Album Review: WZRD- WZRD

Average Rating: 8.4/10

Overall Rating: 8/10

1. The Arrival (8/10)

2. High Off Life (9/10)

3. The Dream Time Machine Ft. Empire of the Sun (7/10)

4.  Love Hard (8/10)

5. Live and Learn (9/10)

6. Break(8/10)

7. Teleport 2 Me, Jamie Ft. Desire (9/10)

8. Where Did You Sleep Last Night? (9/10)

9. Efflictim (7/10)

10. Dr. Pill (9/10)

11. Upper Room (9/10)

    Rappers normally don’t work on other genres. It’s very rare to see a rapper move from one genre to another, but some rappers do though. Kanye West did a pretty decent job with his singing debut 808s and Heartbreak, Lupe Fiasco did a decent job with his rock band Japanese Cartoon, and Lil Wayne did a terrible job trying to do rock music in his Rebirth album. Right now, another rapper is willing to join that group of artists, but this time the artist is very familiar of going back and forth in the rap world, who is it? Kid Cudi, yes, Kid Cudi is releasing a rock album called WZRD, and the chances are that the album will work, Kid Cudi can switch through genres easily, he does that on the same song most of the time, but are the chances always right though?

     WZRD had the basic hip-hop to rock transformation concept, which is basically showing off an entirely new style, but this time, there’s a Kid Cudi twist to it, meaning that WZRD is supposedly rock music that is about emotional destruction and drug abuse, so the concepts brings a lot to the table, combining Cudi’s content and style to rock music, but did it work though? I think it did, WZRD was a great combination between rap and rock, it had a strong balance between both genres, along with the slow and dizzy Kid Cudi flow. Rap rock or Cudi alone is very powerful on music, so both of them combined made one hell of a combination.

     As I mentioned, WZRD had the two usual Cudi concepts, which are emotional destruction and drug abuse, and in this WZRD’s case, both concepts where balanced perfectly. I felt like both concepts fitted the album and the style, now, however, they sounded very similar, making WZRD a fairly repetitive album that lacked some creativity. WZRD wasn’t Cudi’s best work, but it was a very strong project, mainly because of its concepts, it’s presentation, and more importantly it’s balance between the two main concepts.

    Half the WZRD album talked about emotional destruction. Each song on that half had some kind of story about emotional loss and it’s effects. Some of my favorites on that half included “Live and Learn” which was a song about learning form personal mistakes, the song had a slow mood, deep lyrics and strong production, “Teleport To Me, Jamie” was basically about Cudi missing his girlfriend, the lyrics on the song where steady, the mood was slow and the production was strong, and “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” was a song about a girl cheating on Cudi, it had the usual slow flow and stellar production, but lyrically it was the one of the best songs on the entire album, the song was deep but it wasn’t too heavy, which is a combination that’s not normally heard in music in general.

      The other half of the album talked about drug abuse. It was the weaker side of the album, but each talked about a drug’s effect and influence on Cudi. That side of the album had some great tracks though, some of the best tracks on that half of the album included “Break”, which talked about trying to let go of the drug addiction, it was a strong, slow track which had a lot of background and backbone, “Dr. Pill” was another great  track that talked about Cudi’s need of perspiration drugs, it was a faster track on the album, but it was also a lighter track lyrically, and “Upper Room” was another great track, and the last on the album, it was a very slow song that talked about how drugs affect Cudi’s mind, it gave a very high and spacey mood, it’s production was powerful and it’s lyrics where cleverly crafted, it was a great way to close the album, and it was one of the best on the album as well.

     WZRD did have a few problems though. As I mentioned, the album felt a bit repetitive, Cudi’s usual flow and style where both used on both concepts, which means that the music just felt like it was on loop most of the time, it gave the album a sense of balance and connectivity, but it made the album feel repetitive though, which was a bit of a downer. Another error the album had was the fact that it was called a ‘rock’ album, but to be be honest, WZRD was not a traditional rock album, which was good, but it did have a downside though, the music was more alternative hip-hop than rock, WZRD did have a few rock related elements, but it did not feel like that much of a rock album though.

    WZRD was a good album. It did have its bumps here and there, but look at the bright side, the album was polished, the music was good and it showed some new diversity comparing to Cudi’s older music. WZRD was very enjoyable and perhaps the best rap to rock transformation I’ve heard, even though the album was closer to alternative hip-hop than rock. WZRD wasn’t a traditional rock album, and it wasn’t a traditional hip-hop album, but it overall did the job as a great transformation and even more important a great album that didn’t quite reach expectations, but was good enough to touch them every now and then.