto the scene, everybody applauded him for being so different in his original debut, Man On The Moon: The End Of Day. Then, he released a vastly different album a couple of years ago in the form of Man On The Moon: The Legend of Mr. Rager, which critics gave a lot of mixed reviews about for being “too different.” As a fan first, I love when an artist can stretch their sound to try to reach different people, and that’s why I have enjoyed Cudi so much – cause he makes music that he wants to make, and doesn’t care about what you think.
This leads me into WZRD; a collaborative effort with himself and Dot Da Genius. I get what Cudi and Dot are trying to do here – trying to make an album that will distance themselves with the hip-hop crowd and appeal to the alternative scene. I’m glad that Cudi is embracing the evolution of music, and trying to appeal to more people, but somewhere in making this album, I think he should’ve really taken a good look at what he was creating. And that’s not in a good way.
There are so many songs on this alternative debut that had so much potential, but for a lot of reasons, they all didn’t come through. The guitar parts that Cudi plays are nothing that will blow any band out of the water, as they are used for mostly filler and never really change throughout the record. The majority of the songs stay at relatively the same tempo and structure, none of them really pushing to be the best track on the record. “High Off Life” is a brooding five-minute song that never really changes, while the following track “The Dream Time Machine” is a neutral, slow, and unemotional ballad. “Brake” is, again, slow and filled with no sort of feeling. The three tracks towards the end almost put me to sleep, even with the tempo pick-up of “Dr. Pill.”
One song that I can say with utter certainty that I enjoyed was “Teleport 2 Me, Jaime (feat. Desire).” It’s feel reminded me of something that could play in the background of Vice City, or during the credits in Drive (if I so dare say). Also, the leaked track “Dose of Dopeness” didn’t make it to the album, either meaning that it’ll go on a mixtape sometime or on the next chapter of Man On The Moon. Even if it was a hip-hop centered track, it could have really saved the album in the feeling department, as most of WZRD’s debuts was soft, dark, and simple.
Dear Scott Mescudi. I love your entire Man On The Moon collection, and I respect you trying to expand your repertoire in a multitude of ways. But WZRD, at least for it’s first foray, was flat, repetitive, and most of all, bland. I’ve listened to your music before, and using the world bland has never come up in any of your works until now. I know that your creative mind can come up with something better than this, and I hope this fall if MotM3 drops, I can write another note like this one, only giving out great news rather than this downer. WZRD was an experiment with tons of good intentions, but it somehow went wrong. As a fan of both hip-hop music, and alternative music, I can say that none of the aforementioned parts of my musical being enjoyed WZRD as much as they wanted to.
Final Grade: D+
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Go Download: “Teleport 2 Me, Jaime (feat. Desire)”
Having Said That... 
This album obviously wasn’t for you. You are a narrow minded hip-hop lover. No offence to you and your review of the album, because I do respect your opinions, but to me, and many others, this albums reaches a whole new level of musical bounds. Cudi is no longer just that alternative hip-hop artist. With WZRD he expands his reaches into a void of music not many people have ever heard. With that being said I do think some of the production wasn’t as on point as
I would have hoped, but overall this is a very enjoyable album. I would only recommend to people with a broad love for all kinds of music and any huge fan of Scott himself.
i agree with josh cudi has stooped to whole nother level especially for the fans when i listen to the whole album it was like butter :p
i agree with josh cudi has stooped to a whole nother level especially for the fans when i listen to the whole album it was like butter :p
don’t kid yourselves; this album is fucking terrible. Cudi is a great hip hop artist-and I am not a “narrow minded hip-hop lover”, to be quite honest most hip-hop blows-however, Cudi is a fucking terrible singer/guitar player/(and on this album) songwriter. Now I can respect branching out, but if you fail (and like Cudi, miserably), I would respect it even more if he returned to hip-hop; for all our sake.
I thought WZRD was an okay album, but I definitely have to disagree with Josh. To say that WZRD “reaches a whole new level of musical bounds.” is absolutely ridiculous to me and leads me to believe that you are actually the one who may be kind of narrow minded. You wouldn’t have to listen to too much variety of music to see how incorrect the statement you made is. Maybe you should expand your music tastes some so you have a more informed perspective.